MIDDLE EAST:THE ISRAELI military would not make any specific comment yesterday about a report that it had recently carried out extensive aerial manoeuvres that appeared to be a rehearsal for an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, but Israeli military experts said it was "logical" that the air force would be training for such a mission.
In its report, the New York Timesquoted US officials saying that the aerial manoeuvres included more than 100 F-16 and F-15 fighter jets and were conducted over the eastern Mediterranean and over Greece in the first week of June.
The report also quoted the unnamed officials saying that helicopters and refuelling tankers were involved in the drill and that they had flown more than 900 miles - more or less the distance between Israel and Iran's uranium enrichment plant at Natanz.
The Israel Defense Forces refused to discuss the report. "The Israeli Air Force regularly trains for various missions in order to confront and meet the challenges posed by the threats facing Israel," it said in a statement.
The New York Timesquoted an unnamed Pentagon official saying that the goal of the exercise was not only to practise for a possible strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, but was also meant to send a message to the United States and other countries that Israel was ready to take military action if sanctions and other diplomatic efforts failed to prevent Iran from producing the enriched uranium required for nuclear weapons.
"They wanted us to know, they wanted the Europeans to know, and they wanted the Iranians to know," the Pentagon official was quoted as saying.
Israeli defence experts yesterday said they did not know whether an exercise had been conducted, but that such exercises were consistent with Israel's policy of keeping the military option on the table if diplomatic efforts do not persuade Tehran to abandon its nuclear programme. "I have no idea if this exercise took place or not, but I expect exercises like this to take place," said Ephraim Kam, the deputy director of the Tel Aviv-based Institute For National Security Studies and a former officer in Israeli military intelligence.
Earlier this month, deputy prime minister Shaul Mofaz, a former defence minister, said that if Iran "continues with its programme for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack". At the time, officials said that Mr Mofaz's comments did not reflect government policy.
But with Iran's nuclear facilities spread around the country and also well protected, experts have raised questions about Israel's ability to conduct the kind of strike that would be needed to cripple the country's nuclear programme.
Israel has carried out attacks when it feared an Arab state was developing nuclear weapons. In 1981, Israeli warplanes destroyed a nuclear plant built by Saddam Hussein, and last September Israel bombed a structure in Syria that US officials later said contained a nuclear reactor.