"Remember that name, Fakhrizadeh,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a 2018 news conference about Iran’s nuclear program. At the time, the head of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear-weapons program was unknown even to most Iranians. With his assassination outside Tehran on Friday, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh has become a household name.
The details of the killing are as yet fuzzy. State TV said that the scientist’s car was attacked by "armed terrorist elements,” and that he was taken to a hospital, where doctors couldn’t revive him. Some reports suggested the car had first been struck by a vehicle-borne IED, and thereafter shot up by armed gunmen.
Inevitably, the regime is blaming Israel. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif claimed there were "serious indications of Israeli role.”