Iran still not blaming Israel for murder of cyber-warfare expert

From Fox News:

When a key Iranian scientist was gunned down last week, many observers figured Israeli spy agency Mossad had struck again. But new signs point to deadly intrigue within the rogue nation’s fractious leadership.

In the days since the body of Mojtaba Ahmadi, who worked on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ secretive cyberwarfare unit, turned up in a wooded area north of Tehran, the mystery behind his death has only deepened. As with five previous hits on top scientists, witnesses reported black-clad gunmen seen speeding away on motorcycles. But this time, the regime did not immediately point the finger at Israel. In fact, it hasn’t pointed the finger anywhere – despite an exiled group’s claim of responsibility.

“In the wake of a horrific incident involving one of the IRGC officials... the matter is being investigated and the main reason of the event and the motive of the attacker has not been specified,” read a statement from Revolutionary Guards to the state-controlled Sepah News.

The IRGC specifically ruled out an assassination, curious in light of witnesses who said Ahmadi was shot twice in the chest at close range in a nation where gun crime is virtually nonexistent. The murky circumstances, uncharacteristically deliberative approach of the IRGC and new President Hassan Rouhani’s recent overtures to the West have prompted speculation.

Since 2007, five Iranian nuclear scientists, as well as the nation’s ballistic missile program director, have been assassinated in attacks the regime routinely blamed on Israel. Typically, Israel has declined to comment on the assassinations, other than to convey off the record to reporters that it was not dismayed by such developments. But Yaakov Peri, former chief of Israel’s security agency, Shin Bet, and a current cabinet minister, told Israel Radio Ahmadi’s murder has the hallmarks of an “internal dispute.”

“The fact that a cyber commander or this or that scientist was wiped out or killed in this or that assassination does not necessarily mean that Israel’s hand is in the matter,” Peri said.

Other regime watchers have noted that Ahmadi’s team launched a cyber attack at the U.S. Navy that coincided with Rouhani’s trip to New York for the UN General Assembly, a move that some saw as aimed at undermining Rouhani, a self-styled moderate. Ahmadi’s death may have been Rouhani loyalists sending a message to hard-liners within the nation’s complex leadership matrix.

Interesting, isn't it?