Iranian Physicist Assassinated

Iranian Physics professor Massoud Ali Mohammadi was killed by a bomb blast outside his home on Tuesday.

The Iranian government has accused the United States and Israel of being behind the killing. The bomb, which was placed on Mohammadi’s motorcycle, detonated by remote control when he approached. It is worth noting that Mohammadi has been tied to the Iranian regime’s opposition movement. There has been speculation that the Iranian government was secretly behind the assassination.

It is unclear if Mohammadi was associated with Iran’s nuclear program. What is known is that Mohammadi was a Physics professor at Tehran University, which is often described as a “hotbed of opposition” to the Iranian regime. It is doubtful that either the United States or Israel would care about killing Mohammadi since he would have played only a minor role, if any, in Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

The United States and Israel have reportedly been targeting Iran’s nuclear program with infected software and defective equipment. There are no signs that the U.S. or Israel have yet moved to targeting Iranians for assassination.

If the assassination was an Iranian state sponsored act, then it stands as a testament to the chaos into which the country has devolved. Street protests continue to represent the populist opposition movement which has been defiant despite the Iranian regime’s attempts to quell it. Furthermore, the clerical elites of Iran have increasing divisions within their ranks. Iran has not seen this much turmoil since the 1979 revolution which brought the Islamists to power.