Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accuses Israel and US as tension over possible strike grows

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has accused Israel and the United States of seeking world support for a military strike on Iran nuclear facilities, ahead of the publication of a report expected to show the regime is making efforts to develop a warhead.

The Iranian president warned against a military attack on Iran and again insisted Tehran's atomic program was for peaceful purposes only.

"Iran's capabilities are increasing and it is progressing, and for that reason it has been able to compete in the world. Now Israel and the West, particularly, America, fear Iran's capabilities and role," Ahmadinejad told Egypt's Al-Akhbar newspaper.

"Therefore they are trying to gather international support for a military operation to stop (Iran's) role. The arrogant should know that Iran will not allow them to take any action against it," he said.

Ahmadinejad added that Washington wanted to "save the Zionist entity, but it will not be able to do so."




"This entity (Israel) can be compared to a kidney transplanted in a body that rejected it," he said. "Yes it will collapse and its end will be near."

Israeli President Shimon Peres

Ahmadinejad's diatribe against Israel, Iran's arch-foe, come after Israeli President Shimon Peres warned in a television interview on Saturday that an attack on Iran was becoming "more and more likely."

He followed this up in comments published on Sunday by the Israel Hayom daily, saying: "The possibility of a military attack against Iran is now closer to being applied than the application of a diplomatic option.

"We must stay calm and resist pressure so that we can consider every alternative," Peres said.




The spike in tension comes ahead of the release this week of a report into Iran's nuclear program by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which diplomats say will focus on the Islamic republic's alleged efforts to put fissile material in a warhead and developing missiles.

Diplomats in Vienna said the new report from the UN atomic watchdog, to be circulated among IAEA members Tuesday or Wednesday, will provide fresh evidence of Iran's nuclear weapons drive.

Previous IAEA assessments have centered on Iran's efforts to produce fissile material - uranium and plutonium - which can be put to peaceful uses like power generation, or be used to make a nuclear bomb.

But the intelligence update will focus on Iran's alleged efforts towards putting radioactive material in a warhead and developing missiles to deliver them to a target.

"The report is not going to include some sort of 'smoking gun'," one Western diplomat told AFP. "But it will be an extensive body of evidence that will be very hard for Iran to refute as forgery, as they have done in the past."

Ali Akbar Salehi

Iranian officials have already seen the IAEA's information, diplomats told AFP, and Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in comments published in Iran on Sunday that it was based on "counterfeit" claims.

"I believe that these documents lack authenticity. But if they insist, they should go ahead and publish. Better to face danger once than be always in danger," several Iranian dailies quoted Salehi as saying.

Salehi said on a visit to Libya last week that Washington had lost "wisdom and prudence" in dealing with international issues.

"They have lost rationality; we are prepared for the worst but we hope they will think twice before they put themselves on a collision course with Iran," he said.