TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps claimed it had thwarted a Mossad assassination attempt against one of its nuclear scientists, according to a senior Iranian security official on Saturday.
“In the last two years, the Zionist enemy was trying hard to assassinate an Iranian nuclear scientist, but the timely presence of the IRGC security forces thwarted the terrorist operation,” Col. Ya’qoub Baqeri, the deputy chief liaison officer of the Flight Guards Corps, told the country’s Fars News Agency.
The Revolutionary Guards is “duty-bound to protect the lives of the country’s nuclear scientists,” said Baqeri.
According to a report by CBS News last year, the Obama administration pressured Israel to stop assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists. The statement came during Obama’s attempt to negotiate with Iran regarding the country’s nuclear program.
At least five Iranian scientists have been killed, mostly by car bombs. Israel itself has never admitted to carrying out such killings. Mossad officials concluded that the assassination attempt became too dangerous for tis spies.
Baqeri also said Iranian air marshals from the IRGC have foiled Islamic State’s plot to hijack Iranian passenger planes in recent years.
“The ISIL [Islamic State] and other Salafi groups sought to hit a blow to our country this way, but fortunately, they couldn’t put their plots into practice,” Baqeri said.
JERUSALEM POST | ABDUL MANAN