TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran's supreme leader Saturday demanded the "definitive punishment" of those behind the killing of a scientist who led Tehran's disbanded military nuclear program, as the Islamic Republic blamed Israel for the slaying that has raised fears of reignited tensions across the Middle East.
After years of the scientist being in the shadows, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh's image suddenly is everywhere in Iranian media, as his widow spoke on state television and officials publicly demanded revenge against Israel.
Israel, long suspected of killing Iranian scientists a decade ago amid earlier tensions over Tehran's nuclear program, has yet to comment on Fakhrizadeh's killing Friday. However, the attack bore the hallmarks of a planned, military-style ambush, the likes of which Israel has been accused of conducting before, according to officials.
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Israel on Saturday put its embassies around the world on high alert, Israeli N12 News reported.
Hours after the attack, the Pentagon announced that it had moved the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier back to the Middle East, where it had previously spent months. The pentagon cited the drawdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq as the reason, saying "it was prudent to have additional defensive capabilities in the region to meet any contingency."
The CIA declined Saturday to comment on the Iranian slaying, and the Pentagon has remained quiet. The administration of President Donald Trump and the team of President-elect Joe Biden have yet to comment, also.
However, a senior U.S. official said the United States had nothing to do with the scientist's killing and believes Iran has been told that. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, said there was little doubt Israel was behind the attack.
"There is absolutely no information indicating that it was anyone other than the Israelis," the official said, adding that the Trump administration has no desire to get drawn into a regional war by Israel.
Yet the attack has renewed fears of Iran striking back against the U.S., Israel's closest ally in the region, as it did earlier this year when a U.S. drone strike killed a top Iranian general. An Iranian lawmaker suggested throwing out U.N. nuclear inspectors in response to the killing.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called Fakhrizadeh "the country's prominent and distinguished nuclear and defensive scientist." Khamenei, who has the final say on all matters of state, said Iran's first priority after the killing was the "definitive punishment of the perpetrators and those who ordered it." He did not elaborate.
Speaking earlier Saturday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani blamed Israel for the killing.
"We will respond to the assassination of Martyr Fakhrizadeh in a proper time," Rouhani said. "The Iranian nation is smarter than falling into the trap of the Zionists. They are thinking to create chaos."
U.N. URGES RESTRAINT
The United Nations called for restraint, as did the European Union and Germany.
"Of course we condemn any assassination or extrajudicial killing," said Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. "We urge restraint and the need to avoid any actions that could lead to an escalation of tensions in the region."
Rouhani and Khamenei said Fakhrizadeh's death would not stop Iran's nuclear program. Iran's civilian atomic program has continued its experiments and now enriches a growing uranium stockpile up to 4.5% purity in response to the collapse of Iran's nuclear deal after the U.S.' 2018 withdrawal from the accord.
That's still far below weapons-grade levels of 90%, though experts warn that Iran now has enough low-enriched uranium for at least two atomic bombs if it chose to pursue them.
Analysts have compared Fakhrizadeh with being on par with Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist who led America's Manhattan Project in World War II that created the atomic bomb.
Fakhrizadeh headed Iran's so-called AMAD program that Israel and the West have alleged was a military operation looking at the feasibility of building a nuclear weapon. The International Atomic Energy Agency says that "structured program" ended in 2003. Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful.
Fakhrizadeh's widow appeared unnamed on state television in a black chador, saying his death would spark a thousand others to take up his work.
"He wanted to get martyred, and his wish came true," she said.
On Saturday night, Fakhrizadeh's family gathered at a mosque in central Tehran for his funeral, a website associated with Iranian state TV reported. His body lay in a flag-draped, open coffin, his eyes closed.
TENSION RISING
Hard-line Iranian media have begun circulating memorial images showing Fakhrizadeh standing alongside a machine-gun-cradling likeness of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, whom the U.S. killed in the January drone strike.
Soleimani's death led to Iran retaliating with a ballistic missile barrage that injured dozens of American troops in Iraq. Tehran also has forces at its disposal all around Israel, including troops and proxies in neighboring Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Islamic Jihad -- and to a lesser extent Hamas -- in the Gaza Strip. The Iranian Guard's naval forces routinely shadow and have tense encounters with U.S. Navy forces in the Persian Gulf, as well.
Iran has conducted attacks targeting Israeli interests abroad over the killing of its scientists, like in the case of the three Iranians recently freed in Thailand in exchange for a detained British-Australian academic.
Iran also could throw out inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, who have provided an unprecedented, real-time look at Iran's nuclear program. Nasrollah Pezhmanfar, a hard-line lawmaker, said a statement calling to expel the "IAEA's spy inspections" could be read today, the parliament's official website quoted him as saying.
Friday's attack happened in Absard, a village just east of the capital that is a retreat for the country's elite. Iranian state television said an old truck with explosives hidden under a load of wood blew up near a sedan carrying Fakhrizadeh.
As Fakhrizadeh's sedan stopped, at least five gunmen emerged and raked the car with rapid fire, the semiofficial Tasnim news agency said. The precision of the attack led to the suspicion of Israel's Mossad intelligence service being involved.
State media has said only that the attack killed Fakhrizadeh, though a statement Saturday from the European Union described the incident as killing "an Iranian government official and several civilians." EU officials did not respond to requests for comment.
In Tehran, a small group of hard-line protesters burned images of Trump and Biden, who has said his administration will consider reentering Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers. While burning an American and an Israeli flag, the hard-liners criticized Iran's foreign minister who helped negotiate the nuclear deal, showing the challenge ahead for Tehran as well as Washington.
'A CRIMINAL ACT'
A spokesperson for the European Union released a statement Saturday calling the attack "a criminal act" that "runs counter to the principle of respect for human rights the E.U. stands for."
The statement continued, "in these uncertain times, it is more important than ever for all parties to remain calm and exercise maximum restraint to avoid escalation which cannot be in anyone's interest."
Germany -- one of the world powers involved in the nuclear pact and a key U.S. ally in Europe -- echoed the EU's call for avoiding escalation.
"The killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh is once again worsening the situation in the region, at a time when we absolutely do not need such an escalation," German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told Germany's Funke media group. He called on "all those involved to refrain from taking steps that could lead to a further escalation of the situation."
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Germany also urged all sides not to allow the last weeks of the Trump administration to obliterate hopes for fresh negotiations over Iran's nuclear program.
"A few weeks before the new U.S. administration takes office, it is important to preserve the scope for talks with Iran so that the dispute over Iran's nuclear program can be resolved through negotiations," a spokesman for Germany's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
On Friday, Trump retweeted veteran Israeli journalist Yossi Melman, who described the attack as a "major psychological and professional blow for Iran."
Melman, author of "Spies Against Armageddon," a history of Israeli clandestine operations, said in an interview that he would not be surprised to learn that the killing was an Israeli operation, as Fakhrizadeh was their "number one target among the scientists."
But he has gotten no confirmation from within the government.
"There is total silence," he said. "In this case, it is likely to stay that way."
Information for this article was contributed by Amir Vahdat and Jon Gambrell of The Associated Press; by Kareem Fahim, Miriam Berger, Steve Hendrix, Ellen Nakashima and Michael Birnbaum of The Washington Post; by Arsalan Shahla and Golnar Motevalli of Bloomberg News; and by Benjamin Mueller of The New York Times.
