Iranian Nuclear Scientist Killed, Two Injured

Recently released Wikileaks documents show not just Israel, but Saudi Arabia also, could pose a threat to Iran's nuclear program.

Majid Shahriari Photo courtesy: payvand.com

(TEHRAN PRESS TV) - An Iranian academic reportedly associated with the country's nuclear program, Majid Shahriari, has been killed and another university professor, Fereydoun Abbasi and his wife wounded in two separate car explosions in Tehran.

Professor Abbasi and his wife are currently hospitalized.

Fars news agency says bombs were attached to both victim's cars by assassins on motorcycles

The two were professors at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran.

Another Iranian nuclear scientist was killed in January. Professor Massoud Ali-Mohammadi died in a blast tied to a remote controlled bomb that was delivered by motorcycle.

A top nuclear scientist died mysteriously in Iran in 2007, from "gas poisoning." His name was Ardeshire Hassanpour.

There is no further information at this point, it seems obvious that the incident could be tied to Israel, yet a new revelation casts a shadow on Saudi Arabia as a potential operator.

Majid Shahriari's demolished car

Fars has stated that the United States and Israel are behind the attacks.

In a related development, part of the documents recently released by the whistleblower website reads the Saudi king has "frequently exhorted the US to attack Iran to put an end to its nuclear weapons program."

"He told you [Americans] to cut off the head of the snake," the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Adel al-Jubeir said, according to a report on Abdullah's meeting with the US general David Petraeus in April 2008.

The apparently leaked documents suggest leaders of other countries such as Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates as well as the Israeli regime also considered Tehran's peaceful nuclear program an existential threat, urging a US attack on Iran.

At the beginning, Wikileaks sought to shed light on Washington's belligerent polices and condemn the killing of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Nevertheless, analysts believe the recent document release is a scenario carefully orchestrated by US intelligence agencies to deflect attention from the United States' domestic problems, upset the situation in the region and lay the groundwork for military action against Iran.