Saudi Arabia has conducted tests to stand down its air defences to enable
Israeli jets to make a bombing raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities, The
Times can reveal.
In the week that the UN Security Council imposed a new round of
sanctions on
Tehran, defence sources in the Gulf say that Riyadh has agreed to allow
Israel to use a narrow corridor of its airspace in the north of the
country
to shorten the distance for a bombing run on Iran.
To ensure the Israeli bombers pass unmolested, Riyadh has carried out
tests to
make certain its own jets are not scrambled and missile defence systems
not
activated. Once the Israelis are through, the kingdom’s air defences
will
return to full alert.
Sources in Saudi Arabia say it is common knowledge within defence
circles in
the kingdom that an. arrangement is in place if Israel decides to launch
the
raid. Despite the tension between the two governments, they share a
mutual
loathing of the regime in Tehran and a common fear of Iran’s nuclear
ambitions. “We all know this. We will let them [the Israelis] through
and
see nothing,” said one.
The four main targets for any raid on Iran would be the uranium
enrichment
facilities at Natanz and Qom, the gas storage development at Isfahan and
the
heavy-water reactor at Arak. Secondary targets include the lightwater
reactor at Bushehr, which could produce weapons-grade plutonium when
complete.
The targets lie as far as 1,400 miles (2,250km) from Israel; the outer
limits
of their bombers’ range, even with aerial refuelling. An open corridor
across northern Saudi Arabia would significantly shorten the distance.
An
airstrike would involve multiple waves of bombers, possibly crossing
Jordan,
northern Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Aircraft attacking Bushehr, on the Gulf
coast, could swing beneath Kuwait to strike from the southwest.
Passing over Iraq would require at least tacit agreement to the raid
from
Washington. So far, the Obama Administration has refused to give its
approval as it pursues a diplomatic solution to curbing Iran’s nuclear
ambitions. Military analysts say Israel has held back only because of
this
failure to secure consensus from America and Arab states. Military
analysts
doubt that an airstrike alone would be sufficient to knock out the key
nuclear facilities, which are heavily fortified and deep underground or
within mountains. However, if the latest sanctions prove ineffective the
pressure from the Israelis on Washington to approve military action will
intensify. Iran vowed to continue enriching uranium after the UN
Security
Council imposed its toughest sanctions yet in an effort to halt the
Islamic
Republic’s nuclear programme, which Tehran claims is intended for civil
energy purposes only. President Ahmadinejad has described the UN
resolution
as “a used handkerchief, which should be thrown in the dustbin”.
Israeli officials refused to comment yesterday on details for a raid on
Iran,
which the Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has refused to rule out.
Questioned on the option of a Saudi flight path for Israeli bombers,
Aharaon
Zeevi Farkash, who headed military intelligence until 2006 and has been
involved in war games simulating a strike on Iran, said: “I know that
Saudi
Arabia is even more afraid than Israel of an Iranian nuclear capacity.”
In 2007 Israel was reported to have used Turkish air space to attack a
suspected nuclear reactor being built by Iran’s main regional ally,
Syria.
Although Turkey publicly protested against the “violation” of its air
space,
it is thought to have turned a blind eye in what many saw as a dry run
for a
strike on Iran’s far more substantial — and better-defended — nuclear
sites..
Israeli intelligence experts say that Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan are
at
least as worried as themselves and the West about an Iranian nuclear
arsenal.Israel has sent missile-class warships and at least one
submarine
capable of launching a nuclear warhead through the Suez Canal for
deployment
in the Red Sea within the past year, as both a warning to Iran and in
anticipation of a possible strike. Israeli newspapers reported last year
that high-ranking officials, including the former Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert, have met their Saudi Arabian counterparts to discuss the Iranian
issue. It was also reported that Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad, met
Saudi
intelligence officials last year to gain assurances that Riyadh would
turn a
blind eye to Israeli jets violating Saudi airspace during the bombing
run.
Both governments have denied the reports
