TEHRAN: Iran’s top security body said that using intelligence it had obtained about Israeli nuclear facilities, Iranian forces could launch counterattacks should Israel strike the Islamic republic.
Israel has repeatedly warned that it could attack Iranian nuclear sites, vowing to stop its arch foe from acquiring an atomic bomb, which Tehran has consistently denied it was seeking.
The Israeli warnings have escalated since Tehran and Washington began nuclear talks in April.
An intelligence trove that Iran claimed it had obtained “would enable the fighters of Islam to immediately strike (Israel’s) hidden nuclear facilities in response to any possible attack by the Zionist regime on Iran’s nuclear facilities,” the Supreme National Security Council said in a statement.
It also said Iran would respond in a “precisely proportional” manner to any Israeli attack on its military or economic infrastructure.
On Saturday, state media reported that Tehran had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence in a covert operation, including files related to Israel’s undeclared nuclear facilities and defence plans.
Iran’s Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib later said that the seized documents included information related to Western countries including the United States, and “will be published soon”.
On Monday, the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hossein Salami, said the intelligence would make “the impact of Iranian missiles more precise” in case of a confrontation.
Iran and Israel have fought a shadow war for years, with Tehran accusing Israel of having carried out a wave of sabotage attacks and assassinations targeting its nuclear programme.
The two sides have exchanged rare direct attacks for the first time last year against the backdrop of the Gaza war.
Rafael Grossi, head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, said on Monday that his agency had no “official communication” about the intelligence Iran reportedly had.
Speaking at an International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors meeting in Vienna, Grossi said the information “seems to refer to Soreq”, an Israeli “research reactor and a research facility” monitored by the IAEA.
