from BBC news-
Page last updated at 21:50 GMT, Friday, 20 June 2008 22:50 UK
Israelis 'rehearse Iran attack'
An Israeli F16C fighter, July 2006
More than 100 Israeli F16 and F15 jets were involved in the exercise.
Israel has carried out an exercise that appears to have been a rehearsal for an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, US officials have told the New
York Times.
More than 100 Israeli fighter jets took part in manoeuvres over the eastern Mediterranean and over Greece in the first week of June, US officials
said.
Iran insists its programme is peaceful, but Israel sees Iran's development of the technology as a serious threat.
Tehran is defying a demand from the UN that it stop the enrichment of uranium.
The UN Security Council approved a third round of sanctions against Iran over the issue in March 2008.
The Israeli exercise, it seems, was designed to send a message to Tehran that Israel has the power and will to attack if it thought Iran was close to
getting a nuclear weapon, the BBC's Jeremy Bowen reports.
None of what has been said and done so far means an attack on Iran is coming and talk of one faded out after US intelligence reported at the end of
2007 that Iran had given up its nuclear weapons programme, he notes.
But now it is back and that is significant, our Middle East Editor says.
Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the UN's nuclear watchdog, said an attack would put Iran on a "crash course" to building nuclear weapons.
"A military strike, in my opinion, would be worse than anything possible - it would turn the region into a fireball," he told Al Arabiya television
in an interview.
"It would make me unable to continue my work," he said.
Several US officials briefing the New York Times said the exercise was intended to demonstrate the seriousness of Israel's concern over Iran's
nuclear activities, and its willingness to act unilaterally.
The US state department would not comment on the Israeli exercise.
Full report -
news.bbc.co.uk...
