A senior Israeli official dismissed as “absurd” a report in the British Sunday Times that the Jewish state had drawn up plans to destroy arch-foe Iran’s uranium-enrichment facilities in a tactical nuclear strike.
“This is absurd information coming from a newspaper that has already in the past distinguished itself with sensationalist headlines that in the end amounted to nothing,” the official told the media on condition of anonymity.
Quoting several Israeli military sources, the British paper said that Israel has drawn up plans to destroy Iran’s uranium-enrichment facilities in a tactical nuclear strike using low-yield atomic “bunker busting” bombs.
The weekly quoted several Israeli military sources as saying two of the Jewish state’s air force squadrons are training to use the weapons for a single strike.
The plan is similar to one said in a report in the New Yorker magazine last April to have been considered by the United States. The White House dismissed investigative reporter Seymour Hersh’s article as “ill-informed”.
Israel, considered the Middle East’s sole if undeclared nuclear power, considers Iran its arch-foe because of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s repeated calls for the Jewish state to be wiped off the map.
Iran vows to hit back
Meanwhile, Iran warned on Sunday it would make any foe “regret” an attack against the Islamic republic after the newspaper report.
“Any action against the Islamic republic will not go without a response and the aggressor would regret the action very quickly,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mohammad Ali Hosseini told reporters.
“This comes after the confession of the Israel prime minister who acknowledged that the Israeli regime possesses a nuclear weapon,” Hosseini said, referring to Ehud Olmert’s apparent slip last year that broke a decades-long official silence on Israel’s nuclear programme.
“It will convince world public opinion that the main threat for the world and the region is the Zionist regime,” he added. — AFP