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Nuclear scientist killed in Tehran was Iran's top Stuxnet expert
- tomjen3 16y agoDamn Obama is stupid. The last thing the US needs now is another war in the middle-east.
- tjarratt 16y agoJump to conclusions much? full disclosure: I am not a fan of wars in the middle east either.
- ScotterC 16y agoInteresting times when people are targeted because of their intelligence in a given matter
- puredemo 16y agoThat's basically as old as humanity itself.
- daliusd 16y agoI think that was this way through all history: * Main achitect of pyramid in Egypt was buried together in it(bad that I can't find link to that) * Quite interesting story of Denis Papin (http://radian.org/notebook/boatmen-and-cyberlaw http://radian.org/notebook/boatmen-and-cyberlaw) * Here is list in wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Murdered_scientists http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Murdered_scientists (while not all of them were killed because of their work)
- rbanffy 16y agoI miss the time super-villains would hire scientists and fly them to paradisaic islands...
- grav1tas 16y agoThis is crazy if it's true. Is there any corroborating story from a (I hate to put it this way) more mainstream/trusted source? I'm not sure about this Debka. There's some spelling errors and I've never heard of them.
- pyre 16y agoWhy do you hate to put it that way? Just because people (here at least) don't trust the Main Stream Media(tm) doesn't mean that the word 'mainstream' becomes devalued. Just because people can get their news from bloggers doesn't mean that you must blindly accept anything that any random person (or group) puts on the internet. Trust and reliability count for something.
- pmorici 16y agotake your pick, http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=Prof.+Majid+Shahriari http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&...
- waterlesscloud 16y agoDebka is basically a Middle East rumor mill. Sometimes they're dead on the money and sometimes they're wildly spinning pure fiction.
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- Leptosiphon 16y agoI don't know how reliable a source "DEBKAfile" is, but just in general, it makes me very uncomfortable that civilian scientists may possibly now be considered legitimate targets for assassination or kidnapping by the US, Israel or others.
- natrius 16y agoIf you're a scientist working on weapons systems (which is a debatable claim in this instance), you're not a civilian.
- something 16y agohow many of those scientists realize that?
- sliverstorm 16y agoI imagine the head of cybersecurity for Iran's nuclear systems was aware that he was the head of cybersecurity for Iran's nuclear systems.
- pmorici 16y agoSo you think that, for example, a University prof. who gets grants and funding from a countries defense department is a legitimate target?
- natrius 16y agoYes. Attacking such a professor would be an act of war, but it wouldn't be particularly reprehensible as far as acts of war go.
- metamemetics 16y agoAnyone engaged in military\defense contracting is a legitimate target of war under the Geneva convention.
- Leptosiphon 16y ago
- trotsky 16y agoNote that this was published right after the attacks, and the only source for the claim that he was responsible for stuxnet cleanup was "Exclusive from DEBKAfile's [unnamed] intelligence sources". Many blogs republished the report (of course) but no other source has emerged, and no paper of record has suggested it was true.
- anigbrowl 16y agoDoes anyone know of a decent tool to graph search results' external links? There is so much content farming these days that I often wish for such a thing.
- sliverstorm 16y agoConsidering this happened after the leak, and such a short time after as well, I can't help but wonder if someone read the leak and thought "that's a great idea!"
- alanh 16y agoSeven hours is precious little time, I would imagine, to plan for and put into motion attacks like these.
- radicaldreamer 16y agoDebka is thought to be an Israeli counterintelligence operation, so take its writing with a grain of salt. Of course, it's possible that the Israelis want everyone to know about their capabilities (the line about the attacks coming 12 hours after the Wikileaks cables release was interesting), but Debka's writing might not be extremely accurate.
- eliben 16y ago"Debka is thought to be an Israeli counterintelligence operation, so take its writing with a grain of salt." That's highly unlikely. Here in Israel, the original Debka File (http://www.debka.co.il/ http://www.debka.co.il/) is considered a speculation site at best, a hoax at worst. Most people consider it just a hangout of conspirators and paranoids, and it's almost never treated seriously. So don't read too much into it :)
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- yuvadam 16y agoAll sings hint at the fact that this is a classic Mossad operation. The MO of a drive-by, close range, shooting or small explosive, is classic Mossad - and has been used in the past. That said, DEBKAfile is a dubious source of educated speculation - at best. It is not considered a news source, and it does not operate by any standard. They publish mere theories which are loosely backed by hard facts. It does make a good read, though - I'll give them that.
- Aloisius 16y agoThat MO sounds familiar. I had no idea there were so many Mossad operations in south central LA.
- yuvadam 16y agoLevity aside - this MO is not common in the Middle East. This is not your typical gang-war drive-by shooting.
- ceejayoz 16y agoNo one claimed it was. There are a lot more potential culprits than the Mossad, though, and plenty of folks in the region who'd be quite happy to have the Mossad blamed for something that benefits them (as the diplomatic cables detailing the Arab nations' opinions on Iran have shown).
- Mrdev4 16y agoReminds me of the Gerald Bull assassination, also thought to be carried out by Mossad. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Bull http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Bull
- ErrantX 16y agoWow. That is...a really terrible article. Debka (IIRC) is probably akin to a cross between the Onion and Fox :)
- eliben 16y agoI find it disappointing that this is on the main page of HN. Not really relevant to why I'm coming to read this site.