Global General
Israel: Iran nuke plant defies regular bombs
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-12-28 22:44
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JERUSALEM: Israel Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Monday that Iran's newly-disclosed nuclear facility near Qom can withstand regular bombs.
"The facility in Qom is in a bunker and therefore resistant to regular bombs," local daily Haaretz quoted Barak as speaking to the Knesset (Israeli parliament) Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
The site in Qom has been under construction for years, he added.
Iran confirmed in September that it is building a new nuclear fuel enrichment plant near its central city of Qom, arousing concern in international community.
Israel regards Iran as one of its major security threats, and has joined the United States and some other countries in accusing the Islamic republic of secretly developing nuclear weapons under the guise of a civil project, a charge Iran firmly denies.
Iran has suggested in the past that the Middle East should be free from all nuclear weapons, referring to Israel which is widely suspected to possess nuclear weapons.
In wake of sensitive and subtle situations between Israel and Iran, military analysts have made some speculation about Israeli- Iranian war scenario.
Noting it as pure speculation, some analysts told Xinhua before that an Israeli attack on Iran would be led by the Israel Air Force, with backing from the Israel Navy and potentially with additional fire power supplied by ground-based intermediate-range ballistic missiles.
But they questioned, concerning such a mission, whether Israel has sufficient strike power, as Israel could not commit all of its aircraft to Iran and Israel also might face a difficulty of refueling its aircraft.
