WarSclerotic

A Saegheh missile is fired from its launch vehicle in Iran (pic: Reuters)

AFTER months in the shadows the undercover war on Iran’s nuclear menace has exploded into action.

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Sleeper agents in Tehran received coded signals and moved on their targets.

Their weapons were bombs made from household substances.

The result was more than a dozen fire-bomb attacks on the homes and offices of some of Iran’s leading nuclear scientists.

The message was clear. Agents working for Israel’s Mossad were telling Tehran: “Stop the nuclear weapons programme. We know where your key people are.”

The attacks would have been carried out not by Israelis but Iranian ­dissidents, ­probably trained by Mossad. Today the Mirror ­spotlights the secret war against Iran that has been going on for months.

Last week’s bombings were in response to threats by Tehran against Israel and the state-sponsored storming of the British embassy by demonstrators in Tehran.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the Arak heavy-water project A mob screaming “death to England” scaled ­perimeter walls. The offices were ransacked and six staff are believed to have been held captive.

They were later released, badly shaken. The Foreign Office was forced to ­evacuate embassy buildings and the last of the 24 officials left on Friday. Iranian diplomats in Lon­­don were then booted out.

Many of the attackers held aloft pictures of their hero Qassem Suleimani, thought to have ordered the outrage. He is a ­religious fanatic and has headed Iran’s 15,000-strong paramilitary Quds Force for 10 years.

Suleimani uses Quds to conduct “special operations” outside Iran, which makes it a vehicle for exporting terror internationally.

Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran

MI5 is on the alert for Quds retaliation here to any strike on Iran because of Britain’s close relationship with the US. Behind the tension is the rogue state’s race to make nuclear weapons. Only yesterday Tehran claimed it had shot down a US unmanned RQ-170 spy plane in the east of the country.

Within a fortnight we may see an all-out American air strike on a dozen key targets in the Islamic republic.

There have been suspected Israeli and US-sponsored assassinations in the past two years that have rattled the Tehran regime and bred paranoia.

Last month Iran’s Islamic ­Revolutionary Guard buried one of the founders of its nuclear programme, Maj Gen Hassan Moghaddam. He died with 16 others in a mysterious explosion – assassinated by Israeli agents, it is rumoured.

Uranium Conversion Facility in Isfahan, Iran

In July an Iranian physicist thought to have been involved in the country’s nuclear programme was shot dead by a motorcyclist in Tehran.

Darioush Rezaie, 35, was killed in front of his child’s nursery in Tehran. His wife was wounded in the attack.

A senior western intelligence source told the Mirror: “Every day American military strategists go through the different scenarios being ­developed for an all-out strike against Iran. But the offensive is already happening.

“The fire bombs could be a prelude to a much more serious air strike.

A suspected uranium-enrichment facility near Qom, Iran

“The countdown to Iran having ­credible nuclear weapons is very real and Israel is growing impatient.”

Diplomatic sources in London said the withdrawal of British and other western diplomatic missions in Tehran last week paved the way for an attack on Iran.

Iranian Defence Minister General Ahmad Vahidi has warned that Israel will come under attack from 150,000 missiles if it targets Tehran with bombs.

And Iran’s Revolutionary Guard warned it will target Nato’s missile defence shield in Turkey.

According to our sources, if the strike on Iran does take place, it will be US-led. British signals operators are likely to help monitor Iranian communications from a listening station in the Mediterranean. An ­intelligence source revealed: “There are UK experts nearer the region in places such as Cyprus who may assist in ­intercepting communications.

“And British warships will, of course, be in the Indian ocean – ostensibly helping the anti-piracy mission – but they will be able to provide aid.”

Almost hourly briefings are taking place between America’s most senior war ­planners in a bomb-proof bunker at US Central Command, called CentCom, in Tampa, Florida.

CentCom also has an office at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, in the Gulf, where staff help with the ­planning of an attack.

A new generation of super accurate missiles could be used to destroy bunkers up to 200ft underground. The US’s Massive Ordnance Penetrator, dubbed the Big Blu, was designed for targets in Iran.

B-2 Spirit stealth bombers will deploy the six-metre GPS-guided rocket, fitted with 2.5 tons of explosives.

They will be used to smash open bunkers and tunnels suspected of containing weapons of mass ­destruction. The £700million bombers are the most costly warplanes the world has seen.

They would fly a 13,000-mile-plus round trip to Iran from Whiteman air force base in Missouri or 12,500 miles there and back from Andersen US Bomber Forward Operating Base on the Pacific Island of Guam. If President Obama gives the go-ahead for a strike, Tomahawk cruise missiles are likely to be fired by US submarines in the Indian Ocean. They would slam into more than a dozen key targets.

Hellfire missiles unleashed by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles flying 40,000ft above Iran would target its nuclear labs in precision attacks.

It is not thought the US planners have politicians such as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in their sights.

Destabilising the state in that way could create worse problems.

Israel is committed to stopping Iran’s nuclear weapons programme but only the US has the resources to wipe out the suspect sites.

COMPLEX

Barack Obama knows the longer he waits to give the go-ahead the greater the chances that Israel would launch an attack – with the possibility that they might not complete the job.

A strike on Iran would be the most complex ever undertaken by the US air force. Iran’s ground-to-air missile defence system is one of the most sophisticated in the world so the planners will want to minimise the number of US pilots flying over the country.

A downed pilot who became a hostage would be a massive political headache.

The desire from the Pentagon is for there to be no US boots on the ground. A land conflict with Iran is close to unthinkable, especially as Tehran can mobilise at least a million troops.

But those troops – and Iran’s leaders – know that the clock is ticking.