European Pressphoto AgencyA view of the scene after the bomb blast in Tehran on Tuesday. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. One state broadcaster, IRIB, quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying that “in the initial investigation, signs of the triangle of wickedness by the Zionist regime, America and their hired agents are visible in the terrorist act,” Reuters reported.
The authorities called the killing of the scientist, Massoud Ali Mohammadi, an assassination carried out by terrorists, but did not say who was believed to be responsible. The professor taught neutron physics at Tehran University, the English-language Press TV said, but it was not clear whether he was part of Iran’s contentious nuclear enrichment program.
The broadcaster called the professor a “staunch supporter of the Islamic Revolution” of 1979 that overthrew the Shah and initiated three decades of theocratic rule.
Since flawed presidential elections last June, Iran has been gripped by its deepest political crisis since 1979, pitting supporters of the victorious President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against opponents who call his regime illegitimate.
After brutal crackdowns, the authorities late last year broadened efforts to stifle dissent to encompass the educational system, hinting that dissident professors would be purged. A number of hard-line clerics have called for the university humanities curriculums to be Islamized further. But it was not immediately known whether Tuesday’s killing was related to that dispute.
The reported bombing came just days after pro-government demonstrators shot at the armored car of the Iran’s most outspoken opposition leader, Mehdi Karroubi, last Thursday, his Saham News Web site reported.
That attack appeared to reflect growing frustration that the crackdown in recent months had failed to stop the opposition from lashing out at the country’s leaders and staging intermittent protests that have brought tens of thousands of demonstrators into the streets.
Press TV reported on Tuesday that Mr. Mohammadi, 50, the nuclear professor, was killed close to his home in the Qeytariyeh neighborhood of northern Tehran when a bomb attached to a motorcycle exploded near his car.
“Iran’s police and security bodies are investigating the terrorist case to identify those behind it,” Press TV reported and quoted Tehran’s prosecutor general, Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, as saying no suspect had so far been arrested.
Iranian television footage showed cleaners sweeping up debris and hosing down the street after the blast shattered windows and smeared the sidewalk with blood and detritus. The footage also showed what seemed to be a corpse in a zippered body-bag on a stretcher.
The Web site of Iran’s state television declared the bombing a “terrorist act by counterrevolutionaries and elements of arrogance,” a reference to the United States. Security forces are investigating, The A.P. quoted the report as saying.
The United States and western allies have been pressing Iran to halt its nuclear enrichment program, which Tehran insists is solely for civilian purposes to produce electricity. But the West fears Iran is seeking to build a nuclear weapon that would threaten Israel and upset the regional power balance.
According to The Associated Press, Mr. Mohammadi was the author of several articles on quantum and theoretical physics in scientific journals but did not appear to have a high-profile role in Iran’s nuclear program. He received his doctorate from Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, The A.P. said.
Last year, another Iranian nuclear scientist, Shahram Amiri, disappeared during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia and Iran accused the United States of helping to kidnap him.
Speaking Monday at the start of a nine-day trip across the Pacific, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the United States and its allies were discussing financial sanctions that would appear to be aimed at the Revolutionary Guards and other political players in the country if diplomacy fails to overcome the growing tensions with Iran.
“It is clear that there is a relatively small group of decision- makers inside Iran,” she said. “They are in both political and commercial relationships, and if we can create a sanctions track that targets those who actually make the decisions, we think that is a smarter way to do sanctions.”
But she added, “All that is yet to be decided upon.”
