Iran warns it will retaliate if Israel launches attack

Tehran/Cairo/Kuwait City: The deputy commander of Iran's air force said yesterday that plans have been drawn up to bomb Israel if the Jewish state attacks Iran, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

"We have drawn up a plan to strike back at Israel with our bombers if this regime [Israel] makes a silly mistake," deputy air force chief, General Mohammad Alavi was quoted as telling Fars in an interview.

The Fars news agency confirmed the quotes when contacted but would not provide a tape of the interview. The Iranian Air Force, for its part, had no immediate comment on the interview.

The announcement comes amid rising tensions in the region with the United States calling for a new round of UN sanctions against Iran over its disputed nuclear programme and Israeli planes having recently overflown Iranian ally Syria's territory.

Egypt yesterday rejected military action against Iran over its nuclear programme, as Cairo works toward restoring ties with the Shiite state, frozen since 1980. "Egypt completely disagrees with resolving the Iranian nuclear issue through violence or a military act," Foreign Minister Ahmad Abul Geit told reporters.

Peaceful solution

Egypt supports "a peaceful solution through negotiations which would guarantee Iran's right to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, without allowing nuclear proliferation in the Middle East," he said.

Abul Geit's comments come after French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner on Sunday said the world had to "prepare for the worst" and characterised the worst as "war" over Iran's contested nuclear programme.

US ally Kuwait called on neighbouring Iran yesterday to show full cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency over its disputed nuclear programme.

"We believe in the importance of reaching a peaceful solution, but at the same time we call on the Iranian officials to extend full cooperation with the IAEA," Emir Shaikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah was quoted by the official KUNA news agency as saying.

Shaikh Sabah also called to make the Gulf and the whole Middle East region "free of weapons of mass destruction," although he said all countries had the right to possess nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

In July, the oil-rich emirate said it opposed any military strike against Tehran, and called for a negotiated settlement of the standoff over Tehran's nuclear programme.

Western powers are to meet in Washington tomorrow to discuss a new UN Security Council sanctions resolution in the standoff amid talk of possible military strikes against Iran.

The United States has said it would prefer to resolve the standoff diplomatically but has not ruled out military action.

Iran consistently denies it is trying to build nuclear weapons and says it merely wants to generate energy.