UK and U.S. 'draw up joint plan to attack Iran'

(DailyMail).The UK and U.S. are drawing up plans to attack Iran amid growing tensions in the Middle East, it was claimed last night.Barack Obama and David Cameron are preparing for war after reports that Iran now has enough enriched uranium for four nuclear weapons.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s hardline regime in Tehran has been linked to three assassination plots on foreign soil, according to senior officials in Whitehall.Iran has come sharply back into focus following the end of the Libya conflict.And the unrest has been inflamed by sabre-rattling from top politicians in Israel.Yesterday it was revealed that Tel Aviv had successfully test-fired a rocket capable of carrying a nuclear warhead which could strike Iran.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak are reportedly agitating for a pre-emptive attack against the Islamic stateThe UK would be likely to agree to any U.S. decision to invade, even though the Ministry of Defence are stretched to breaking point by swingeing budget cuts and wars in Afghanistan and Libya.An MoD spokesman said: ‘The British government believes that a dual track strategy of pressure and engagement is the best approach to address the threat from Iran’s nuclear programme and avoid regional conflict.

‘We want a negotiated solution – but all options should be kept on the table.’A special unit at the MoD has been instructed to work out the UK's strategy if the Army should invade Iran.War planners will look at potential deployments of Royal Navy ships and submarines equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles and RAF fighter jets armed with precision-guided Paveway IV and Brimstone bombs and missiles, surveillance planes and air-to-air refuelling.

Senior Whitehall figures have expressed alarm that Iran appeared ‘newly aggressive – and we are not quite sure why’. Western intelligence has also suggested that Iran is hiding the material for a covert nuclear weapons programme in fortified bunkers which cannot be reached by conventional missiles.

Barack Obama is understood to have no wish to attack Iran in the run-up to the White House elections next year. But Washington may be pressured by Israel if Iran’s nuclear programme is not curtailed.Mr Netanyahu is apparently also lobbying Cabinet members for a military strike, despite the likelihood it would draw a retaliation from Iran.

But a report by the UN's nuclear watchdog due to be published next week will provide fresh evidence of Iran's activity, bringing the Middle East a step closer to another devastating conflict.It is the latest of a series of quarterly bulletins on Iran's arms programme, but will contain an unprecedented level of detail on research and experiments carried out in recent years.

It comes as a draft report revealed China is continuing to provide advanced missiles and other conventional arms to Iran, in violation of UN sanctions against the regime.

The report, from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, revealed China sold $312million of arms to Iran, second only to Russia.

It also noted that after Russia began cutting back arms transfers to Iran in 2008, China became the largest arms supplier to the Iranian military.Most of the weapons transfers involved sales of Chinese anti-ship cruise missiles, including C-802 missiles that China promised the U.S. in 1997 would not be exported to Iran.

The report says: 'Because of the relatively short range of these missiles, China's provision of them to Iran does not violate the Iran, North Korea and Syria Non-proliferation Act of 2006, which seeks to prevent the transfer of only those missiles that can carry a 500kg warhead more than 300km.

'It is possible, however, that these transactions violate the Iran Freedom Support Act, or the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act of 2010, which both use the ambiguous term "advanced conventional weapons."

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