Iran nuclear program

Israeli officials said the time was near to consider a military strike on Iran.

"Today, unlike the past, the world has no doubt that Iran’s nuclear program is steadily nearing readiness and is about to enter an ‘immunity zone," Ehud Barak, the defense minister, said Thursday at the Herzliya Conference at the Interdisciplinary Center's conference, in remarks reported by Bloomberg News.

The 'immunity zone' refers to the point beyond which military experts believe it will be impossible to slow Iran's nuclear program with a strike.

The owner and publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times has resigned and is seeking a buyer in the wake of a column he wrote speculating that Israel would consider assassinating President Obama.

Andrew Adler, in an email obtained by JTA, announced Monday that he is "relinquishing all day-to-day activities effective immediately" following the publishing of his opinion piece saying that Obama's assassination was among Israel's options in heading off a nuclear Iran.

Israel's Mossad assassinated an Iranian scientist in a bomb attack, Time Magazine reported, citing unnamed Western intelligence sources.

The report Saturday came as Iranian state television reported that the Islamic Republic had evidence that the United States was behind the Jan. 11 attack, that it said was "planned, guided and supported" by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The Time report also intimated that Israel was behind the deaths of three other Iranian nuclear scientists in the last two years.

The Obama administration condemned an attack in Tehran that killed a nuclear scientist, and Iran threatened Israel with revenge.

Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, 32, was killed Wednesday when a bomb placed on his car by a motorcyclist exploded. Roshan reportedly was a supervisor at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, in addition to being a professor at Tehran's technical university.

"We condemn any assassination or attack on an innocent person, and we express our sympathies to the family," Victoria Nuland, the State Department spokeswoman, said Wednesday.

Iranian officials are blaming Israel for an attack in Tehran that killed a nuclear scientist.

Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, 32, was killed Wednesday when a bomb placed on his car by a motorcyclist exploded. Roshan reportedly was a supervisor at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, in addition to being a professor at Tehran's technical university.

Britain signaled it is prepared to use force to keep the Strait of Hormuz open despite Iranian threats.

In comments Thursday, British Defense Secretary Philip Hammond said his country would not tolerate an Iranian move to close the 34-mile waterway through which 20 percent of the world's oil passes.