Tel Aviv. Israel took a number of steps to be ready for an Iranian retaliation action following Tehran’s accusation that Israel is behind the massive cyber attack on the Iranian nuclear facility in Natanz.
Israel has not responded to this accusation but it brought the tension between Jerusalem and Tehran to a new peak. The Israel defence forces (IDF) took some steps to be ready for any type of Iranian retaliation.
According to Iran the electricity outage caused an explosion that stopped the centrifuges and resulted in an explosion that created a seven meters deep hole in the main centrifuges facility.
The underground Natanz facility was attacked in 20O7 by a virus that caused heavy damage. After this attack Tehran accused Israel and the US.
The attack on the nuclear facility comes after an Iranian spy ship was attacked while sailing in the red sea. According to the US media, Israel is behind the attack on the Iranian ship.
If these reports are true, then it proves that Israel has expanded its war against Iran to the maritime arena. This comes after hundreds of aerial attacks on shipment of weapons on their way from Iran to Lebanon.
According to the New York Times, Israel notified the US that it is responsible for the attack on an Iranian cargo ship affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps off the coast of Eritrea in the Red Sea.
Iranian news outlet Tasnim, affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), reported that the ship’s hull was damaged in an explosion caused by explosive charges.
According to Saudi Arabia the blast was caused by “Israeli commandos”.
The United States Naval Institute (USNI) reported last year that the damaged ship, Saviz, while officially listed as a merchant ship, was likely a covert IRGC forward base. Tasnim news agency confirmed this saying that the ship had been stationed in the Red Sea in recent years to support Iranian commandos escorting commercial vessels.
The alleged Israeli attack, follows two strikes on Israeli owned ships that sailed in the region.
While the US is making big efforts to persuade Iran to stop the Uranium enrichment as part of this country’s nuclear program, Israeli sources claim that even if Iran agrees this will not slow its nuclear program as they know how to operate the centrifuges in covert sites that the international observers cannot visit. “Israel does not need the observer’s reports. It knows exactly what the Iranian do,” one source said.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly says that Israel will now enable Iran to have military nuclear capability.
Israeli defence sources said that the updated intelligence proves that Iran does not have any intention to stop its military nuclear program. “It does not leave Israel any alternative but to get ready for a full scale military confrontation aimed at stopping the Iranian effort in time,” one of the sources said.
-The writer is an international roving correspondent of the publication
