As the search for the perpetrators of the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan and the details of the attack continue, some authorities of the Islamic republic have called for reprisals against those they believe are responsible for the attacks.

Roshan, whom official Iranian media reported to be a deputy manager at a Natanz nuclear site, was assassinated last Wednesday by unknown individuals in Tehran. The manner of this latest assassination appeared to be similar to earlier attacks on the country’s nuclear scientists.

In what is described as the most official response of the Islamic republic, Masoud Jazaeri, the deputy chairman of Iran’s armed forces announced that the Islamic republic was looking into ways to punish those responsible for the assassination. “The way we will punish the US, the Zionist regime and their accomplices” will hurt them, he said.

While he did not provide any details on the actual possible response, he did stress that the Islamic republic was in the process of reviewing “How to launch strategic assets of the Islamic republic” around the world. “Enemies of the Islamic republic and of progress of the Iranian nation should not have any doubts about us. A timely and appropriate punitive response will be provided to the US, the Zionist regime and their accomplices,” he stressed.

Earlier, Iran’s leader seyed Ali Khamenei had issued a statement declaring that the Islamic republic would never walk away from punishing the perpetrators of this crime and the individuals who were behind the event. He called the assassination of Roshan “cowardly” and “a dirty crime” which had taken place with “the scheming of the CIA and MOSSAD” (Israel’s secret service) adding, “They will fail in this horrendous act as well, and they will not attain their dirty and wicked goal.”

Separately, ayatollah Khamenei’s representative at Kayhan group of newspapers, Hossein Shariatmadari, published an editorial in the daily in which he asks why the regime did not respond in kind to these terrorist acts. “The assassination of Israeli military men and officials is an easy task,” he wrote. “Today, the Islamic republic has plenty of brave and ready-to-act fedayeen (those willing to sacrifice their life) across the world who will wholeheartedly undertake to punish them,” he asserted.

Calls for reprisals against the West also made their way to the Basij militia organization that operates under the command of the Revolutionary Guards. In a statement that was issued after Roshan’s assassination, Basij wrote, “Enemies should know that they are digging their own grave with these actions and they should await a decisive response from the Hezbollah nation.”

Some Principlist (this is the group that claims allegiance to the initial goals of the 1979 revolution and today is split among those supporting ayatollah Khamenei and those supporting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) media also towed the same line. One of them quoted a security official to have said, “Iran’s security community is well positioned to engage in reprisal activities as a response to the assassinations carried out by Western security agencies. Iran’s response shall be overseas and beyond the region. The planners of these projects should never be allowed to feel security anywhere in the world.”