President Rouhani: Iran will not take enemy bait to create regional 'chaos'

Fazel Hawramy

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Tehran will not be provoked into creating "chaos" in the Middle East by the assassination of Iran's top nuclear scientist, President Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday. 

Rouhani described the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi on Friday as "bait" from Iran's enemies.

“This savage assassination demonstrates that our enemies are in anxious weeks, as the era of their influence will wane and global circumstances will change,” he said at a Coronavirus Task Force meeting in Tehran on Saturday.

Rouhani made explicit reference to Israel as a "usurping Zionist regime" that acted as the "mercenary" in Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi's assassination. He also appeared to be addressing hawks in the Trump administration and key Washington ally Saudi Arabia, as both have called for maximum pressure on Tehran to be maintained when US president-elect Biden takes over in seven weeks.

“These few weeks are important for them to use to their maximum advantage, to create insecurity in the region and to deflect global attention from the terror and intimidation that they are creating in the occupied territories [Palestine]… they are thinking about creating chaos and riots," Rouhani said.

"They should know that we have already read their hands, and they will not succeed in their vile objectives.”

At least six gunmen attacked a vehicle carrying Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi and his security detail near the entrance to the city of Absard in Tehran province on Friday, at around 2 pm Iran Standard Time.

A nearby stationary vehicle reportedly laden with explosives was then detonated, causing damage as far as 500 metres away. Following the explosion, the gunmen showered the vehicle with volleys of bullets, critically wounding Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi. The scientist was taken to a hospital, where he was later pronounced dead. 

Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi's was director of Research and Innovation at the Ministry of Defense. According to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-affiliated Tasnim news, he led a team that had developed a coronavirus testing kit and was working on a vaccine.

Describing Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi as an “outstanding” and “unique” nuclear scientist, Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei said that the country's officials should be “investigating this crime and decisively punishing the perpetrators... and continuing the technical and scientific efforts of the martyred in every field that he was engaged in.” 

Khamenei did not name any country as being behind the assassination, describing the perpetrators as “criminal mercenaries”.

The assassination was internationally condemned, with former CIA chief John O. Brennan calling the act "criminal and "highly reckless".

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres responded to reports of the assassination through a spokesperson, calling for restraint.

“We have noted the reports that an Iranian nuclear scientist has been assassinated near Tehran today. We urge restraint and the need to avoid any actions that could lead to an escalation of tensions in the region,” Guterres’ spokesperson Farhan Haq said.

However, scores of officials including the commander of the IRGC have blamed Israel, and vowed revenge against the attackers.

Pro-government social media users on Telegram reacted angrily to the news of assassination on Friday evening. “We have nothing else to lose, let’s begin the war,” one person commented on the Telegram channel of the IRGC. “I swear if you hit Tel Aviv tonight, they will lift the sanctions tomorrow… with a lunatic enemy, you need to act like a lunatic,” Telegram user K Jafari said on the IRGC Telegram channel.

Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut said that the assassination was counterproductive, and would not make the world a safer place. “If the primary purpose of the killing of Mr. Fakhrizadeh was to make it harder to restart the Iran nuclear agreement, then this assassination does not make America, Israel or the world safer,” Murphy said.

Agnes Callamard, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extra-Judicial Executions, said that any state involvement in the assassination would be "a violation of international human rights law".