Israel’s covert war on Iranian nuclear program intensifies

Ahmadinejad

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
Citing unnamed “US intelligence sources”, British newspaper The Daily Telegraph has revealed what it calls a covert “decapitation program” by Israeli intelligence, targeting Iran’s nuclear program. The program has also been confirmed by Reva Bhalla, a senior analyst with Stratfor. Israel’s program is part of an international intelligence effort to hamper Iran’s nuclear program. As intelNews has reported before, this effort includes an extensive CIA operation approved by President George W. Bush in early 2008 and “hand[ed] off to President […] Barack Obama”.  The Israeli program, however, appears to be much more extensive than America’s, and includes assassinations, bribing, “front companies and double agents”, according to The Daily Telegraph. The most aggressive part of the scheme centers on “the planned assassination of top figures involved in Iran’s atomic operations”, according to Ms. Bhalla. Various recent deaths in Europe and Iran of individuals associated with the Iranian nuclear program have been attributed to Mossad activities. They include the death two years ago of Ardeshire Hassanpour, a 44-year-old nuclear physicist who worked on producing uranium hexafluoride gas at Iran’s Isfahan nuclear research plant. Other facets of Israel’s “decapitation” operation include the use of front companies involved in the supply chain of Iran’s nuclear research, as well as direct infiltration into Iranian nuclear scientific circles through the use of double operatives and informants. As in the case of the Syrian nuclear program, against which Israeli intelligence agencies are also active, the Jewish state has recently leaked to the US and some UN bodies carefully selected information gathered by its operatives. The short-term plan of the Israeli “decapitation operation” appears to be twofold: first, to hamper the Iranian nuclear program covertly, thus avoiding an outright military attack, which would risk severing Israel’s relations with the new Administration in Washington; second, to delay the nuclearization of Iran’s defense “until [the Israelis] can come up with some other solution or approach”, in the words of an unnamed former CIA officer who spoke to The Daily Telegraph.