The Israeli military is working on "a high-fly­ing, long-endurance unmanned in­frared sensor" that can tell the difference between nuclear war­heads amid doz­ens of decoys sent to confound na­tional missile defenses and would mark the first use of an unmanned platform for nuclear warhead hunting.

It is a frightening notion, but it is not just the trigger-happy Bush administration discussing -- if only theoretically -- the possibility of military action to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Iran's growing industrial and medical capabilities could enable the country to produce chemical or biological weapons if it chose to do so, security expert Anthony Cordesman said in two draft reports released this month.

Western intelligence experts believe that Iran's nuclear facilities are so deep underground that it would be difficult for Israel to wipe them out, or even significantly damage them, with a quick airstrike.

Iran plans to launch a satellite into space soon using an Iranian-made rocket, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said.

Iran plans to send a crewed rocket into space in the next 10 years, state television said on Thursday, just days after the Islamic Republic announced it had put a dummy satellite into orbit.

"One of the aims of Iran's 10-year space programme is to send a manned rocket into space," state television quoted Reza Taghipour, the head of Iran's aerospace organisation, as saying. "Within the next six months to one year, the exact date of this mission will be determined."

Iran has carried out missile tests for what could be a plan for a nuclear strike on the United States, the head of a national security panel has warned. According to Dr. William Graham of the Claremont Institute, Iran plans to launch a crude nuclear weapon in the atmosphere above the U.S., creating an "electro-magnetic pulse [EMP] that would cripple military and civilian communications, power, transportation, water, food, and other infrastructure."

The United States in 2007 moved forward with a major expansion of intelligence-collection efforts focused on Iran’s disputed nuclear program as well as operations aimed at undermining the Islamic state’s government.

Nuclear analysts believe that Iran has significantly increased the efficiency of its uranium enrichment operation, a program the United States and other Western powers fear is intended to generate material for nuclear weapons.

The secret site where Iran is suspected of developing long-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching targets in Europe has been uncovered by new satellite photographs.