Israel waging covert war in Iran: report

Israel is involved in a covert war of sabotage inside Iran to try to delay Tehran's alleged attempts to develop a nuclear weapon, a British newspaper said yesterday, quoting a former CIA agent and intelligence experts.

"Israel has launched a covert war against Iran as an alternative to direct military strikes against Tehran's nuclear programme," Britain's Daily Telegraph said on Tuesday. "It is using hitmen, sabotage, front companies and double agents to disrupt the regime's illicit weapons project, the experts say."

Quoting intelligence experts and an unnamed former CIA agent, the newspaper said Israel's "decapitation" strategy had targeted members of Iran's atomic programme, hoping to set back the country's nuclear ambitions without resorting to war.

The intelligence source said Israeli agents were working with Western governments and firms doing business with Tehran, whose Islamist leadership is a sworn enemy of Israel but denies accusations its nuclear program has a military purpose.

Meir Javendafar, an Iran expert at Meepas, a Middle East analysis group, said there were reports Iran was being sold faulty equipment for its nuclear programme, and that there were attempts to disrupt the electricity supply to Natanz, a uranium enrichment facility in central Iran.

"I think there is sabotage going on. It's a logical move and it makes sense in the game that is part of the overall struggle to disrupt Iran's nuclear ambitions," he said.

As evidence of Israel's reported strategy, Iran watchers have pointed to events such as the death of Ardeshire Hassanpour, a nuclear scientist at the Isfahan uranium plant who died at home from apparent gas poisoning in 2007.

The former CIA agent told the Telegraph, "Disruption is designed to slow progress on the programme, done in such a way they don't realise what's happening. The goal is delay, delay, delay until you can come up with some other solution.

"It's a good policy, short of taking them out militarily, which probably carries unacceptable risks."

Javendafar said there were indications several states were attempting to infiltrate Iran to disrupt nuclear development but also suggested much of the reported clandestine activity was more part of a psychological war than an actual one of sabotage.

"Even if there's no truth to it, it's part of what is a massive psychological war against Iran's nuclear programme... It's... much more affordable than sabotaging equipment."

Asked about the newspaper report, Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said, "It is not our practice to comment publicly about these sorts of allegations, not in this situation, not in any situation."