BEIRUT — Syria on Tuesday accused Israel of assassinating a top Syrian rocket scientist over the weekend, heightening the growing tensions between the two countries as Syrian government troops restore control over areas bordering Israel.

Aziz Asbar, a research director at Syria’s Scientific Studies and Research Center, was killed on Saturday by an explosive device targeting his car in the town of Masyaf in Syria’s Hama province, according to Syria’s official news agency SANA.

The center has long been linked by intelligence agencies to Syria’s chemical weapons program, and Israeli warplanes are suspected to have targeted the center’s facility on at least two occasions over the past year, in September and July.

Syrian press reports blamed Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency for the killing and said Asbar had survived two previous assassination attempts, also by Israeli agents. According to the al-Watan daily newspaper, he was killed because of his “important” work on Syrian defense systems.

“Yet again the Israeli enemy has assassinated one of the greatest Syrian minds,” al-Watan said in a commentary Tuesday.

Also on Tuesday, the New York Times quoted an unnamed official with a Middle Eastern intelligence organization as confirming that Israel was responsible for the attack. The newspaper said Asbar had been collaborating with the commander of Iran’s Quds Force, General Qasem Soleimani, on the production of precision-guided missiles in Syria.

An Israeli government spokesman declined to comment on the allegations.

If the assassination was carried out by Mossad, it was the latest in a long line of Israeli attacks targeting Syrian weapons capabilities and development. Israel has carried out more than 100 airstrikes against targets in Syria since 2012 aimed either at Iranian military facilities or at attempts to transfer sophisticated weapons to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.

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