The French daily Le Monde has published a detailed report shedding light on how Israel recently tracked and assassinated scientists linked to Iran’s nuclear program.
According to the report, translated by Arabi21, Israeli attacks carried out during June resulted in the deaths of 16 top-tier Iranian researchers, many of whom are believed to have been directly involved in advancing Iran’s military nuclear project and Tehran’s efforts to develop a nuclear bomb.
The report indicates that evidence shows Israel has closely monitored the movements of these Iranian scientists for over two decades, as part of its ongoing attempts to disrupt Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
Among those targeted was physicist Fereydoon Abbasi, who survived an assassination attempt in 2010. Abbasi was known for his passion and dedication to his work. In the first attempt on his life, he managed to jump out of his car with his wife just moments before an explosive device, believed to have been planted by Israeli agents, detonated.
That incident marked the beginning of a series of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, most of which have been attributed to Israel.
Abbasi held the position of Vice President and headed Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization. From that position, he staunchly opposed any international agreement that would restrict Iran’s nuclear program.
Abbasi was killed on June 13 as part of the latest wave of assassinations. Alongside him, several of his colleagues linked to the “Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research” — an entity long suspected of conducting covert research aimed at weaponizing enriched uranium — were buried. The organization has been believed since the 1990s to be leading Iran’s potential pathway toward nuclear weapons capability.
Le Monde reports that on June 22, U.S. aircraft dropped bunker-busting bombs on deeply buried Iranian uranium enrichment facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan — a development that drew global attention to the escalating nuclear confrontation. However, despite the media focus on these airstrikes, Israel considers its real success to have come through quieter, more clandestine operations that were difficult to distinguish amid hundreds of strikes carried out in the previous twelve days.
Not All Nuclear Expertise Has Disappeared
The paper notes that Israel asserts that the assassination of 16 Iranian nuclear scientists and the destruction of their laboratories is, in its view, enough to neutralise the military dimension of Iran’s nuclear program. While there is tacit acknowledgement that quantities of highly enriched uranium (up to 60%) remain inside Iran, Tel Aviv believes the absence of experts capable of weaponising this material effectively freezes the threat for now.
On June 13, Israel’s initial attacks killed at least nine scientists from the “Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research.” Scientist Mohammad Reza Sedighi Saber survived this first wave, but the attack claimed the life of his 17-year-old son at their family home in Tehran.
Following the incident, Saber’s family fled the capital and took refuge in an apartment in Astaneh Ashrafiyeh, near the Caspian Sea. However, Israeli intelligence tracked him down and carried out his assassination on June 25, just hours before the ceasefire was due to begin.
Available information suggests that most, if not all, of the scientists killed were directly linked to Iran’s original nuclear program, which began in the 1990s and formed the backbone of what could have become its military nuclear capability. That program has been restructured three times, evolving into its current form under the banner of the “Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research.”
Israel claims that Iran decided to restructure the organization less than two years ago, revitalising research projects that had been dormant.
In recent months, according to Israeli intelligence sources, a number of highly sensitive research programs were reactivated — including experiments on compressing uranium with explosives, developing a neutron source capable of initiating a nuclear chain reaction, and miniaturising a nuclear bomb.
Le Monde reports that Israel claims to have destroyed all research sites that Iran had reopened for its dual-use nuclear program. Among these is the Sangarian site, which in the early 2000s was used by scientists from the original program to develop technologies related to explosives, according to the latest reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Satellite images show that engineering and research work resumed at this location in 2022 after years of inactivity.
At the end of June, Israel launched an attack on the headquarters of the “Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research” in the Araj district in central Tehran. Another strike targeted a more recently built site dating back to 2013, located inside a recreational centre belonging to Iran’s Ministry of Defence, partially destroying the facility in mid-June.
The older building, known as “Lavizan 2,” housed an Institute for Applied Physics and the “Shahid Karimi Company” — both under sanctions for their ties to the nuclear program. Both were destroyed on June 15 and, according to the Israeli military, contained laboratories for nuclear weapons development. These sites are located near Malek Ashtar University, which is also under international sanctions.
The Israeli military also boasted of destroying Iran’s only factory for converting gaseous uranium into metal — a crucial component for nuclear bombs. This facility was built in 2004 at the heart of the Isfahan complex and, according to satellite imagery, was destroyed on June 14. Subsequent Israeli and American strikes flattened surrounding buildings.
Le Monde quoted David Albright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, as saying that Israel claims it destroyed all archives of the “Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research,” which were stored at its main headquarters. Mossad had seized part of these documents in 2018 from a warehouse in Tehran. According to Israeli ambassador to Paris Joshua Zarka, the final copies Iran possessed were destroyed in the June raids, along with more recent research papers.
The Dark Corner
The report notes that Israel acknowledges a “dark corner” remains in its monitoring of Iran’s nuclear program but insists it retains full confidence in its intelligence apparatus.
Israeli ambassador Zarka stated:
“We do not target every Iranian physicist. These individuals were not killed because they understood physics but because they were directly involved in designing and producing a nuclear weapon.”
Zarka added that Israel’s strikes did not stop at the scientists alone but also targeted those who decided to reactivate the military side of the nuclear program, asserting that “everyone who participated in the decision to revive the military program has been eliminated,” and noting that among the targets were several members of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.
The report clarifies that Israel has not published any conclusive evidence of the reorganisation of the “Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research” or the exact scale of the threat it posed. However, an Israeli nuclear insider reminded readers that the final decision to build a bomb ultimately lies with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — who has publicly rejected that path since the 1990s.
Iran’s Regime in a Bind
Le Monde highlights that this ambiguity worries European powers, especially in light of Iran’s withdrawal from cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has had to withdraw all its inspectors from the country.
A Western diplomat commented:
“The 2015 nuclear deal provided an unprecedented level of transparency. But now, Israel has sacrificed part of its intelligence network to carry out these strikes. Meanwhile, the Iranians are conducting an internal purge.”
The paper added that Israel makes no secret of its intentions. While it nominally supports the return of inspectors and negotiations with Washington, it is also prepared to launch further strikes without setting any clear threshold. This strategy — known as “mowing the grass” — involves repeated bombings to weaken the adversary without fully destroying its capabilities. Israel has used this approach in Gaza from 2007 to 2023, and since 2024 in Lebanon and Syria.
In closing, the report refers to comments by Ali Larijani, advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader, last April, in which he stated that Iran “is not moving toward manufacturing nuclear weapons,” but warned that if Western powers act irresponsibly, Tehran “will be forced” to reconsider.
