Ex-Mossad chief signals Israel attacked Iran nuclear assets
Associated PressDUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The outgoing chief of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service has offered the closest acknowledgment yet his country was behind recent attacks targeting Iran’s nuclear program and a military scientist. The comments by Yossi Cohen, speaking to Israel’s Channel 12 investigative program “Uvda” in a segment aired Thursday night, offered an extraordinary debriefing by the head of the typically secretive agency in what appears to be the final days of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rule. Asked by the interviewer if the scientists understood the implications if they didn’t stop, Cohen said: “They see their friends.” They also talked about Israel’s operation seizing archival documents from Iran’s military nuclear program. Iran has repeatedly complained about Israel’s attacks, with Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA Kazem Gharibabadi warning as recently as Thursday that the incidents “not only will be responded to decisively, but also certainly leave no option for Iran but to reconsider its transparency measures and cooperation policy.” Shahrokh Nazemi, a spokesman for Iran’s mission to the United Nations, told The Associated Press early Saturday that Cohen’s comments reflected a long-running pattern of “criminal” sabotage against Tehran that includes the Stuxnet computer virus attack on Natanz over a decade ago.