Iranian nuclear scientist killed

Massoud Ali Mohammadi, a particle physics professor at prestigious Tehran University, died when a bomb strapped to a motorcycle was triggered by remote control outside his home in northern Tehran as he was getting into a car on his way to work. The government blamed the rare assassination on an armed Iranian opposition group that it said operated under the direction of Israel and the US.

The United States dismissed the allegations out of hand. "Charges of US involvement are absurd," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in Washington.

Tehran's chief prosecutor also implicated the United States and Israel, saying their respective intelligence services were likely behind the attack. "Given the fact that Massoud Ali Mohammadi was a nuclear scientist, the CIA and Mossad agents most likely have had a hand in it," Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi told the state broadcaster's news service.

Tehran University's Basij militia said Ali Mohammadi's name had been included on an international blacklist linked to Iran's atomic drive. Iran's main opposition movement-in-exile dismissed as a "total lie" the accusations of its involvement in the attack. "The NCRI has no connection with this murder," said a spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which includes the People's Mujahideen of Iran, a banned armed group.

Ali Shirzadian, a spokesman for Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, said Ali Mohammadi "did not have any cooperation (work) with the organization and therefore he had not played a role in the Atomic Energy Organization's activities"; Kazinform cites Arab News. See www.arabnews.com for full version.