Israeli Defense forces operating in Iran

The Jerusalem Post:

Israeli special forces are working in Iran to locate the precise sites at which Iran continues to enrich uranium, a British newspaper reported Sunday.

According to the Sunday Times article, the Israeli team is based in northern Iraq and has the support of the United States. READ MORE

Iran warned Sunday that it will will resume large-scale uranium enrichment if it is referred to the UN Security Council.

"If Iran's nuclear dossier is referred to the UN Security Council, (large scale) uranium enrichment will be resumed," Larijani told a packed news conference.

"If they (the US and its allies) want to use force, we will pursue our own path," he said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency will meet in Vienna, Austria, Monday to discuss Iran's nuclear program.

On Saturday, the US reportedly decided to present a 30-day ultimatum to the UN Security Council, calling on Iran to cease its nuclear development.

The Washington Post reported, however, that the US would not request further economic sanctions on Iran.

Iran and the European Union inched toward a compromise Friday that diplomats said would allow Tehran to run a scaled-down version of a uranium enrichment program with potential for misuse to develop atomic weapons.

While Iran insists that its nuclear program is not intended to produce weapons, the Israeli security establishment has taken steps to assure that Israel can defend itself against an Iranian attacks.

On Thursday, a senior IDF officer told The Jerusalem Post Israel's Arrow 2 anti-ballistic missile system is capable of intercepting and destroying any Iranian missiles, even were they to carry nuclear warheads.

While Iran is Israel's most serious strategic and existential threat, the country, he said confidently, was sufficiently protected by the Arrow, which plays a major role in maintaining Israel's protective envelope.

"We will shoot all of [Iran's missiles] down," he told the Post. "The Arrow knows how to intercept the Shihab missile."

Just last year that wasn't the case.

Appearing before the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Brig.-Gen. Ilan Bitton - head of Israel's Air Defense Forces - said that, while the Arrow was highly effective against the Scud missiles that make up most of Syria's arsenal, it "needed improvement" to face the challenges posed by Iran's Shihab-3.

Improvements were recently made to the Arrow, the officer said, explaining the new confidence, and it was now able to detect even a missile carrying a split warhead and armed with decoys meant to fool the anti-missile system.

Asked about the danger of the Arrow taking out a non-conventional or nuclear missile over Israel, the officer said that the incoming missile would be destroyed at such a high altitude that it would disperse and destroy its payload without causing any casualties.

"There is constant pressure to always stay a step ahead of our adversaries," the officer said. "They developed decoys on their missiles and we developed ways to detect the decoys and to be able to accurately strike the incoming threat."