Mossad Chief Warns That War With Iran Is Far From Over

The director of the Israeli Mossad is raising concerns that the Islamic Republic is rebuilding its nuclear and missile capabilities. Renewed war could also erupt in response to direct attacks on Israel or to Bondi Beach-like terrorism abroad. Tehran “has not abandoned its aspiration to destroy the State of Israel,” Israel’s external intelligence agency’s chief, David Barnea, said Tuesday night in a rare public appearance. Mr. Barnea, who will end his stint at the Mossad helm in March, spoke at the Israeli president’s residence during an award ceremony for agents. The loss of the bulk of Tehran’s enrichment capabilities and stockpiles, as well as top nuclear scientists in the Mossad’s Operation Narnia, humiliated the Iranian leadership, which is now seeking revenge. The mullahs are eagerly attempting to renew their nuclear arms pursuit and, with help from Russia and Communist China, also replenish their ballistic missile arsenal.“America and Israel’s military success against Iran’s nuclear sites make it likely that the next round of fighting will be driven by the conventional military balance, and Iran’s conventional strike assets, like ballistic missiles,” a Tehran watcher at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Behnam Ben Taleblu, tells the Sun. The Iranians are also endlessly plotting to hit Israeli and Jewish targets abroad, and are even possibly tied to the Bondi Beach terrorism. “No direct link has been established yet, but there are pieces of circumstantial evidence,” a veteran Jerusalem-based Farsi broadcaster, Menashe Amir, tells the Sun. He points, for one, to a cryptic posting a day before the attack on Jews at Sydney.An X account holder, Ahmad Ghadiri Abyaneh, cited Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei’s call for “spiritual defense” against Hanukkah. “Starting tomorrow,” Mr. Abyaneh wrote, “the Jewish Hanukkah celebrations will begin as a platform for holding satanic rituals by Masonic circles, the individual, familial, and social harmful effects of which will become apparent in faith-based communities,”Mr. Abayaneh’s father, Mohammad-Hassan Ghadiri Abyaneh, was the Iranian ambassador to Canberra before the Australian foreign ministry expelled him in August, following two attacks against Jewish targets at Sydney and Melbourne. “Iran conspires with other Islamist groups to hurt Israel and Jewish communities in Australia and elsewhere,” Mr. Amir says. The Mossad chief, Mr. Barnea, also hinted in his speech at a possible Iranian connection to the Sydney attack. “We will find the perpetrators and their Iranian dispatchers, and also the jihadists, wherever they flee, and we will hold them to account,” he said. “Justice will be done and seen to be done. They know this well. Light will overcome darkness.”Much of Mr. Barnea’s speech, though, was about preventing Iran’s rearming. The Ayatollahs, he said, “woke up in a moment to discover that Iran is exposed and thoroughly penetrated,” but “the idea of continuing to develop a nuclear bomb still beats in their hearts. We bear responsibility to ensure that the nuclear project, which has been severely damaged in close cooperation with the Americans, will never be operated.”While President Trump insists that the nuclear capabilities have been “obliterated” in the June joint Israeli-American strikes, nevertheless said last week that he is aware of Iran’s attempts to reinstate its program. Yet, he added, “if they do want to come back, and they want to come back without a deal, then we’re going to obliterate that one, too.”Mr. Barnea warned against deals with Iran. “We did not, and will not, allow a bad agreement to materialize,” he said, noting that even when Iran made nuclear pacts with the West, it continued uranium enrichment to “levels with no explanation other than its desire for a military nuclear capability.” Tehran would break agreements at the moment of its choosing, he added. Ballistic missiles and drones are “the one element of Iran’s deterrent architecture that actually worked” in the 12-day war, Mr. Ben Taleblu says. In June Israel destroyed half of Iran’s missile plants, but new sites now manufacture larger and more accurate ones. Communist China is helping with rocket fuel, while Russia assists in replenishing air defenses that Israel destroyed in the early hours of the war.“The 12-day war was one of the bravest and most successful efforts in the history of wars,” Mr. Amir says. Mr. Barnea, whose Mossad had a huge role in that war, is now warning that the war is far from over.

Mossad Chief Warns That War With Iran Is Far From Over

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