Iran is racing to dig a network of tunnels and upgrade its air defences to protect its nuclear facilities from possible attacks by America or Israel, it was reported yesterday.
Israel this week issued thinly-veiled warnings that it has drawn up plans for pre-emptive strikes against Iran. The United States insists it will not take the military option "off the table".
Seeking to avoid a repeat of Israel's 1981 air raid on Osiraq, Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued orders for the underground complexes to be completed by the beginning of July, Jane's Defence Weekly reported.
It said the network of facilities deep underground or in the sides of mountains has been built with help from North Korean designers.
Atomic inspectors discovered in 2003 that Iran was building a vast underground complex to enrich uranium near the town of Natanz.
But other facilities, such as the uranium conversion plant in Isfahan, are still above ground and exposed to attack.
Iran insists it only seeks to develop a nuclear industry for "peaceful" purposes, but the West is convinced it is trying to build nuclear weapons.
Teheran provoked an international crisis earlier this month when it restarted the enrichment programme, under the guise of "research", after it had been frozen for two years during negotiations with European countries.
At an emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna next week, western countries will seek to report Teheran to the United Nations for possible sanctions. |