Sharon’s mini-cabinet approved the plans to strike the Iranian nuclear installations. (Reuters)

CAIRO, March 13, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Israel has crafted and approved secret plans to launch a combined air and ground attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities, a leading British newspaper reported on Sunday, March 13.

The Israeli elite Shaldag (Kingfisher) commando unit has used a mock-up of the Iranian Natanz uranium enrichment plant in the desert to practice an attack on the Iranian nuclear installations, according to The Sunday Times.

The Israeli tactics incorporate launching raids and air strikes by F-15 jets, using bunker-busting bombs to destroy the Iranian underground facilities, said the British paper.

The plans were approved by Israeli Prime Minster Ariel Sharon’s mini-cabinet last month during a meeting in Sharon's ranch in the Negev desert, said the Times.

They have also been discussed with American officials who said they would not object to the strike if international diplomatic efforts with Tehran on its nuclear program failed, the daily said.

“If all efforts to persuade Iran to drop its plans to produce nuclear weapons should fail, the US administration will authorize Israel to attack,” it quoted an Israeli security source as saying.

The United States and its main Mideast alley Israel accuse Iran of having a secret program to manufacture nuclear weapons.

Iran repeatedly refuted the allegations and maintain the program is designed to generate electricity.

Mohammad El-Baradie, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog, underlined in a recent interview that there was no evidence Iran was developing nuclear weapons.

Iran has frozen nuclear enrichment while it tries to reach a negotiated settlement on its nuclear program with Britain, France and Germany.

Tehran wants trade, technology and security aid and guarantees in return for taking steps to reassure the international community that its nuclear program is strictly peaceful.

US State Secretary Condoleezza Rice said on Friday, March 11, that Washington would drop objections to Iran's joining the World Trade Organization, in an initiative aimed at helping the European diplomatic drive.

The same day, Vice President Dick Cheney said that Iran would face “stronger action” if it failed to positively comply with the international efforts.

Last week, US officials did not rule out a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities by Israeli or American forces if the issue of the Iranian nuclear program hit deadlocked.

Well-placed Iranian sources told the London-based Arabic language daily Al-Hayat on February 6, that Israeli intelligence services (Mossad) had set up – in cooperation with US occupation troops -- radars and spying devices near the southern Iraqi city of Basra to monitor Iranian military and security activities.

A former high-level intelligence official had told The New Yorker veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh that an American commando task force had penetrated Iran from Afghanistan to pinpoint targets for possible air strikes.

Israel is the only country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons, though it has not confirmed or denied their existence.

Israeli warplanes bombed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in a raid in 1981.