BAGHDAD: The chief military spokesman in Baghdad said security authorities have blocked off parts of Baghdad to launch search operations.
Maj. Gen. Qassim Al-Moussawi told foreign news agency Tuesday morning that security officials had imposed “strict security procedures.” He would not comment on why the measures were imposed or in which neighborhoods.
The Iranian nuclear physics scientist who has been killed in a remote-controlled bomb attack in Tehran had not been involved in any political activities, an academic figure says.
“Professor Massoud Ali-Mohammadi … was a prominent international figure, but had not been involved in any political activities,” Head of the Science Complex of the University of Tehran Ali Moqari told Mehr News Agency on Tuesday.
He added that Ali-Mohammadi was a prominent professor in physics who had written several books.
Ali-Mohammadi, a lecturer at the Tehran University and a staunch supporter of the Islamic Revolution, was killed in booby-trapped motorbike blast in the Iranian capital on Tuesday.
The explosion took place near the professor’s home in Qeytariyeh neighborhood, in northern Tehran.
Moqari underlined that despite police investigations, the University of Tehran would also probe into the incident.
Press TV correspondent quoted security officials as saying that the equipment and system of the bomb used in the attack had been related to a number of foreign intelligence agencies, particularly Israel’s Mossad.
An Iranian nuclear physics scientist has been killed in a remote-controlled bomb attack in the Iranian capital, Tehran.
Dr. Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, a lecturer at the Tehran University and a staunch supporter of the Islamic Revolution, was killed in booby-trapped motorbike blast on Tuesday.
The explosion took place near the professor’s home in Qeytariyeh neighborhood, in northern Tehran.
Iran’s police and security bodies are investigating the terrorist case to identify those behind it.
Press TV correspondent Amir Mehdi Kazemi, reporting from the scene of the assassination, quoted security officials as saying that the equipment and system of the bomb used in the attack had been related to a number of foreign intelligence agencies, particularly Israel’s Mossad.
Meanwhile, Tehran’s Prosecutor Abbas Jafari-Dolatabadi confirmed the assassination of the university lecturer on Tuesday morning and said that he taught neutron nuclear physics at the University of Tehran.
“No suspect has been arrested yet,” he told the Iranian Students News Agency.
He added that Ali-Mohammadi was killed when a motorbike parked near his car exploded.
The terrorist attack came as Shahram Amiri, an Iranian nuclear scientist, went missing in the Saudi holy city of Medina while on a pilgrimage visit in June 2009.
In December, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast said Tehran had information that authorities in Riyadh had delivered Amiri to the United States.
He added that Amiri is among eleven Iranian nationals held in detention in US prisons.
It seems the kidnap and assassination of Iranian scientists is on the agenda of the United States
Iraqi officials announced on Monday they will soon begin new excavations based on reports of a new mass grave, near the holy city of Karbala, according to the Associated Press.
Dr. Kamil Ameer Hashim, a spokesman for the Ministry of Human Rights, said that the suspected grave site had not yet been opened and it was unclear how many people might be inside. Officials had decided on the location based on interviews with the families of the dead, he said.
Meanwhile, the remains of more than 70 people, including women, children and the elderly, have been excavated from a different mass grave in Topzawa near Kirkuk, he said. Officials began digging there two months ago but have not yet finished their work.
“No one knows how many victims of former dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime lie in mass graves around Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds were killed or expelled from Iraq in the late 1980s and then again during the Kurdish uprising following the first Gulf War in 1991. Many political prisoners were also killed and secretly buried,” the agency added.
SRINAGAR, India — At least 42 people were injured when police used tear gas and batons to break up religious processions of hundreds of people in the Indian section of Kashmir on Saturday, police said.
Seven police officers were among the injured in the clashes between government forces and mostly Shiite Muslims who gathered in Srinagar, the main city of Indian Kashmir. The marchers were marking the Muslim month of Muharram, a police officer said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to talk to reporters.
Large public gatherings in Indian-controlled Kashmir have been banned since the eruption of an insurgency in 1989, but hundreds of marchers defied the ban in four separate processions from the central Lal Chowk district of Srinagar after praying in various mosques Saturday.
Scuffles erupted when police and paramilitary forces tried to stop the marchers. Police fired warning shots into the air and used tear gas and batons to disperse the crowd.
Saturday was the eighth day of the month of Muharram in the Islamic lunar calendar. Muharram is especially important for Shiites, who stage processions to mourn the 7th-century death of the prophet Muhammad’s grandson Imam Hussein.
The Himalayan region is split between India and Pakistan, and nearly a dozen rebel groups have been fighting since 1989 for a merger with Pakistan, or for independence from Hindu-majority India. More than 68,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in the conflict.
Jafria News 
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