TEHRAN -- In a decree issued on Monday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appointed Fereydoun Abbasi Davani, who survived a bomb attack on November 29, as director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI).

“Given the level of your commitment, piety, and scientific and executive records, hereby, I appoint you as vice president and director of the Atomic Energy Organization,” the decree read.
He replaces Ali Akbar Salehi who was approved as the foreign minister on January 30.
Abbasi Davani survived a bomb attack on November 29. He was targeted when he was on his way to work at Shahid Beheshti University in northern Tehran. A magnetic bomb was attached to the physicist’s car. On the same day another physicist, Majid Shahriari was assassinated.
Iran has blamed the CIA and Mossad for the attacks.
Abbasi Davani, 52, was named in UN Security Council Resolution 1747, which was adopted in March 2007.
Abbasi Davani, who holds a PhD in nuclear physics, is one of the few Iranian specialists who can separate isotopes.
He is the head of the physics department at Tehran’s Imam Hossein University.