\u201cThe fact that the whole group disappeared is basically throwing back the program by a number of years, by quite a number of years,\u201d Ambassador Joshua Zarka said.<\/p>\n
But nuclear analysts say Iran has other scientists who can take their place. European governments say that military force alone cannot eradicate Iran\u2019s nuclear know-how, which is why they want a negotiated solution to put concerns about the Iranian program to rest.<\/p>\n
\u201cStrikes cannot destroy the knowledge Iran has acquired over several decades, nor any regime ambition to deploy that knowledge to build a nuclear weapon,\u201d U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy told lawmakers in the House of Commons.<\/p>\n
Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program was peaceful, and U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Tehran is not actively pursuing a bomb. However, Israeli leaders have argued that Iran could quickly assemble a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a closer look at the killings:<\/p>\n
Chemists, physicists, engineers among those killed <\/p>\n
Zarka told AP that Israeli strikes killed at least 14 physicists and nuclear engineers, top Iranian scientific leaders who \u201cbasically had everything in their mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
They were killed \u201cnot because of the fact that they knew physics, but because of the fight that they were personally involved in, the creation and the fabrication and the production of (a) nuclear weapon,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Nine of them were killed in Israel\u2019s opening wave of attacks<\/a> on June 13, the Israeli military said. It said they \u201cpossessed decades of accumulated experience in the development of nuclear weapons\u201d and included specialists in chemistry, materials and explosives as well as physicists.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In this photo released on Monday, June 23, 2025, by Iranian army press service, Iran\u2019s army commander-in-chief Gen. Amir Hatami, center, Admiral Mahmoud Mousavi, right, and Admiral Habibollah Sayyari attend a meeting in Zolfaghar central headquarters, Iran. (Iranian Army Press Service via AP)<\/p>\n In this photo released on Monday, June 23, 2025, by Iranian army press service, Iran\u2019s army commander-in-chief Gen. Amir Hatami, center, Admiral Mahmoud Mousavi, right, and Admiral Habibollah Sayyari attend a meeting in Zolfaghar central headquarters, Iran. (Iranian Army Press Service via AP)<\/p>\n Read More<\/p>\n Zarka spoke Monday to the AP. On Tuesday, Iran state TV reported the death of another Iranian nuclear scientist, Mohammad Reza Sedighi Saber, in an Israeli strike, after he\u2019d survived an earlier attack that killed his 17-year-old son on June 13.<\/p>\n Targeted killings meant to discourage would-be successors <\/p>\n Experts say that decades of Iranian work on nuclear energy \u2014 and, Western powers allege, nuclear weapons \u2014 has given the country reserves of know-how and scientists who could continue any work toward building warheads to fit on Iran\u2019s ballistic missiles.<\/p>\n \u201cBlueprints will be around and, you know, the next generation of Ph.D. students will be able to figure it out,\u201d said Mark Fitzpatrick, who specialized in nuclear non-proliferation as a former U.S. diplomat. Bombing nuclear facilities \u201cor killing the people will set it back some period of time. Doing both will set it back further, but it will be reconstituted.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey have substitutes in maybe the next league down, and they\u2019re not as highly qualified, but they will get the job done eventually,\u201d said Fitzpatrick, now an analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London think tank.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is a locator map for Iran with its capital, Tehran. (AP Photo)<\/p>\n This is a locator map for Iran with its capital, Tehran. (AP Photo)<\/p>\n Read More<\/p>\n How quickly nuclear work could resume will in part depend on whether Israeli and U.S. strikes<\/a> destroyed Iran\u2019s stock of enriched uranium and equipment needed to make it sufficiently potent for possible weapons use.<\/p>\n \u201cThe key element is the material. So once you have the material, then the rest is reasonably well-known,\u201d said Pavel Podvig, a Geneva-based analyst who specializes in Russia\u2019s nuclear arsenal. He said killing scientists may have been intended \u201cto scare people so they don\u2019t go work on these programs.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThen the questions are, \u2018Where do you stop?\u2019 I mean you start killing, like, students who study physics?\u201d he asked. \u201cThis is a very slippery slope.\u201d<\/p>\n The Israeli ambassador said: \u201cI do think that people that will be asked to be part of a future nuclear weapon program in Iran will think twice about it.\u201d<\/p>\n Israel is widely believed<\/a> to be the only Middle Eastern country with nuclear weapons, which it has never acknowledged.<\/p>\n Previous attacks on scientists <\/p>\n Israel has long been suspected of killing Iranian nuclear scientists<\/a> but previously didn\u2019t claim responsibility as it did this time.<\/p>\n In 2020, Iran blamed Israel for killing its top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, with a remote-controlled machine gun.<\/p>\n \u201cIt delayed the program but they still have a program. So it doesn\u2019t work,\u201d said Paris-based analyst Lova Rinel, with the Foundation for Strategic Research think tank. \u201cIt\u2019s more symbolic than strategic.\u201d<\/p>\n Without saying that Israel killed Fakhrizadeh, the Israeli ambassador said \u201cIran would have had a bomb a long time ago\u201d were it not for repeated setbacks to its nuclear program \u2014 some of which Iran attributed to Israeli sabotage.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThey have not reached the bomb yet,\u201d Zarka said. \u201cEvery one of these accidents has postponed a little bit the program.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n