Commander threatens Israel if US attacks Iran

A top Revolutionary Guards commander said today that Israel would be Iran’s first retaliatory target in response to any US attack, a provocative threat that reinforced the Iranian president’s past call for Israel to be “wiped off the map”.

“We have announced that wherever (in Iran) America does make any mischief, the first place we target will be Israel,” the Iranian Student News Agency quoted Gen Mohammad Ebrahim Dehghani as saying.

Dehghani, a top commander of the elite Revolutionary Guards, also said Israel was not prepared to go to war against Iran.

“We will definitely resist…US B52s (bombers),” Dehghani was quoted as saying.

US President George Bush has said a military option remained on the table if Iran did not agree to international demands for it to stop enriching uranium and open its nuclear programme to inspections.

The American leader has said, however, that Washington wanted to solve the dispute through diplomacy.

Dehghani, who served as a spokesman during large-scale Revolutionary Guards war games last month, said the exercises were held ahead of schedule to send a message to the US and its allies against any plans for a military strike.

“We were due to organise the manoeuvres in May but due to timing conditions and issues related to (our) nuclear energy and upon the recommendation of Mr (Ali) Larijani (Iran’s top nuclear negotiator), it was held 40 days sooner than planned,” he said.

Friday marked the deadline set by the UN Security Council for Iran to freeze its uranium enrichment program. Council members are now considering next steps, which could include punishing sanctions, although Russia and China are on record as opposing that option.

The semi-official student news agency gave no further details on Dehghani’s remarks or where he made them.

Earlier today, Mohammad Ghannadi, deputy chief for nuclear research and technology, said Iran had found uranium ore at three newly discovered sites in the centre of the country.

“We have got good news: the discovery of new economically viable deposits of uranium in central Iran,” Ghannadi said.

“One is in the Khoshoomi region of central Iran. Studies have already been made and samples have already been taken there. The other two are in Charchooleh and Narigan in central Iran,” he added.

Ghannadi also said Iran intended to move toward large-scale uranium enrichment involving 3,000 centrifuges in underground cascade halls at Natanz, in central Iran, by late this year and would later expand the programme to 54,000 centrifuges.

“We are making good progress,” he said.

Iran already has considerable uranium resources available for its nuclear program, a fact that called into question the importance of the newly announced discoveries – beyond their propaganda value.

Iran’s principal source of uranium is the Saghand mine in the centre of the country, which has the capacity to produce 120,000 metric tons (132,000 tons) of uranium ore per year and is said to be the biggest in the Middle East.

Ghannadi also said Iran’s uranium enrichment program was continuing and confirmed reports that a few of centrifuges at the enrichment facility in Natanz failed last month and were replaced.

“It’s not a problem,” Ghannadi told a conference in this holy city south of Tehran.

Both Ghannadi and Dehghani’s declarations appeared intended to reinforce Tehran’s defiance of UN demands for it to freeze enrichment and fully cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is trying to learn the extent of the country’s nuclear ambitions.

The US, Britain and France have said they fear Iran is using its nuclear power programme as a cover for building nuclear weapons. Tehran says it only is developing technology for electricity generation.