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U.S. Condemns Bomb Attack on Iran Nuclear Scientist

(New York Times) Scott Shane - The assassination on Wednesday of Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a department supervisor at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant, drew an unusually strong condemnation from the White House and the State Department, which disavowed any American complicity. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "categorically" denied "any United States involvement in any kind of act of violence inside Iran." Like the drone strikes that the Obama administration has embraced as a core tactic against al-Qaeda, the multifaceted covert campaign against Iran has appeared to offer an alternative to war. The CIA, according to current and former officials, has repeatedly tried to derail Iran's uranium enrichment program by covert means, including introducing sabotaged parts into Iran's supply chain. Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said he believed that at least some of the murdered scientists might have been killed by the Iranian government. Some of them had shown sympathy for the Iranian opposition, he said. A former senior Israeli security official noted that Iran carried out many assassinations of enemies, mostly Iranian opposition figures, and had been recently accused of plotting to kill the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. in Washington. "In Arabic, there's a proverb: If you are shooting, don't complain about being shot," he said.
2012-01-12 00:00:00
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