TEHRAN, Iran – Assailants on motorcycles attached magnetized bombs to the cars of two nuclear scientists in Tehran on Monday, killing one and wounding another who is on a U.N. sanctions list for suspect activity. The president accused Israel and the West of being behind the attacks.
The wounded scientist, Fereidoun Abbasi, is specified by a 2007 U.N. resolution for sanctions because of suspected links to secret nuclear activities, describing him as a Defense Ministry scientist. Iranian media said he was a member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, the country's strongest military force.
The other scientist, who died in the attack and does not appear in any U.N. resolutions, was involved in a major project with Iran's nuclear agency, said the agency's chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, though he did not give specifics.
Iranian officials said they suspected the assassination was part of a covert campaign aimed at damaging the country's nuclear program, which the United States and its allies say is intended to build a weapon — a claim Tehran denies. At least two other Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed in recent years, one of them in an attack similar to Monday's.
"Undoubtedly, the hand of the Zionist regime and Western governments is involved in the assassination," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a press conference. He said the attack would not hamper the nuclear program.
Asked about the Iranian accusations, Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said Israel did not comment on such matters. Washington has strongly denied any link to previous attacks.
The two separate attacks, as described by Iranian officials, appeared sophisticated.
In each case, assailants on motorcycles approached the cars as they were moving through Tehran and attached magnetized bombs to the vehicles, Tehran police chief Hossein Sajednia said. The bombs exploded seconds later, he said, according to the state news agency IRNA.
He said no one has been arrested in connection with the attack nor no one has so far claimed responsibility.
The bombings both took place in the morning, but there were conflicting reports on what time each took place. The bombs went off in two separate locations, in north and northeast Tehran, that lie about a 15-minute drive apart without traffic.
The slain scientist, Majid Shahriari, was a member of the nuclear engineering faculty at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran. His wife, who was in the car with him, was wounded.
Shahriari cooperated with the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said Salehi, a vice president who heads the organization. "He was involved in one of the big AEOI projects, which is a source of pride for the Iranian nation," Salehi said, according to IRNA, without giving any details on the project. Salehi also said the killed scientist was one of his own students.
"They (Iran's enemies) are mistaken if think they can shake us," Salehi said, weeping, as he spoke later on state TV.
The AEOI is in charge of Iran's nuclear activities, including its uranium enrichment program, which the United Nations has demanded be halted.
The other attack targeted Abbasi, who was wounded along with his wife.
Abbasi is on a sanctions list under U.N. Security Council resolution 1747, passed in 2007, which described him as a Defense Ministry scientist with links to the Institute of Applied Physics,working closely with Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a scientist believed to be heading secret nuclear projects.
A pro-government website, mashreghnews.ir, said Abbasi holds a Ph.D. in nuclear physics and is a Revolutionary Guard member. It said he was also a lecturer at Imam Hossein University, affiliated to the Guard. The United States accuses the Guard of having a role in Iran's nuclear program.
The site said Abbasi was a laser expert at Iran's Defense Ministry and one of few top Iranian specialists in nuclear isotope separation.
Isotope separation — meaning the isolating of a specific isotope of an element — is a process needed for a range of purposes, from producing enriched uranium fuel for a reactor, to manufacturing medical isotopes to producing a bomb.
Iran says its nuclear program is intended entirely for peaceful purposes, including producing electricity. The U.N. has demanded a halt to uranium enrichment because it can be used to produce reactor fuel or a bomb, but Tehran insists it has a right to pursue the technology.
Iran has continued to portray its nuclear program as being under constant pressure from the West and its allies. These include alleged abductions of nuclear officials and, more recently, a computer worm known as Stuxnet that experts say was calibrated to destroy uranium-enrichment centrifuges by sending them spinning out of control. Iran says its experts stopped Stuxnet from affecting systems at its nuclear facilities.
Monday's attacks bore close similarities to another in January that killed Tehran University professor Masoud Ali Mohammadi, a senior physics professor. He was killed when a bomb-rigged motorcycle exploded near his car as he was about to leave for work.
There are several active armed groups that oppose Iran's ruling clerics, but it's unclear whether they could have carried out the apparently coordinated bombings in the capital. Most anti-government violence in recent years has been isolated to Iran's provinces such the border with Pakistan where Sunni rebels are active and the western mountains near Iraq where Kurdish separatists operate.
In 2007, state TV reported that nuclear scientist, Ardeshir Hosseinpour, died from gas poisoning. A one-week delay in the reporting of his death prompted speculation about the cause, including that Israel's Mossad spy agency was to blame.
The latest attacks come a day after the release of internal State Department memos by the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks, including several that vividly detail Arab fears over Iran's nuclear program and its growing political ambitions in the region. In some memos, U.S. diplomats say Arab leaders advocated a U.S.-led attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Source:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101129/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_nuclear
Monday, November 29, 2010
Afghan Police Officer Kills 6 US Servicemen
KABUL, Afghanistan – An Afghan border police officer opened fire on U.S. troops during a training mission in the east of the country Monday, killing six American service members before he was shot dead, U.S. and Afghan officials said.
The shooting — the highest toll for NATO forces since nine Americans died in a Sept. 21 helicopter crash — was the latest in a series of shootouts in which Afghan security forces have turned on their NATO partners.
The attack also highlights the potential hazards of a push to speedily expand Afghanistan's army and police forces in the next few years. The goal is to turn over the responsibility for nationwide security to Afghan forces by 2014 so that NATO troops can go home.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the gunman joined the border police in order to kill foreign soldiers.
"Today he found this opportunity and he killed six invaders," Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a statement e-mailed to the media.
The shooter was wearing an Afghan border police uniform, NATO said, but did not provide additional details on how the shooting happened or his identity. A spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry, Zemeri Bashary, confirmed that the gunman was a border police officer, rather than an insurgent who had donned the uniform to infiltrate government forces.
The incident happened in Pachir Wagam district of Nangarhar province — right on the border with Pakistan, Bashary said.
NATO declined to identify the nationalities of the victims, but a U.S. official said all six of the dead were American. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because next of kin had not yet been informed.
An investigation team has been sent to the area, said Gen. Aminullah Amerkhail, the regional border police commander for eastern Afghanistan. But he said information is not coming back quickly.
"The area is very remote," he said. "Even the telephones are not working there."
There have been a number of incidents in which Afghan police officers turned on their trainers in deadly shootouts.
NATO is investigating an incident in which two U.S. Marines were killed earlier this month in southern Helmand province, allegedly at the hands of an Afghan army soldier.
On July 20, an Afghan army sergeant got into an argument at a shooting range in northern Afghanistan and shot dead two American civilian trainers before being killed. Another Afghan soldier was killed in the crossfire. In a July 13 attack, an Afghan soldier stationed in the south killed three British troopers, including the company commander, with gunfire and a rocket-propelled grenade in the middle of the night.
Also, in November 2009, an Afghan policeman killed five British soldiers at a checkpoint in Helmand. A month earlier, an Afghan policeman on patrol with U.S. soldiers fired on the Americans, killing two.
Such shootings highlight the potential hazards of a push to speedily expand Afghanistan's army and police forces in the next few years. The goal is to turn over the responsibility for nationwide security to Afghan forces by 2014 so that NATO troops can go home.
In the past year, the Afghan police force grew 27 percent to 120,500 officers from about 95,000. The army grew 42 percent to about 138,200 soldiers from 97,000.
Source:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101129/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan
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The shooting — the highest toll for NATO forces since nine Americans died in a Sept. 21 helicopter crash — was the latest in a series of shootouts in which Afghan security forces have turned on their NATO partners.
The attack also highlights the potential hazards of a push to speedily expand Afghanistan's army and police forces in the next few years. The goal is to turn over the responsibility for nationwide security to Afghan forces by 2014 so that NATO troops can go home.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the gunman joined the border police in order to kill foreign soldiers.
"Today he found this opportunity and he killed six invaders," Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a statement e-mailed to the media.
The shooter was wearing an Afghan border police uniform, NATO said, but did not provide additional details on how the shooting happened or his identity. A spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry, Zemeri Bashary, confirmed that the gunman was a border police officer, rather than an insurgent who had donned the uniform to infiltrate government forces.
The incident happened in Pachir Wagam district of Nangarhar province — right on the border with Pakistan, Bashary said.
NATO declined to identify the nationalities of the victims, but a U.S. official said all six of the dead were American. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because next of kin had not yet been informed.
An investigation team has been sent to the area, said Gen. Aminullah Amerkhail, the regional border police commander for eastern Afghanistan. But he said information is not coming back quickly.
"The area is very remote," he said. "Even the telephones are not working there."
There have been a number of incidents in which Afghan police officers turned on their trainers in deadly shootouts.
NATO is investigating an incident in which two U.S. Marines were killed earlier this month in southern Helmand province, allegedly at the hands of an Afghan army soldier.
On July 20, an Afghan army sergeant got into an argument at a shooting range in northern Afghanistan and shot dead two American civilian trainers before being killed. Another Afghan soldier was killed in the crossfire. In a July 13 attack, an Afghan soldier stationed in the south killed three British troopers, including the company commander, with gunfire and a rocket-propelled grenade in the middle of the night.
Also, in November 2009, an Afghan policeman killed five British soldiers at a checkpoint in Helmand. A month earlier, an Afghan policeman on patrol with U.S. soldiers fired on the Americans, killing two.
Such shootings highlight the potential hazards of a push to speedily expand Afghanistan's army and police forces in the next few years. The goal is to turn over the responsibility for nationwide security to Afghan forces by 2014 so that NATO troops can go home.
In the past year, the Afghan police force grew 27 percent to 120,500 officers from about 95,000. The army grew 42 percent to about 138,200 soldiers from 97,000.
Source:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101129/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan
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