UNITED NATIONS – As the U.N. Security Council prepares to receive a critical report on Iran’s illicit nuclear program on Friday, the mullah regime has taken delivery of missile technology that can extend the range of its warheads to reach most of Europe, as well as parts of Russia and China, an Israeli intelligence official said Thursday.

The chief of the Israeli army’s military intelligence unit, Brigadier General Amos Yadlin, said Iran has already received the first shipment of surface-to-surface missiles that were purchased as part of a comprehensive deal with North Korea. The range of the BM-25 Korean missiles is 1,550 miles, and they are capable of carrying nuclear warheads, according to Ha’aretz, which first reported on General Yadlin’s warning.

The Security Council is awaiting the arrival of a report by the nuclear watchdog chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, which is expected to be critical of Iran. Diplomats at the United Nations said yesterday that the new missile threat could add weight to arguments of European and American officials who are attempting to persuade their colleagues from China and Russia not to veto a resolution that would set in motion punitive measures against Iran’s defiant leaders.

“What we do know about Iran’s ballistic missiles program is they have been working very hard with North Korea and others to extend their range and accuracy, and that’s a concern,” the American ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, told The New York Sun.

The council asked the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Mr. ElBaradei last month to report on whether Iran has fulfilled four of its demands, including ending Tehran’s domestic uranium enrichment program. Next Wednesday the council is scheduled to begin deliberating on the matter.

“In order to be credible, the Security Council, of course, has to act,” Secretary of State Rice said yesterday in Sofia, Bulgaria, where she attended a NATO meeting. The council “is the primary and most important institution for the maintenance of peace and stability and security, and it cannot have its will and its word simply ignored by a member state,” she said, referring to Iran.

Mr. ElBaradei is expected to note that Iran has not fulfilled council demands like freezing its uranium enriching program. “We have obtained the technology for producing nuclear fuel,” President Ahmadinejad said yesterday in Tehran. “No one can take it away from our nation.”

American and European officials said earlier this week that as soon as the IAEA report arrives, they will start pressing for a Security Council resolution under Chapter 7 of the U.N. charter, which allows for enforceable measures, including sanctions.

Briefing Turtle Bay correspondents, Iran’s U.N. ambassador, Javad Zarif, said yesterday that the council has no right to make demands on his country’s nuclear program. “If the Security Council decides to take decisions that are not within its competence, then Iran does not feel obliged to obey,” he said.

Iran claims its nuclear program is designed for peaceful purposes, satisfying its growing energy needs. But an activist with the organization that exposed components of Iran’s secret nuclear program, the National Council of Resistance, Reza Alizadeh, told the Sun yesterday that Iran has enough oil for its energy needs, and that it is “spending more on getting this nuclear program than saving from the energy it could produce.”

Mr. Zarif told reporters that Iran has the right under international treaties to develop a defensive missile program. While technically true, the nuclear threat that until now was portrayed as mostly directed at Israel is now felt much beyond its borders.

“We have long said that the Iranian challenge should not just concern Israel but that it is a threat to the world’s peace and security,” Israel’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Daniel Carmon, said.

Israel boosted the alert levels of its Arrow-2 ballistic missile defense system, according to the Jerusalem Post.

During a lecture at a memorial event for Israel’s sixth president, Chaim Herzog, Mr. Yadlin said yesterday that some of the Korean BM-25 missiles, with ranges of up to 1,550 miles and capable of carrying nuclear warheads, have already reached Iran as part of the missile deal.

His warning was first reported yesterday by Ha’aretz’s respected military analyst, Haim Schiff, who wrote that the BM-25 is based on outdated technology of the Russian SSm6, a missile launched from submarines. Once transferred by the Soviet Union to North Korea, the out-of-date technology was transformed, allowing the new missile to be launched from land vehicles. In the past, Iran has used North Korean technology as a prototype for its homegrown missile building program.

The Korean missile’s liquid fuel is more up to date than fuel used by Iran’s current longest-range missile, the Shahab-3, which has a range of 800 miles and can reach Israel. The new warhead could reach European capitals, western Russia, western China, and major Middle Eastern capitals.

“We do not accept the emergence of a new nuclear state in the Middle East,” Egypt’s ambassador to the United Nations, Maged Abdelaziz, told the Sun. He said however, that his country would not try to arm itself with nuclear weapons if Iran does. Israel should end its nuclear weapon program as well, he said, to avoid a “double standard.”

Israel has said it will open its installation to international inspection once all the countries in the region sign a peace treaty with the Jewish state and end their threat against it. Mr. Ahmadinejad has announced his intention of wiping Israel “off the map.”