Israel has yet to comment on Fakhrizadeh’s killing Friday. However, the attack bore the hallmarks of a carefully planned, military-style ambush, the likes of which Israel has been accused of conducting before.
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. The U.S. military acknowledged moving an aircraft carrier back into the region, while 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.
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Currently, the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier is steaming back to the Persian Gulf region to provide backup for troops being pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Hours after the attack, the Pentagon announced it had brought the aircraft carrier back into the Middle East, an unusual move as the carrier already spent months in the region. It cited the drawdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq as the reason for the decision, saying “it was prudent to have additional defensive capabilities in the region to meet any contingency.”
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Iran has conducted attacks targeting Israeli interests abroad over the killing of its scientists.
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Iran also could throw out inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, who have provided an unprecedented, realtime look at Iran’s nuclear program since the deal. Nasrollah Pezhmanfar, a hard-line lawmaker, said a statement calling to expel the “IAEA’s spy inspections” could be read Sunday, the parliament’s official website quoted him as saying.
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It will be arriving in the Middle East days after Iran’s top nuclear scientist was killed in an ambush that Tehran blames on Israel, but the Pentagon said it was President Trump’s withdrawal of troops in the two countries that spurred the deployment of the aircraft carrier and its flotilla of ships back to the gulf, where it had been for much of the fall.
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The carrier’s strike group left its home base of Bremerton, Washington, in April, and most recently engaged in exercises this month with vessels from India, Japan and Australia, USA Today reported.
“This action ensures we have sufficient capability available to respond to any threat and to deter any adversary from acting against our troops during the force reduction,” the Pentagon said.
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