Outgoing Mossad chief hints Israel behind attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities

Outgoing Mossad chief Yossi Cohen signalled that Israel was behind a series of attacks targeting Iran’s nuclear programme in an interview last week.

Analysts have long suspected Israeli involvement in the assassination of top Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh and an explosion at an underground centrifuge hall in Natanz, and Cohen’s comments are being read as confirmation.

After a ceremony marking the end of his five-and-a-half-year term, Cohen said the agency “struck deep in Iran’s heart” to reveal the Islamic Republic’s nuclear secrets and prevent Tehran from moving forward beyond certain “red lines”.

He also appeared to issue a warning to others working in Iran’s nuclear industry. “If the scientist is willing to change career and will not hurt us any more, then, yes, sometimes we offer them” a way out.

The interviewer, Ilana Dayan, made other sensational claims – not disputed – in a voiceover allegedly depicting how Israel smuggled explosives hidden in marble flooring into Natanz’s underground halls.

Asked where in Natanz he would take explosives, Cohen said: “To the cellar [where] the centrifuges used to spin”, adding: “It doesn’t look like it used to look.”

Dayan then said Cohen “made sure to supply to the Iranians the marble foundation on which the centrifuges are placed… As they install this foundation within the Natanz facility, they have no idea it already includes an enormous amount of explosives”.