Tehran, Iran – Inside the sprawling Shahid Beheshti University in northern Tehran, a research centre lies in ruins after warplanes bombed it.The attack on Friday on the Laser and Plasma Research Institute of the elite higher education facility is part of a growing pattern of civilian sites targeted by the United States and Israel in their war on Iran.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listThere were no casualties at the university because it was mostly empty after all classes across the country were moved online by the government until further notice. Dormitories nearby were lightly damaged.The US and Israel did not officially divulge the rationale behind the attack, but Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, a senior theoretical physicist and nuclear scientist who was assassinated during the opening salvo of Israel’s 12-day war in June, was the director of a magneto-photonics lab there.“This hostile act not only targets the security of academics and the country’s scientific environment, but is also a clear attack on reason, research, and freedom of thought,” the university said in a statement, calling on international peers to raise awareness about similar strikes. The Laser and Plasma Research Institute of Shahid Beheshti University is in northern Tehran’s Evin area [Maziar Motamedi/Al Jazeera]Hossein Simaei Saraf, minister of science, research and technology, told reporters at the research centre on Saturday that parts of at least 30 universities have so far been impacted by US and Israeli strikes since the start of the war on February 28. Advertisement He said Iranian scientists have been targets for decades and pointed out that several more Shahid Beheshti University professors were as …
