Iran believes Israel killed two Iranian scientists who died within days of each other by poisoning their food, The New York Times reported on Monday.
An Iranian official and two other people with ties to the government who spoke on condition of anonymity identified the two scientists as Ayoub Entezari, an aeronautical engineer who worked for a military research center, and Kamran Aghamolaei, who was a geologist.
Israeli media and Persian news channels abroad reported that Aghamolaei worked at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility. Friends denied that, and said he worked for a private geological research company, and The New York Times could not corroborate that he had any ties to the government or any weapons program.
Entezari had a doctorate in aeronautics and worked on projects related to missiles and airplane turbines for a government aerospace center in the city of Yazd, about 390 miles southeast of the capital, Tehran, according to The New York Times.
He developed symptoms of food poisoning after attending a dinner he was invited to in Yazd, according to a staff member of a senior Iranian official. The host of the dinner party had disappeared and authorities were searching for him, according to the staff member, who could not be identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
Aghamolaei had just returned to Tehran from a business trip to the northwestern city of Tabriz when he developed intense nausea and diarrhea that worsened day by day until his organs failed and he died, according to a friend.
A spokeswoman for the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office declined to comment on the two recent deaths inside Iran.
The report follows the mysterious deaths of two Iranian aerospace scientists just hours apart.
The Fars news agency reported that on Sunday, Ali Kamani, a scientist who worked for the Iranian air force’s aerospace unit, was reportedly killed in a car crash in Khomein.
Iran’s Tasnim outlet hinted that the crash may not have been an accident, calling Kamani a “martyr” who died during a “mission to protect” Iran.
A day later, Fars reported that a second aerospace engineer working for the Iranian air force was killed while on a mission an air base in Semnan in northern Iran.
The second engineer was identified as Mohammad Abdous, who was reportedly working on the Iranian air force’s satellite program, drone aircraft, and ballistic missiles.
Last month, Colonel Hassan Sayyad Khodaei, a member of the IRGC's Quds Force in Syria, was shot dead outside of his Tehran home.
A second officer, Colonel Ali Esmailzadeh, was found dead days later at his home.