Next US Target is Iran

18/01/2005| IslamWeb

Teams of US commandos have been operating inside Iran since last summer, selecting suspected weapons sites for possible air strikes. The New Yorker's award-winning reporter Seymour Hersh wrote yesterday that he was repeatedly told by US intelligence and military sources that "the next strategic target was Iran". President George W Bush has signed a series of orders authorising commando groups to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as 10 nations in the Middle East and South Asia, the magazine said. The Bush administration has been conducting secret spying missions inside Iran at least since mid-2004, gathering intelligence on declared and suspected nuclear, chemical and missile sites, it said. "The goal is to identify and isolate three dozen, and perhaps more, such targets that could be destroyed by precision strikes and short-term commando raids," Hersh wrote. "This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign," a former high-level government intelligence official told the magazine. Hersh last year exposed the extent of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Pentagon sources said international allies are helping with its Iran plans. Israeli consultants are helping develop potential weapons targets inside Iran. Pakistan is also involved. However, Islamabad swiftly denied the report as pure conjecture. "There is no such collaboration," said foreign ministry spokesman Masood Khan.