Iranian official makes veiled threat of nuclear attack on Israel

Top aide to Iranian parliament speaker posts computer-generated image of Israel being hit by nuclear warheads.

By World Israel News Staff

A top adviser to a senior Iranian lawmaker posted a thinly veiled threat of nuclear war on Israel over the weekend.

On Saturday, Mehdi Mohammadi, a strategic adviser to the speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, uploaded a computer-generated image showing a bird’s-eye view of Israel as the country is rocked by what appear to be two mushroom clouds.

The larger of the two explosions is centered roughly on Israel’s capital city, Jerusalem.

The post was later removed, Mohammadi’s account wrote, though a follow-up message including the same image was posted several hours later.

Mohammadi blamed the initial post on an errant page administrator and distanced himself from its apparent message, expressing opposition to the pursuit of an Iranian nuclear weapons program.

“Hello friends, this story was posted by the admin of my page but was then deleted minutes later,” Mohammadi wrote.

“I do not believe that building nuclear weapons can help improve Iran’s deterrence. At the very least, this issue is very complicated.”

“Just as having nuclear weapons did not prevent Iran from inflicting severe blows on the [Israeli] regime or [prevent] Ukraine from being able to strike Russia. The truth is that the military function of nuclear weapons is much more limited than is often thought.”

Iran’s leadership has repeatedly denied the country’s nuclear program is aimed at building nuclear weapons or even achieving an atomic weapons’ capacity.

However, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran has enriched close to 1,000 pounds of uranium to 60% purity, far beyond the single-digit levels of enrichment used for civilian energy production but close to the 90% needed for weapons-grade uranium.