Newsletter
Newsletter Support JNS

Iran forms special security unit to protect nuclear scientists, facilities

The special security force will be tasked with protecting sensitive installations and high-profile individuals from attack.

The site of top Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh's assassination, near Tehran, Nov. 27, 2020. Credit: Fars News Agency.
The site of top Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh’s assassination, near Tehran, Nov. 27, 2020. Credit: Fars News Agency.

Iran is growing increasingly concerned about the potential threats to its nuclear program and related personnel, and plans to set up a special security force to protect them, Iranian media reported this week.

The new unit will be under the control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ intelligence unit and will be called the “Nuclear Facilities Defense Command,” according to the report.

The command will be part of Iran’s intelligence apparatus, and will be tasked with protecting sensitive facilities from sabotage and high-profile individuals linked with the nuclear program from assassination “by Israel and other hostile elements.”

Multiple Iranian nuclear facilities have been attacked and several Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated since 2010, including Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, believed to be the head of Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Iran has accused Israel of being behind many of these attacks. Israel has not commented on any of these allegations.

This article first appeared in Israel Hayom.

“Despite his statements, it is not Israel, America or the Republican Party that has changed but Carlson himself,” Rabbi Yaakov Menken, executive vice president of the Coalition for Jewish Values, told JNS.
“Antisemitic language does not become acceptable simply because it appears within boycott messaging or political advocacy,” tech nonprofit CyberWell stated.
Eric Dinowitz and Inna Vernikov, co-chairs of the New York City Council’s bipartisan task force on Jew-hatred, both decried the way Rep. Dan Goldman was treated.
According to the Pew Research Center, 64% of religiously unaffiliated people who participated in a recent study favored student-led group prayer in public schools.
The Education and Workforce Committee will mark up 11 bills, including measures that would require institutions receiving federal funds to strengthen responses to antisemitism complaints.
“Iran does not get to determine Lebanon’s future. The Lebanese people do,” Rep. Josh Gottheimer, co-sponsor of the measure, stated.
Benny Gantz, JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan S. Tobin, Gilad Erdan, Mosab Hassan Yousef, Nissim Black and leading voices in security, diplomacy, media, law and Jewish communal affairs headline the summit’s third day in Jerusalem.