WarSclerotic

TEHRAN, Jan. 13 (UPI) — Iran received information this week that American and Israeli intelligence operatives were plotting attacks in the country, Iranian officials said Wednesday.

Massoud Ali Mohammadi, an Iranian physics professor at Tehran University, was assassinated when an explosive device denoted in front of his home as he left for work Tuesday.

Iranian media said shortly after the blast that a monarchist group, the Royal Association of Iran, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Ali Larijani, the speaker of the Iranian Parliament, downplayed the claims of responsibility saying Tehran had evidence to suggest foreign intelligence agencies were behind the attack, Iran’s Press TV reports.

“We had received information a few days before the incident that intelligence services of the Zionist regime intend to carry out terrorist acts in Tehran in cooperation with the CIA,” he said.

He said the assassination was evidence that Western efforts at persuading Tehran to abandon its nuclear program through a program of diplomacy had failed.

“After the failure of all its hostile policies, it currently resorts to the physical elimination of Iranian nuclear scientists,” he said.

It remains unclear what role Mohammadi had in Iran’s nuclear program. Western media outlets described him as a physics instructor engaged heavily in academics, while Tehran said he was active in nuclear research.

His loyalty to the regime was also in question.

On the monarchist claims, Larijani said the statement of responsibility was meant to hide Washington’s role in the assassination.

“This dark point will be recorded in the history of U.S. crimes against the Iranian nation,” he said.

The U.S. State Department described the allegations as “absurd.”