The European Union has condemned the targeting of Iran’s nuclear weapons chief. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who led Iran’s clandestine nuclear weapons program, was killed in an explosion near Iranian capital Tehran on Friday.
Fakhrizadeh, widely reported in the mainstream media as a ‘scientist,’ was a high-ranking member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a U.S.-designated terrorist group. He apparently “retained a senior rank in the IRGC as a brigadier general,” British newspaper The Guardian confirmed.
“This is a criminal act and runs counter to the principle of respect for human rights the EU stands for,” the EU foreign policy spokesperson told reporters on Saturday. The EU foreign policy-chief Josep Borrell paid “condolences” to the family of the deceased nuclear weapons mastermind.
The EU statement came after Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Friday told Brussels to toe Tehran’s official line on the killing of its prominent WMD operative. “Last night Iranian FM Zarif instructed the European Union to condemn the killing of the nuclear weapons chief of Iran’s IRGC terrorist org, and to brand it as criminal,” U.S.-based national security expert Omri Ceren noted on Twitter.
The United Nations and Germany also issued similar statements of condemnation.
They were not alone in expressing outrage over the elimination of the top Iranian nuclear operative. Several Islamic and Palestinian terrorist groups echoed their sentiment.
Following the EU’s footsteps, Gaza-based Islamic terrorist group Hamas condemned the alleged strike and offered “sincere condolences” to the Mullah regime on the “martyrdom” of the top nuclear weapons mastermind. “A number of Palestinian terror groups, holding Israel and the US responsible, have condemned the assassination,” The Jerusalem Post reported.
The Times of Israel news website reported EU’s response:
The European Union on Saturday condemned the killing of a top Iranian nuclear scientist a day earlier as a “criminal act” and urged calm and restraint as officials in Tehran blamed Israel for the assassination and vowed to respond.“In these uncertain times, it is more important than ever for all parties to remain calm and exercise maximum restraint in order to avoid escalation which cannot be in anyone’s interest,” said Peter Sano, lead spokesperson for the external affairs division of the European Union, based in Brussels.“This is a criminal act and runs counter to the principle of respect for human rights the EU stands for. The High Representative expresses his condolences to the family members of the individuals who were killed, while wishing a prompt recovery to any other individuals who may have been injured,” he added in a press statement.
While the EU was expressing condolences to Iran over the killing of its nuclear weapons chief, the Mullah regime in Tehran issued threats against Israel. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani vowed revenge as he pinned the blame for the explosion on ‘Israeli mercenaries.’
Since President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Obama-era nuclear deal, the EU has emerged as the biggest backer of the Iranian regime. Brussels, spearheaded by Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, has set up an alternative payment mechanism designed to bypass U.S. sanctions on the Shia-Islamic regime. The barter-based arrangement allows European businesses to trade in Iranian oil and commodities undetected, thus filling the coffers on the Iranian regime, the world’s biggest state-sponsor of terrorism.
The attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons chief comes more than a week after a joint CIA-Mossad operation that took out Al Qaeda’s second-in-command, Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, who was operating from Iran. Abdullah’s 27-year-old daughter Maryam bin Laden, one of Osama bin Laden’s daughters-in-laws and a budding Al Qaeda operative, who also killed in the counter-terrorism strike outside Tehran.
In January, President Trump ordered a drone strike outside Baghdad that eliminated the head of Iran’s foreign terrorist operations, Qasem Soleimani.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not commented on Friday’s incident.
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