Here's your thurdsay Iran update. If you haven't seen it, someone blew up yet another Iranian nuclear scientist. This is the fourth scientist to die from a car bombing in Iran in the last two years. According to multiple news accounts 32 year old Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan and his bodyguard were killed when someone drove past his Peugeot 405 on a motorcycle and slapped a sticky bomb to the side of the car. Sound familiar? The same method was used to kill an Iranian scientist back in November 2010.
Iran is naturally pissed about this and blames the U.S. and Israel. While Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denied any American involvement, Israeli officials are simply refusing to discuss the matter on the record. However, the chief spokesman of the Israeli military did make this weird posting on Facebook yesterday, "Don't know for sure who settled the score with the Iranian scientist, but for sure I am not shedding a tear."
Meanwhile, the U.S. is set to have three carrier battlegroups in the region with the USS John C. Stennis and USS Carl Vinson being joined by the USS Abraham Lincoln soon.
This comes on the heels of several mysterious explosions at or near Iranian rocket and nuclear research facilities.
Is all this going to deter Iran from moving ahead with its nuclear program. Nope, says Iran's ambassador to the UN, Mohammed Khazee.
From CNN:
"Based on the existing evidence collected by the relevant Iranian security authorities, similar to previous incidents, perpetrators used the same terrorist method in assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists, i.e., attaching a sticky magnetic bomb to the car carrying the scientists and detonating it," Khazaee said in a statement."I would like to emphasize, once again, that the Islamic Republic (of) Iran would not compromise over its inalienable right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and any kind of political and economic pressures or terrorist attacks targeting the Iranian nuclear scientists, could not prevent our nation in exercising this right," Khazaee said.
Gotta love a shadow war.