Special to WorldTribune.com

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon indicated on Aug. 7 that Israeli intelligence services may have been behind the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists.

“Ultimately it is very clear, one way or another, Iran’s military nuclear program must be stopped,” Ya’alon said.

“We will act in any way and are not willing to tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran. We prefer that this be done by means of sanctions, but in the end, Israel should be able to defend itself.”

It is widely believed that Mossad agents carried out the killings of five Iranian nuclear scientists in an effort to slow down Teheran’s nuclear development and deter Iran’s top scientific minds from cooperating with the government’s secret nuclear weapons program.

The covert war against Teheran’s nuclear program has also seen the launching of the Stuxnet computer virus on Iran’s nuke facilities, ongoing espionage and unexplained explosions.

Iran, which hails the scientists as its “nuclear martyrs,” is believed to have attempted to retaliate with copycat attacks. A magnetized bomb attached by a motorcyclist to the car of the wife of an Israeli official New Delhi wounded her and three others in February 2012. On the same day, a similar bomb was found attached to a car close to the Israeli embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia. The bomb was defused.

Ya’alon, in an interview with the German-language Der Spiegel, said that Israel “bore no responsibility for the lives of Iranian nuclear scientists.”

  Defense minister hints Israel may have been behind killings of Iran nuclear scientists, Iran nuclear program, Moshe Ya’alon, WorldTribune.com