Iranian Nuclear Scientist
Killed In Car Bomb Blast

January 11, 2012: In this photo provided by the semi-official Fars News Agency, people gather around a car as it is removed by a mobile crane in Tehran, Iran.

Iran - An assailant on a motorcycle attached magnetic bombs to the car of an Iranian university professor specializing in petroleum, killing him and wounding two others, a semi-official news agency has reported.

The attack strongly resembles earlier attacks on scientists allegedly connected to Tehran’s controversial nuclear programme.

The killing of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan was similar to previous apparent assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists that Tehran has blamed on Israel and the US. Both countries have denied the accusations.

Roshan, 32, was inside the Iranian-assembled Peugeot 405 car together with two others when the bomb exploded near Gol Nabi Street in north Tehran, Fars reported. It was not immediately clear if Ahmadi was involved in Iran’s nuclear programme.

Fars described the explosion as a “terrorist attack” targeting Roshan, a graduate of the prestigious Sharif University of Technology in Tehran.

A similar bomb explosion on January 12 2010 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.

In November 2010, a pair of back-to-back bomb attacks in different parts of the capital killed one nuclear scientist and wounded another.

The slain scientist, Majid Shahriari, was a member of the nuclear engineering faculty at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran and cooperated with the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran. The wounded scientist, Fereidoun Abbasi, was almost immediately appointed head of Iran’s atomic agency.

The US and other countries say Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons technology. Iran denies the allegations, saying that its programme is intended for peaceful purposes.