TEHRAN, April 9: Iran has shot down an unmanned surveillance plane in the south amid reports that the United States is planning military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, a press report said on Sunday. “This plane had taken off from Iraq and was filming border areas,” a report in the hardline Jumhuri Eslami newspaper said.

It added the Islamic Republic “officials have obtained information from the plane system and recordings”, without giving any further details.—AFP

Our Washington correspondent adds: The US has been sending secretly flying surveillance drones over Iran since 2004 as part of its preparation to launch air strikes at Tehran’s nuclear sites, The Washington Post reported on Sunday.

The drones use radar, video, still photography and air filters to detect traces of nuclear activity not accessible to satellites.

The US media reported this week that the Bush administration is studying options for military strikes against Iran as part of a broader strategy of coercive diplomacy to pressure Tehran to abandon its alleged nuclear development programme.

While confirming these reports, the paper warned that no attack appeared likely in the short term, and many specialists inside and outside the US government harboured serious doubts about whether an armed response would be effective. “But administration officials are preparing for it as a possible option and using the threat “to convince (Iran) this is more and more serious,” a senior US official told the newspaper.

Quoting current and former officials, the report said that Pentagon and CIA planners have been exploring possible targets in Iraq, such as the uranium enrichment plant at Natanz and the uranium conversion facility at Isfahan.

“ Although a land invasion is not contemplated, military officers are weighing alternatives ranging from a limited air strike aimed at key nuclear sites, to a more extensive bombing campaign designed to destroy an array of military and political targets,” the report said.

The Post, however, said it was unable to confirm a report published in the New Yorker magazine this week that US combat troops have been ordered to enter Iran covertly to collect targeting data.

The report by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said the Bush administration was planning a massive bombing campaign against Iran, including use of bunker-buster nuclear bombs to destroy a suspected nuclear weapons facility.

Experts who spoke to the Post pointed out that the British government has already launched its own planning for a potential US strike, studying security arrangements for its embassy and consular offices, for British citizens and corporate interests in Iran and for ships in the region and British troops in Iraq. British officials indicate their government is unlikely to participate directly in any attacks.

Israel is preparing, as well, the report added. The Israeli government recently leaked a contingency plan for attacking on its own if the US does not, a plan involving air strikes, commando teams, possibly missiles and even explosives-carrying dogs. Israel, which bombed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear plant in 1981, has built a replica of Natanz, to train attackers.

But US strategists, who spoke to the Post, said they do not believe Israel has the capacity to accomplish the mission without nuclear weapons.