Amir Taheri

The New York Times

Dec. 4, 2010

Iranian authorities blame the Americans, British and Israe lis, supposedly working through the anti-regime group People's Mujahedin, for Monday's attacks on two nuclear scientists as well as a similar October assassination.

A closer look, however, offers other perspectives.

To start with, the manner of the attacks is not the style of the Mujahedin, who carried out numerous acts of terror both before and after the Khomeinist revolution. To assassinate an individual, they always used snipers -- not motorcyclists tossing bombs, like those that on Monday killed Majid Shahriari and seriously injured Fereydoon Abbasi-Davani.