Eurasia Press & News
To stop Iran’s drive to build nuclear weapons, Israel eliminated nine top scientists and experts whose knowledge was critical to Tehran’s initiative. Israel explained that it struck on the night of June 12-13 because Iran’s nuclear weapons activities had “accelerated significantly” in recent months.
Tehran has long denied that it ever had a nuclear weapons program, but the evidence clearly shows otherwise. The effort was initially known as the Amad Plan, but amid fear of discovery in 2003, the clerical regime downsized and dispersed the program’s activities to preserve them while allowing the work to progress on a more limited scale. Many became part of the Organization for Defense Innovation and Research, known by its Persian acronym, SPND.
All nine of the scientists killed by Israel this week were involved in the Amad Plan, and some were currently working on weaponization efforts, according to Western government sources who shared information with FDD. Between 2007 and 2012, Israel assassinated five other nuclear scientists who were part of the Amad Plan or subsequent activities.
In addition, according to the Western government sources that shared information with FDD, Ali Shamkhani, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s key national security advisor, was leading Tehran’s weaponization effort alongside Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces. Khamenei directed the weaponization effort to continue despite ongoing nuclear negotiations with the United States. According to Israel, it eliminated both Shamkhani and Bagheri.
- Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi
Tehranchi, who had a Ph.D. in physics from Russia, principally enhanced Iran’s efforts to make high explosives. When detonated around a nuclear core, these explosives compress it inward to help initiate a nuclear explosion. During the Amad Plan era, Tehranchi supervised planning for the construction of critical nuclear weapon components and nuclear device design. He also managed Amad Plan “Project 3/30,” which conducted nuclear explosives testing. In the nuclear files that Israeli agents exfiltrated from Iran in 2018, there are photographs of Tehranchi working on high-explosive tests using flash X-rays at a now destroyed Iranian facility called Taleghan 2.
The United States sanctioned Tehranchi in 2020 for his work. Following the Amad Plan, Tehranchi served as head of Islamic Azad University and the Supreme Council for Science, Research and Technology. He continued to be involved in experiments and planning at SPND, such as its radiation group.
- Sa’eed Borji
Borji, who had a Ph.D. in materials engineering, was also a leading expert on high explosives for nuclear weapons and a close associate of the “father” of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. Fakhrizadeh, assassinated by Israel in 2020, oversaw both the Amad Plan and SPND. The United States sanctioned Borji in 2019, with the U.S. Treasury Department describing him as “an explosives and metals expert for SPND’s Shahid Karimi Group who has assisted SPND’s efforts to procure equipment used for containing explosions.” The Shahid Karimi Group “works on missile and explosives-related projects,” Treasury said.
Borji held a senior role in the Amad Plan and continued to lead and coordinate Iranian nuclear weaponization activities after the Amad Plan ended. Borji also operated a company that helped SPND procure weapons materials and technologies, including for missiles.
3. Fereydoon Abbasi-Davani
Abbasi-Davani, who had a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering, was head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) from 2011 until 2013. He was a leader in the Amad program and specifically its neutron group, which worked to fabricate the center of the core of a nuclear weapon. The United Nations sanctioned him in 2007 for involvement in “nuclear or ballistic missile activities.” Through his senior scientist position in the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL), he transferred substantial knowledge to the Amad Plan. The United States also sanctioned him in 2012 for his role in the AEOI. The Treasury Department specifically noted his contribution to the development of Iran’s uranium enrichment processes and expertise in nuclear isotope separation.
Abbasi later served in the Majlis, Iran’s parliament, and ran for president. He survived an earlier Israeli assassination attempt in October 2010 and recently claimed publicly that Iran could make nuclear weapons and he would assemble them himself, if ordered.
4. Akbar Motalebizadeh
Motalebizadeh, an expert in chemistry and an SPND official, was important to the development of components for a nuclear explosive device. Motalebizadeh was sanctioned by the United States in 2019 for his previous position as head of Shahid Karimi Group, which entailed supervising SPND projects, in addition to his role as a close adviser to Fakhrizadeh. He held other leadership positions in the Amad Plan and is believed to have participated in high-explosive work with Borji.
5. Mansur Asgari
Asgari served as the head of SPND’s Research and Technology Department. The U.S. Treasury sanctioned him in 2019 for holding this position and a previous role as “manager under the Amad Plan, overseeing projects focused on explosives and exploding bridge-wire (EBW) detonators.” His projects under the Amad Plan also included uranium enrichment, and he was a member of the plan’s technical committee. Asgari was formerly a close adviser to Fakhrizadeh and a member of Iran’s armed forces.
- Seyed Amir Hossein Faghahi
Faghahi, Ph.D. in physics, was one of Iran’s few senior experts in nuclear physics and nuclear bomb yields, subjects critical to developing a nuclear implosion mechanism. He served as deputy head of AEOI and head of the Nuclear Science and Technology Research Institute. He participated in both the Amad Plan as part of a small group of computation experts and at SPND, where he held managerial positions and possessed deep organizational knowledge and connections. According to Western government sources who shared information with FDD, he also participated in discussions at the strategic level on regional power dynamics, specifically in developing Iranian capabilities to change this balance.
- Abdulhamid Manouchehr
Manouchehr, who had a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from Russia, had knowledge of reactor physics, rare expertise in nuclear bomb yield calculations, and had independently developed calculations in the field of radiation. He served as dean of the Nuclear Sciences Department at Shahid Beheshti University. As a member of Iran’s armed forces and an official at the Ministry of Defense, according to Western government sources who spoke with FDD, Manouchehr participated in discussions regarding the development of nuclear weapons. He also consulted with SPND on the design and development of nuclear weapons as well as nuclear submarine propulsion.
- Ahmadreza Zolfaghari Dariani
Zolfaghari, who had a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering, was another of the few Iranian experts in nuclear bomb yield calculations. He was a prominent professor in the Nuclear Sciences Department at Shahid Beheshti University at the time of his death. He also consulted for SPND while leading a military project to develop nuclear-powered submarines.
- Ali Bakouei Katrimi
Bakouei, who held a Ph.D. in nuclear physics from Russia, specialized in the development of multipoint initiation systems (MPI), nuclear weapons design, and explosives technologies. In Iran’s implosion nuclear weapon design, the MPI system sets off explosives to create an implosion and cause the nuclear core to go critical and explode. He was one of only a few knowledgeable scientists in this field during the Amad Plan. Following the Amad Plan, he held various roles in the nuclear program and was a senior figure involved in ballistic missile systems. Until recently, he was head of an SPND explosives group involved in the design of nuclear weapons.
