Israeli Strike in Iran: Cyber-attack, Ballistic Missiles

What will an Israeli strike on Iran look like? American blogger Richard Silverstein on Wednesday published what he claimed is an Israeli briefing document outlining Israel’s war plans against Iran.

Silverstein, who authors the blog “Tikun Olam”, said the document was passed to him by a high-level Israeli source who received it from an IDF officer.

According to the document presented in the blog, the Israeli attack on Iran “will begin with a coordinated strike, including an unprecedented cyber-attack which will totally paralyze the Iranian regime and its ability to know what is happening within its borders. The internet, telephones, radio and television, communications satellites, and fiber optic cables leading to and from critical installations will be taken out of action. The electrical grid throughout Iran will be paralyzed and transformer stations will absorb severe damage from carbon fiber munitions which are finer than a human hair, causing electrical short circuits whose repair requires their complete removal.”

Following the coordinated strike, according to the document, “A barrage of tens of ballistic missiles would be launched from Israel toward Iran. 300km ballistic missiles would be launched from Israeli submarines in the vicinity of the Persian Gulf. The missiles would not be armed with unconventional warheads [WMD], but rather with high-explosive ordnance equipped with reinforced tips designed specially to penetrate hardened targets.

“The missiles will strike their targets—some exploding above ground like those striking the nuclear reactor at Arak–which is intended to produce plutonium and tritium—and the nearby heavy water production facility; the nuclear fuel production facilities at Isfahan and facilities for enriching uranium-hexaflouride.  Others would explode under-ground, as at the Fordo facility.

“A barrage of hundreds of cruise missiles will pound command and control systems, research and development facilities, and the residences of senior personnel in the nuclear and missile development apparatus,” continues the document exposed by Silverstein. “Intelligence gathered over years will be utilized to completely decapitate Iran’s professional and command ranks in these fields.”

The document then adds, according to Silverstein’s blog, “After the first wave of attacks, which will be timed to the second, the ‘Blue and White’ radar satellite, whose systems enable us to perform an evaluation of the level of damage done to the various targets, will pass over Iran. Only after rapidly decrypting the satellite’s data, will the information be transferred directly to war planes making their way covertly toward Iran. These IAF planes will be armed with electronic warfare gear previously unknown to the wider public, not even revealed to our U.S. ally. This equipment will render Israeli aircraft invisible. Those Israeli war planes which participate in the attack will damage a short-list of targets which require further assault.”

Silverstein wrote that the source that passed the document to him would not do so normally, but that “these are not normal times. I’m afraid Bibi and Barak are dead serious.”

Silverstein added that while whoever wrote the briefing paper had use of IDF and intelligence data, he does not believe the IDF wrote it, adding that the document could have been written by the National Security Council or even by Defense Minister Ehud Barak himself.

Arutz Sheva