Israel killed a high-profile Iranian scientist in an airstrike Tuesday morning, the latest among 14 slain top atomic experts who had been “personally involved” with Tehran’s nuclear program.
Mohammad Reza Sedighi Saber, who the US State Department sanctioned last month for his role in Tehran’s nuclear program, was killed at his father-in-law’s home when Israel fired three projectiles at the residence in northern Iran, Iranian state media reported.
Saber was the head of Iran’s Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research’s Shahid Karimi Group, which specifically worked on explosives-related projects, according to the Department of State.
His work was directly “linked to projects including research and testing applicable to the development of nuclear explosive devices,” the department said.
Israel appeared to be targeting Saber for more than a week, with a previous attack at his father-in-law’s home killing his 17-year-old son on June 13, according to Iranian media.
After Saber’s death, Joshua Zarka, Israel’s ambassador to France, touted that the Jewish state has now killed at least 14 of Iran’s atomic experts since the war with Tehran began.
“The fact that the whole group disappeared is basically throwing back the program by a number of years, by quite a number of years,” Zarka told The Associated Press.
Nine of Iran’s nuclear scientists were killed during the initial wave of attacks, the Israeli military said.
Zarka said the deaths, along with previous attacks that killed other Iranian nuclear scientists, should serve as a warning to the program’s successors.
These people had the know-how of [making nukes] and were developing the know-how of doing it further.
And this is why they were eliminated,” he said.“I do think that people that will be asked to be part of a future nuclear weapon program in Iran will think twice about it,” Zarka added.
But experts said Iran has replaced its nuclear-program scientists in the past and will have no trouble doing it again, claiming that military force alone will never be enough to erase Iran’s nuclear know-how.
“Strikes cannot destroy the knowledge Iran has acquired over several decades, nor any regime ambition to deploy that knowledge to build a nuclear weapon,” UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy told lawmakers in the House of Commons on Monday.
Read the latest on the Israel-Iran conflict:
- US strikes Iran live updates: Trump lashes out at Israel and Iran, says they both violated cease-fire
- Four people killed in Israel by Iranian missile strike — moments before cease-fire went into effect
- Inside the cockpit of a B-2 bomber, one of America’s most secret aircraft
- Israel threatens to resume ‘intense operations to attack Tehran’ after claiming Iran violated cease-fire
Mark Fitzpatrick, a former US diplomat who specialized in nuclear non-proliferation, said Iran has all the blueprints it needs to prop up the next generation of scientists.
“They have substitutes in maybe the next league down, and they’re not as highly qualified, but they will get the job done eventually,” he told the AP. With Post wires
Israel has long been suspected of killing Iranian nuclear scientists, but previously didn’t claim responsibility as it did this time.
In 2020, Iran blamed Israel for killing its top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, with a remote-controlled machine gun.
“It delayed the program, but they still have a program. So it doesn’t work,” said Paris-based analyst Lova Rinel, with the Foundation for Strategic Research think tank. “It’s more symbolic than strategic.”
Without saying that Israel killed Fakhrizadeh, the Israeli ambassador said “Iran would have had a bomb a long time ago” were it not for repeated setbacks to its nuclear program — some of which Iran attributed to Israeli sabotage.
“They have not reached the bomb yet,” Zarka said. “Every one of these accidents has postponed a little bit the program.”
