Experts: Iran to respond US strikes by worldwide attack

Iran would respond to US military strikes on its nuclear sites by deploying its intelligence operatives and Hezbollah teams to carry out terrorist attacks worldwide, according to American intelligence experts.

Iran would mount attacks against US targets inside Iraq, where Iranian intelligence agents are already plentiful, the unnamed "intelligence and terrorism experts" were quoted as saying by 'The Washington Post' today.

They said there is also a growing consensus that Iran's agents would target civilians in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, according to the report.

US officials would not discuss what evidence they have indicating Iran would undertake terrorist action, but the matter "is consuming a lot of time" throughout the US intelligence apparatus, one senior official said while another was quoted as saying that "it's a huge issue."

Citing prohibitions against discussing classified information, US intelligence officials declined to say whether they have detected preparatory measures, such as increased surveillance, counter-surveillance or message traffic, on the part of Iran's foreign-based intelligence operatives, the paper reported.

But terrorism experts considered Iranian-backed or controlled groups -- the country's intelligence operatives, revolutionary guards and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah -- to be better organized, trained and equipped than the al-Qaeda network, it said.

The Iranian government views the Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah's military wing, "as an extension of their state operational teams could be deployed without a long period of preparation," Ambassador Henry, the US state department's coordinator for counter-terrorism, was quoted as saying by the paper.

US President George W Bush says he is pursuing a diplomatic solution to the crisis, but he has added that all options are on the table for stopping Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons.

Government officials said their interest in Iran's intelligence services is not an indication that a military confrontation is imminent or likely, but rather a reflection of a decades-long adversarial relationship in which Iran's agents have worked secretly against us interests, most recently in Iraq and Pakistan, the paper reported.

As confrontation over Iran's nuclear program has escalated, so has the effort to assess the threat from Iran's covert operatives, it said.