by Gordon Thomas*

Deep-cover Mossad agents in Iran have discovered the regime is rushing to complete the development of a giant missile. It has a range of 2,200 miles that would bring London and other European cities in range and a 1.2 ton nuclear payload that would leave any city a wasteland. The missile is an updated version of the North Korean Taepodong-1 rocket.
Based on Russian technology and sold to North Korea in 2003 in a secret arms deal that MI6 uncovered last month, the rocket’s ballistic technology is among the most sophisticated in the world.

Nuclear proliferation expert Al Venter said: “This confirms why Tony Blair issued his blunt warning of possible military action. The stakes are growing in the confrontation between Iran’s Islamic regime and the West. Britain and Europe are now in the firing line”.

Last week the Mossad agents discovered that only days before President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Israel “must be wiped off the map”, a fleet of giant flying tankers from North Korea arrived in Iran carrying liquid propellant to drive its 8 Shahab-3 missiles. The fuel came from North Korea’s state-owned Chongchengong Arms Corporation.

Each rocket has a range of 800 miles, capable of hitting Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities. The Mossad agents have obtained an Iranian target-selection map that shows the prime target would be Dimona, Israel’s own nuclear arsenal in the Negev desert. It stores over 200 nuclear weapons.

The target map, along with details of the sites where the long range Taepodong rocket is being rushed into operation, was passed to MI6. They will form a briefing paper by John Scarlett for Tony Blair this week.

Until now the Iranian sites have remained secret. But the threat they pose to Britain and Europe is so serious that Mossad has revealed the details.

• Darkhovin. South of the city of Ahvaz, the facility is heavily fortified with two battalions of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard. It employs 3,000 scientists and engineers. Most of their work is underground building rocket motors.

• Mu-allimn Kalayeh. Sited in the mountains near Qasvin, its uranium enrichment gas centrifuges produce the enriched weapons-grade material for warheads.

• Saghand is in the remote desert east of Tehran. It employs 800 technicians building the casings for the Taepodong rockets.

• Nekka, near the Caspian Sea. Buried underground, the complex employs over a thousand scientists. Its facilities include a Neutron Source Reactor purchased from North Korea.
• Busher. Situated on the Persian Gulf and severely damaged in Iran’s war with Iraq, the site has been updated under the guidance of 150 Russian technicians. It has a staff of 1,500 and is now a key part of the country’s rocket-building programme.

• Esfahan. Once the city of carpet weavers, it now houses a facility producing uranium hexaflouride (UF6) needed for centrifuges in order to create a nuclear weapon. Over 2,000 scientists and technicians are employed there.

Last Thursday, hours after Iran’s president had made his inflammatory demand to see Israel destroyed, the heads of its defence forces met under the chair of the Mossad chief, Meir Dagan, to review plans to deal with the threat. Before them they had the Mossad reports from Iran.

Israel’s navy chief said the country’s three Dolphin-class nuclear submarines already on standby in the Straits of Hormuz had been brought to one level below launch to fire their guided missiles into predetermined Iranian rocket sites. The air force was at “take-off readiness” to launch air strikes. The Sholdag unit, modelled on the SAS, was ready to launch an aerial assault on the prime nuclear target of Natanz where the Taepodong-1 rockets were being assembled.

A replica of the site had been constructed in the Negev Desert on which the commandoes had trained. The commandoes would be accompanied by Alsatian dogs from the Oketz unit. Each dog would, in the minutes before the attack, have packs of explosives strapped to their bodies.

Trained to locate underground tunnels, the dogs would enter them and their explosives would be detonated by remote control by their handlers. Simultaneously F-15 bombers would drop bunker-busting bombs. Even while the smoke was clearing, the commandoes would carry out a “kill or be killed” room by room assault on all surviving buildings in Natanz.

* Gordon Thomas is the author of Gideon’s Spies: Mossad’s Secret Warriors.