Former CIA Director John Brennan has condemned a top Iranian nuclear scientist’s reported assassination on Friday, calling it “criminal” and “highly reckless.”
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a former officer in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was killed in an ambush on his car on Friday while driving through Absard, a town located 50 miles outside the capital Tehran.
“This was a criminal act & highly reckless,” Brennan tweeted on Friday afternoon. “It risks lethal retaliation & a new round of regional conflict.”
Brennan, who served under the Obama administration, also said he did not know who was to blame for the killing but that it “would be a flagrant violation of international law.”
“I do not know whether a foreign government authorized or carried out the murder of Fakhrizadeh. Such an act of state-sponsored terrorism would be a flagrant violation of international law & encourage more governments to carry out lethal attacks against foreign officials,” Brennan tweeted.
However, Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, pointed the finger at Israel on Friday, saying there are “serious indications” of Israeli involvement.
He tweeted: “Terrorists murdered an eminent Iranian scientist today. This cowardice — with serious indications of Israeli role — shows desperate warmongering of perpetrators.”
The reported assassination also came less than two weeks after the New York Times reported that President Trump had consulted senior advisors about the possibility of conducting a strike on Iran’s main nuclear facility.
Source : Business Insider
