Iranian media calls for action against Israel

The Iranian media called yesterday for assassination of Israeli figures in retaliation for the serial killings of Iranian nuclear scientists.

Writing a day after the fourth such assassination in Teheran in the past two years, the chief editor of the Khayan newspaper, Hossein Shariatmadari, accused Israel of the killings and asked why Iran was not retaliating. "Assassination of Israeli military and political officials are easily possible," he wrote.

In Thursday's killing, a bodyguard was killed along with the scientist, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, when two men on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to their car as they drove down a crowded street, near the Iranian intelligence headquarters.

Another newspaper, Resalat, wrote that revenge was the only way to stop the attacks. Iranian officials have said retaliation will "reach beyond Iran and beyond the region" and that those involved in the killings "shouldn't feel safe anywhere".

Iranian intelligence has been accused of a number of attacks on targets in the West over the years, including the destruction of the Israeli embassy and a Jewish cultural centre in Buenos Aires in the 1990s.

Iranian officials initially blamed both the United States and Israel for Thursday's killing but US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denied any American role and President Barack Obama condemned the attack. With Teheran holding an Iranian-born American citizen, Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, whom it has sentenced to death as an alleged CIA spy, Washington presumably wishes to distance itself from any incident that might aggravate his situation. Israel has not commented on the killing and the Iranians have yet to produce any evidence that Israel was involved.

Israeli military analyst Ron Ben-Yishai, in the newspaper Yediot Achronot, suggested Iran feared a Westerm strike if it retaliated. "Under such circumstances, Israel or a Western coalition (or both) will have an excellent pretext to strike and destroy Iran's nuclear and missile sites," he said.

Israeli analysts see the targeting of nuclear scientists as a more measured response than an all-out military attack, much like the American use of attack drones against specific targets.

Although Iran could rebuild its nuclear facilities if they were attacked, the erosion of its scientists, say the analysts, would make it substantially more difficult and lengthy to recreate the nuclear programme.

Israeli analysts say the ongoing attacks reduce the pool of Iran's nuclear expertise.