Iran Tightens Its Security for Scientists After Killing

By RICK GLADSTONE

Published: January 17, 2012

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has ordered extra security for scientists because of the drive-by assassination last week of the deputy director of the country’s primary uranium enrichment facility, which he attributed to "the evil hands of arrogance and Zionist agents," the state-run news media reported Tuesday.

The nature of the extra security was not disclosed, but it was reported a day after Iran’s Parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, another outspoken promoter of Iran’s nuclear independence, said that investigators had identified and detained an unspecified number of suspects in the assassination of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, the deputy director at the Natanz enrichment site. Mr. Roshan was killed in broad daylight last Wednesday by a motorcyclist who slapped a magnetized bomb on the scientist’s car during Tehran’s morning rush and escaped, according to Iran’s official accounts.

While the assassination method was not sophisticated, the killer’s apparent knowledge of the victim and his commuting schedule seemed to reflect an intelligence lapse in Iran, where at least five scientists with connections to Iran’s disputed nuclear program have been killed under mysterious circumstances since 2007.

Iran’s leaders have blamed Israel and the United States for the killings, which they have characterized as part of a broader conspiracy to terrorize and bully Iran despite what they called its peaceful intentions regarding nuclear energy. The United States has categorically denied the accusation, while Israel, which considers Iran its most dangerous enemy, has been more vague.

The United States, Israel and the European Union have accused Iran of using its nuclear energy program as a pretext for developing a weapon. They have pointed to a report last November by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear monitor, which highlighted questionable Iranian actions, to bolster their case. American and European economic sanctions on Iran over the dispute, and Iran’s defiance, have fed an atmosphere of increasingly tense confrontation and mistrust.

In a condolence message about Mr. Roshan’s assassination released Tuesday, Mr. Ahmadinejad was quoted by Press TV, a state-run satellite channel, as saying, "The evil hands of arrogance and Zionist agents have once again robbed Iran’s scientific and academic circles of another young scientist."

Iran’s anti-Western denunciations came as the European Union and United States took new steps on Tuesday to raise the pressure. Denmark, the rotating president of the European Union, proposed that starting July 1, all countries in that body impose a full embargo of Iranian oil, Reuters reported, putting a date on that threatened step for the first time. In South Korea, a major importer of Iranian oil, a senior American diplomat, Robert J. Einhorn, urged buyers there to reduce their dependence and "unwind their financial dealings with the Central Bank of Iran."

A new law signed by President Obama, if fully enforced, would penalize any foreign entity that does business with the Central Bank, the primary conduit for purchases of Iran’s oil, its most important export. While the law allows some leeway, it is widely seen as the most punitive step yet taken by the United States against Iran.

While Iran has said that it will never relinquish its right to enrich uranium and that any attempt to impede its oil sales will fail, it has signaled willingness to reopen suspended negotiations with the Western powers and allow inspectors from the United Nations nuclear agency to visit Iran to ask more questions. The official Islamic Republic News Agency confirmed on Tuesday that an agency team would visit Iran for three days starting on Jan. 29.

Artin Afkhami and Choe Sang-hun contributed reporting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/18/world/middleeast/after-iran-scien...