Iran has accused Israel of trying to provoke a war by assassinating a prominent nuclear scientists who Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu named as the father of the rogue nation’s nuclear programme.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi – a physics professor and former officer in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard – was killed in his car following an explosion and then machine gun fire near to Tehran.
His death comes two years after Israeli PM Netanyahu warned the world to ‘remember that name’ in a press conference about Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
The killing of Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi marks the second time Iran has been humiliated this year, after Qassem Soleimani – a major general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – was assassinated in a US drone strike in January. 
Those wounded in the attack were rushed to a local hospital but medics were unable to revive Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi.
A military adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused Israel of orchestrating the attack to ‘intensify pressure on Iran and create a full-blown war’, while Iran’s armed forces chief of staff called Fakhrizdeh’s death ‘a bitter and heavy blow to the country’s defence system’ and warned of ‘severe revenge’ for those behind it.
‘We assure (Iranians) that we will not rest until we have chased and punished’ those involved, Major General Mohammad Bagheri said in tweets picked up by state news agency IRNA.