As rain poured on the northern provinces of Iran in late March, a somber crowd snaked through the mountain ranges of Asara carrying the coffin of Mohammad Reza Kia. The city of just a few thousand people was draped in banners now hailing the young nuclear scientist as a “martyr of the imposed war.”
Piecing together information on Kia and the circumstance of his obscure death is difficult, but two weeks ago his mother said in a short clip that he was killed in an attack.
Beyond a few research papers attributed to him and an inactive social media page bearing his name, the only information available is that he was a doctoral candidate in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at Amirkabir University of…