Nuclear Scientist

Iran's top nuclear scientist shot dead near Tehran

Fakhrizadeh died in hospital after an attack in Absard, in Damavand county.

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, has condemned the killing "as an act of state terror".

Western intelligence agencies view Fakhrizadeh as being behind Iran's covert nuclear weapons programme.

"If Iran ever chose to weaponise (enrichment), Fakhrizadeh would be known as the father of the Iranian bomb," one Western diplomat told Reuters news agency in 2014.