Israel's national intelligence agency, the Mossad, was behind the assassination of a senior Syrian scientist over the weekend, pro-government Syrian newspaper Al-Watan claimed Sunday.
Aziz Azbar, head of the Scientific Research and Studies Center in Masyaf, in northwest Syria, was killed along with his driver on Saturday night when a bomb exploded in their car.
A Syrian insurgent group calling itself the Abu Amara Brigades claimed responsibility for the incident. The group has previously claimed attacks targeting officials and militia commanders inside government territory.
But Al-Watan pointed the finger at Israel, saying the method is sometimes used by the Mossad.
Azbar, who was believed to have had very close ties to the regime of President Bashar Assad, was a rocket systems expert and was in charge of improving the range and accuracy of the Syrian army's missiles, especially Scuds. He was also involved in Iranian operations in the Masyaf facility.
Israeli officials have not commented on the incident.
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman on Sunday downplayed the possibility of Israeli involvement, saying, "Hundreds of explosions take place in the Middle East every day. Every time it seems one of them seeks to settle a score, they try to point the finger at Israel. We don't take it too seriously."
In Israel, a Hadashot evening news report said the bomb had been placed in the headrest of the seat in Azbar's car – the same method used to kill Hezbollah archterrorist Imad Mughniyeh in 2008.
Israel has been blamed for the killing of several scientists in recent years, including several Iranian nuclear scientists and two Hamas engineers.
"The number of people who have been so-called 'marked for death' is very small, and even when such a target exists, the goal is always to prevent the other side from obtaining certain abilities, never as revenge," former National Security Adviser Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yaakov Amidror said Sunday.
"We don't go after people to exact vengeance, we only go after people who head operations against Israel, to curtail capabilities, for example as in the case of Yahya Ayyash," he said, referring to Hamas' former chief bomb-maker, killed in 1996.
On the rumored assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, Amidror said, "If there is any truth to Israel being behind it, these were people whose elimination the [Israeli defense] establishment believed would reduce Iran's abilities to obtain nuclear weapons. If someone has specific knowledge or capabilities, then this course of action makes sense.
"Despite technological advances, the majority of the knowledge is still is scientists' heads and eliminating them can slow down various processes. In 2080, just as in 2018, you'll still need people and if they are out of the picture your abilities will be compromised. No one is irreplaceable, but that too takes time."
Former senior Mossad intelligence officer Moshe Ben-David told Israel Hayom that targeting individuals "is actually a relatively rare process, but it does happen."
If Azbar was a key figure in Syria's weapons development, his elimination could prove effective in terms of Israel's national security, he said.
"This is not a very complex process and every intelligence agency in the world uses it," Ben-David said.
"Anyone could have done it [Azbar's assassination]. They [intelligence agencies] do it all the time, as do criminal organizations who go after their rivals. There's really no way of knowing who was behind this hit."
