Iranian Nuke Scientist Killed In Bomb Blast

A prominent Iranian nuclear scientist was killed by a bomb in Tehran this morning, triggering a furious controversy over who was responsible.

The regime blamed the death of Massoud Ali-Mohammadi on opposition “mercenaries” financed by Western and Israeli intelligence agencies seeking to derail Iran’s nuclear programme.

The state-controlled media called Dr Ali-Mohammadi a staunch supporter of the Islamic Republic, but opposition websites claimed he may have been killed because he was a convert to the so-called Green movement.

An extreme fringe group called the Monarchical Society claimed responsibility on its website, but there was no obvious reason why it would have targeted Dr Ali-Mohammadi and it was impossible to say whether the claim was authentic.It is conceivable that the regime had Dr Ali-Mohammadi killed, to discredit the opposition, to prevent him leaking nuclear secrets or as a warning to other nuclear scientists.

Dr Ali-Mohammadi, 50, died when a remote-controlled bomb exploded outside his home in the smart Qeytarieh district of northern Tehran, according to Iran’s state media. Some reports said the bomb was attached to a motorbike, others that it was concealed in a rubbish bin.

Within hours the Iranian Foreign Ministry claimed that preliminary investigations had uncovered “signs of evil by the triangle of the Zionist regime, America and their mercenaries in Iran in this terrorist incident”.

Officials linked Dr Ali-Mohammadi’s death and the disappearance of Shahram Amiri, another Iranian nuclear scientist, while on a pilgrimage to Mecca last June. The regime accused the United States of kidnapping him.

“Such terrorist acts and the physical elimination of the country’s nuclear scientists will certainly not stop the scientific and technological process but will speed it up,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

“Given the fact that Massoud Ali-Mohammadi was a nuclear scientist, the CIA and Mossad most likely have a hand in it,” Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, Tehran’s chief prosecutor, said.

State television said that Dr Ali-Mohammadi was a “committed and revolutionary university professor martyred in a terrorist operation by counter-revolutionary agents affiliated with global arrogance [America]”.

But it was not immediately clear whether Dr Ali-Mohammadi was an important player in Iran’s nuclear programme.

Mark Fitzpatrick, chief proliferation analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, and other Western officials who monitor Iran’s nuclear programme did not recognise his name. He was not one of more than a dozen nuclear scientists honoured for their work by President Ahmadinejad a few years ago.

Dr Ali-Mohammadi taught physics at Tehran University and boasted a long list of publications, which suggests his involvement in the nuclear programme could have been intermittent at best. Tehran University is also regarded as an opposition stronghold and opposition websites said he was a known supporter of Mir Hossein Mousavi, the opposition leader.

“While reviewing the list of the university professors who supported Mousavi in the elections, it turns out that Prof Massoud Ali-Mohammadi ... was amongst them,” said the Kalameh site. Another, Ayande News, said that Dr Ali-Mohammadi had been publicly identified as a Mousavi supporter.

Ali Moqari, head of the science faculty at the University of Tehran, told the Mehr news agency that Dr Ali-Mohammadi “was a prominent international figure, but had not been involved in any political activities".

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How do you solve a problem like Iran?

Tampa, Florida (CNN) -- In addition to diplomacy and sanctions, the United States has developed contingency plans in dealing with Iran's nuclear facilities, a top U.S. military commander told CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

Gen. David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, did not elaborate on the plans in the interview, to be aired Sunday. But he said the military has considered the impacts of any action taken there.

"It would be almost literally irresponsible if CENTCOM were not to have been thinking about the various 'what ifs' and to make plans for a whole variety of different contingencies," Petraeus told Amanpour at the command's headquarters in Tampa.

Iran's nuclear program has become a thorn for the United States and its allies, and Washington has sharpened its tone on dealings over Tehran's program. The Islamic republic maintains the program is for peaceful purposes, but the United States and other Western nations fear Iran wants to acquire nuclear weapons.

Israel has called Iran's nuclear program the major threat facing its nation.

When asked about rumors that Israel could attack Iran's facilities,Petraeus declined to comment about Israel's military capabilities. But when asked about the vulnerability of the facilities, Petraeus said Iran has strengthened the facilities and has enhanced underground tunnels.

Still, the facilities are not bomb-proof.

"Well, they certainly can be bombed," he said. "The level of effect would vary with who it is that carries it out, what ordnance they have, and what capability they can bring to bear."

Iran is holding out on a United Nations-backed deal on its nuclear program that includes enriching uranium. The country had until the end of 2009 to accept the deal offered by the "P5 plus one" -- permanent U.N. Security Council members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, plus Germany. Instead, Iran countered, giving the West until the end of January to accept its own proposal.

The general said he thinks there is still time for the nations to engage Iran in diplomacy, noting there is no deadline on the enactment of any U.S. contingency plans.

He added, however, that "there's a period of time, certainly, before all this might come to a head, if you will."

Three arrested after making bomb threat at Heathrow.

London, England (CNN) -- The three men arrested Friday night aboard an Emirates Airlines plane at Heathrow Airport had made a verbal threat to staff, police said Saturday.

The men, ages 58, 48, and 36, were arrested on suspicion of making a bomb threat and remain in police custody, London's Metropolitan Police said. Their names were not released.

It happened around 9:15 p.m. (4:15 p.m. ET) as the Emirates flight was taxiing to take off for Dubai, police said.

Police were alerted and armed officers with sniffer dogs boarded the plane, they said.

All passengers were removed from the plane and police were searching the aircraft overnight.

Heathrow remained open during the incident.

Another NORAD scramble and Gilligan's Island?

CNN) -- In the second such incident in three days, fighter jets escorted a diverted commercial flight on Friday after an unruly passenger caused alarm onboard.

The military sent up two F-16s in response to reports of an unruly passenger aboard AirTran Flight 39, the North American Aerospace Defense Command said in a statement.

The passenger had become belligerent and refused to leave the restroom, airline spokesman Tad Hutcheson told CNN on Friday. The passenger appeared to be intoxicated, he said.

The flight, bound for San Francisco, California, left Atlanta, Georgia, at 9:48 a.m. ET, according to AirTran's Web site.

NORAD dispatched the fighters at 1:44 p.m. ET, escorting the aircraft to a safe emergency landing in Colorado Springs, Colorado, officials said. The passenger was detained there and FBI agents from Denver, Colorado, were called to question passengers, Hutcheson said.

The other passengers were scheduled to continue their trip at 4:30 p.m. ET, he said.

On Wednesday, NORAD escorted a Hawaii-bound plane back to its origination city of Portland, Oregon, after a passenger gave a flight attendant a note that was interpreted as being threatening, the federal complaint and supporting affidavit said Friday.

The passenger, Joseph Hedlund Johnson, 56, told the FBI he hadn't intended to scare anyone with the note, which began, "I thought I was going to die," and referenced the television show "Gilligan's Island."

Related article:Federal authorities filed a criminal complaint Friday against a 56-year-old man whose scrawled note invoking "Gilligan's Island" led a Hawaiian Airlines pilot to turn around a Maui-bound flight and return Wednesday to Portland, Oregon.

Joseph Hedlund Johnson, of Salem, Oregon, was charged with the federal crime of interference with the performance and duties of a flight crew member or attendant. He is expected to surrender to authorities on Monday.

The crime of interference with the performance and duties of a flight crew member or attendant carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

According to the complaint and a 13-page supporting affidavit, Johnson and his girlfriend, Caroll Ann Miller, boarded Hawaiian Airlines Flight 39 on Wednesday morning bound for Kahului, Hawaii, on the island of Maui.

Once aboard, Johnson became upset because he was not allowed to store his bag under his exit-row seat, according to the affidavit, which was written by an FBI agent after interviewing Johnson, Miller and the flight crew.

About 45 minutes into the flight, Johnson gave a comment card in a sealed envelope to a flight attendant, who opened it, read it and gave it to the lead flight attendant, who then gave it to the captain, it said.

"I thought I was going to die, we were so high up," the card said. "I thought to myself: I hope we don't crash and burn or worse yet landing in the ocean, living through it, only to be eaten by sharks, or worse yet, end up on some place like Gilligan's Island, stranded, or worse yet, be eaten by a tribe of headhunters, speaking of headhunters, why do they just eat outsiders, and not the family members? Strange ... and what if the plane ripped apart in mid-flight and we plumited (sic) to earth, landed on Gilligan's Island and then lived through it, and the only woman there was Mrs. Thurston Howell III? No Mary Anne (my favorite) no Ginger, just Lovey! If it were just her, I think I'd opt for the sharks, maybe the headhunters."

The "Gilligan's Island" references were to a 1960s-vintage CBS television comedy about a charter boat crew and their oddball passengers who become shipwrecked and wind up living together on a tropical island.

The pilot told investigators that, considering Johnson's earlier behavior regarding his bag, he felt threatened by the card and decided -- now about 90 minutes into the flight -- to turn the jet around.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) scrambled two fighter jets to escort the plane back to Portland.

Passengers were told that mechanical problems were to blame and did not learn about the perceived threat until after they arrived back at their starting point.

There, Johnson -- apparently oblivious to his role in the decision to turn around -- was met by FBI agents, who interviewed him, the flight crew and his girlfriend.

Investigators searched the plane, refueled it, and sent it off once again for Hawaii -- minus Johnson and Miller.

Johnson told authorities that he had flown only about four times in his life and that the Maui-bound flight was his first over water; that he had occupied himself first by reading in-flight magazines and then by filling out comment cards provided by the airline. He said he had lifted the phrase for the card "I thought I was going to die" from comedian Mike Myers, the affidavit said.

"Johnson stated that he didn't think anyone would open it during the flight," the affidavit added. "He told me that he thought the card was going to be taken back to an office somewhere, opened, and everyone in the room would 'get a laugh' from it, and that perhaps he'd even get some frequent flyer miles out of it. Johnson stated he didn't intend to scare anyone and he would not have written his name on the card if it was a threat. Johnson stated that he felt bad about what had happened and that he was sorry."

"The safety and security of airline travel is of paramount importance, particularly following the events of Christmas Day," said Acting U.S. Attorney Kent Robinson in a news release referring to the botched December 25 bombing aboard a Northwest Airlines jet. Authorities "will take all necessary steps to assure that air travel is safe, and that standards of conduct for airline passengers are enforced. And everyone who flies should also know that communicating with a flight crew about crashing airplanes will not be viewed as a joke."

Johnson is to surrender Monday to authorities. CNN was unable to contact Johnson or Miller.

Airline Attack Report Released

Washington (CNN) -- The government had sufficient information to have potentially disrupted an al Qaeda plot to bomb an airliner on Christmas Day, but failed to identify Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab as a potential bomber, a White House review of the incident shows.

In the end, the six-page report found, it was the

inability of the intelligence community to "connect the dots" in putting all the pieces of information and analysis together.

"The intelligence fell through the cracks. This happened in more than one organization," Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan told reporters after President Obama spoke Thursday.

Information was gathered on a possible al Qaeda plot , according to the report, between mid-October and late December 2009.

"Though all of the information was available to all-source analysts at the CIA and the NCTC [National Counter Terrorism Center] prior to the attempted attack, the dots were never connected, and as a result, the problem appears to be more a component failure to 'connect the dots,' rather than a lack of information sharing," the report said.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a Yemen-based offshoot of the terrorist network that attacked New York and Washington in 2001, has claimed responsibility for the December 25 plot.

According to the report, U.S. counterterrorism officials had information about AbdulMutallab, al Qaeda threats to Americans "and information about an individual now believed to be Mr. AbdulMutallab and his association with AQAP and its attack planning." But "the dots were never connected" -- not because information wasn't shared among U.S. agencies, but because it was "fragmentary and embedded in a large volume of other data."

Once the threat was discovered, the intelligence community leadership failed to increase resources working on the "full AQAP threat."

The report said the counterterrorism apparatus "failed before December 25 to identify, correlate, and fuse into a coherent story all of the discrete pieces of intelligence" that the U.S. government had in hand about "the emerging terrorist plot." Read the summary of the security review (PDF)

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