BaltimoreJewishLife.com | Iranian Scientists Were Secretly Developing Nuclear Weapon Components

Yaakov Lappin is an Israel-based military affairs correspondent and analyst. He is the in-house analyst at the Miryam Institute; a research associate at the Alma Research and Education Center; and a research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University. He is a frequent guest commentator on international television news networks, including Sky News and i24 News. Lappin is the author of Virtual Caliphate: Exposing the Islamist State on the Internet. Follow him at: www.patreon.com/yaakovlappin.

(JNS) Following a directive from Israel’s political echelon, the Israel Defense Forces launched what it described as a preemptive, precise and combined offensive codenamed “Operation Rising Lion” in the early hours of Friday, targeting Iran’s nuclear program and other military targets across the Islamic Republic, as well as senior Iranian military and Islamic Republican Guards Corps commanders.

The decision was, according to a defense official, signed off on by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz, in coordination with IDF Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, on Monday, June 9. It marked the culmination of years of warnings and intelligence gathering, which, according to military officials, revealed that the Iranian regime had reached a point of no return in its quest for nuclear bombs.

In recent months, intelligence gathered by Israel contained evidence of the Iranian regime’s efforts to produce thousands of kilograms of enriched uranium, alongside decentralized and fortified enrichment underground facilities. This would enable the Iranian regime to enrich uranium to military-grade levels and obtain a nuclear weapon within a short period of time, according to Israeli defense officials.

Additionally, in recent years, and more so since the beginning of the war, concrete progress has been identified in the Iranian regime’s efforts to produce weapons components adapted for a nuclear bomb.

The IDF stated that the Iranian regime had been advancing a secret plan for the technological advancement of all parts of the development of a nuclear weapon, in a program involving senior nuclear scientists working secretly.

“In recent months, this program has accelerated significantly, bringing the regime significantly closer to obtaining a nuclear weapon,” the military stated.

A military official, discussing the operation, elaborated on the specific intelligence that made the preemptive strike a necessity at this time.