The Iranian military’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said they had foiled an act of Israeli sabotage at the Fordo nuclear facility south of the capital Tehran.

According to Tasnim news agency report, Israeli intelligence had set up an Iranian network, including an Iranian engineer in the uranium enrichment department at the Fordo plant, to execute the plan.

The plan was reportedly to gather the necessary information and then carry out the act of sabotage before the Persian New Year, which falls on March 21.

However, the IRGC’s intelligence department was able to prevent it from going ahead, the report said.

There have been several cyberattacks on Iranian nuclear facilities in recent years for which Iran has exclusively blamed Israel.

The Israeli government claimed Iran was working on a secret nuclear weapons programme and that Israel is the primary target of an Iranian nuclear bomb.

Meanwhile, Tehran claimed that Iran’s programme was peaceful, insisting that the only threat in the Middle East is Israel’s nuclear arsenal.

On Sunday, Iran also claimed responsibility for a missile attack on the Kurdish capital Erbil.

According to the IRGC, the target was an Israeli intelligence base. The attack was in retaliation for suspected Israeli attacks in Syria about a week ago, in which two Iranian IRGC officers were killed.

That attack had been attributed to Israel.

(dpa/NAN)