Iran 'will retaliate to any Israeli attack'

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman said today that his country's Revolutionary Guards would strongly respond to any Israeli attack.

"If the Zionist regime commits such stupidity, the response by the Iranian military will be swift, strong and crushing," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Hosseini said. "Iran will take no longer than a second to respond."

Israeli officials have commented recently that the country's military would consider bombing Iranian nuclear facilities to thwart what it has described as an Iranian nuclear weapons programme. Iran says its plans aim to generate electricity.

Israel bombed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981 to destroy former President Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons programme. While Israel neither acknowledges nor denies possessing nuclear arms, it is thought to have about 100-200 nuclear warheads, according to a 2006 by the Centre for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

Hosseini downplayed the possibility of such an attack, suggesting that Israeli bluster stemmed from the current government's "very fragile" political situation.

"The situation and capability of the Zionist regime are far too small to threaten Iran," Hosseini said.

Hosseini also said that Iran began installing an additional 3,000 centrifuges.

In October, Iran stepped up uranium enrichment by injecting gas into a second network of 164 centrifuges. Iran produced a small batch of low-enriched uranium - suitable as nuclear fuel but not weapons grade - in February, using its initial cascade of 164 centrifuges at its pilot plant at Natanz.

Earlier this year Tehran said it plans to install 3,000 centrifuges at Natanz by year's end, but it would take 54,000 centrifuges to fuel a reactor.