Five Syrian nuclear scientists have reportedly been killed by unknown assailants while riding a bus north of Damascus, near the research center where they worked, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnidentified attackers murdered five nuclear energy engineers who worked in the scientific research center near the neighborhood of Barzeh, northern Damascus,\u201d<\/em> Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.<\/p>\n The news agency meanwhile reports that four of the atomic engineers were Syrian, while the other one was Iranian.<\/p>\n \u201cTheir bus was ambushed while they were on their way to the research centre. Their assailants shot them dead,”<\/em> Rahman said.<\/p>\n This is not the first time that Syrian scientists have been targeted in deliberate assassinations.<\/p>\n Workers at the Scientific Research Center in Barzeh were targeted by a group of jihadists who shot an RPG at their commuter bus on July 31, 2013, killing 6 workers and injuring 19 others.<\/p>\n Another military research center was also hit by a deadly Israeli raid in May 2013.<\/p>\n According to Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, Syria is non-nuclear weapon state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) since 1969.<\/p>\n Damascus is currently known to possess only one small operational research reactor, the Chinese built SRR-1, used for research of peaceful energy needs. The Atomic Energy Commission of Syria (AECS) directs Syria’s nuclear program, and the majority of Syria’s nuclear-related work takes place at the Der Al-Hadjar Nuclear Research Cente and the Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC) in Damascus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Five Syrian nuclear scientists have reportedly been killed by unknown assailants while riding a bus north of Damascus, near the research center where they worked, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports. \u201cUnidentified attackers murdered five nuclear energy engineers who worked in the scientific research center near the neighborhood of Barzeh, northern Damascus,\u201d Observatory … Continue reading “Five nuclear scientists killed in attack”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,123],"tags":[5662,178,5860,10517,175,10518,198,10519],"class_list":["post-16810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-world","tag-damascus","tag-israel","tag-jihadists","tag-military-research-centre","tag-nuclear","tag-nuclear-threat-initiative-nti","tag-syria","tag-treaty-on-the-non-proliferation-of-nuclear-weapons-npt"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16810"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16811,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16810\/revisions\/16811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}