Former head of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, Yossi Cohen, said on Tuesday that the agency's spies visited Iran's Fordow nuclear facility "many times" in the past to better understand it.
اضافة اعلان
In June of last year, Israel launched a war against its arch-rival, Iran, declaring its objective to be the weakening of Tehran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs, which it stated posed an "existential threat."
The U.S. military briefly joined Israel during the 12-day conflict, using its advanced aircraft to bomb three Iranian nuclear facilities in Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan.
Israeli media quoted Cohen, who headed Mossad between 2015 and 2021, as saying during a local government conference on Tuesday: "We walked around the Fordow nuclear site many times to understand it."
Cohen did not clarify precisely when those visits took place or who conducted them.
According to Israeli media, Cohen added that "the American bombing of the site fulfilled all my dreams."
The Iranian nuclear program has long been a key point of contention between Tehran and the West, including during negotiations aimed at ending the current war launched by Israel and the United States on Iran in February.
Tehran denies seeking to produce a nuclear bomb.
Cohen's name was linked to the 2020 Israeli assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, although Israel never commented on the incident.
After his term leading the agency ended, Cohen remained a prominent public figure, giving frequent interviews to Israeli media and repeatedly hinting at the possibility of entering politics, though he has not done so to date.
(Agencies)
