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Iran threatened yesterday to strike back at Israel or any other country that attacked its nuclear facilities.

US and Israeli officials accuse Iran of seeking to develop atomic bombs under cover of a civilian nuclear programme. Iran denies the charges saying it only intends to produce electricity from nuclear power plants.

"If Israel or any other country attacks any site in Iran, we know no limits to threaten their interests," Deputy Revolutionary Guards Commander Mohammad-Baqer Zolqadr said.

"That means anywhere in the world, within their borders or outside it," he told reporters yesterday on the sidelines of an anti-US conference in Tehran.

Israeli warplanes successfully destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981. Iran has stationed anti-aircraft batteries around its nuclear plants and built many of its facilities underground.

Iranian officials have also warned they can strike back at Israel with its medium-range Shahab-3 missile, which can also hit US military bases in the Gulf.

Zolqadr denied Iran was developing nuclear weapons, saying the Islamic state preferred to rely on a volunteer militia force, which he said numbered ten-million, to defend the country.

Earlier the commander addressed high-school students at a conference entitled "The World Without America".

"The world without America is a world without oppression, without terror, without invasion, without massacre," he said in a speech that catalogued US "crimes" ranging from the massacre of native Americans to the atom bomb on Hiroshima.

A video clip played for the audience showed gruesome pictures of injured children lying in hospital beds in Iraq, which US-led forces invaded last year.

Zolqadr said an Iraq-style invasion of Iran was out of the question thanks to Iran's growing military might.

"We have assessed the American armed forces in the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan ... they are not unknown or mystical to us any more," he told reporters after his speech.

Iranian and EU officials said on Sunday a deal had been struck between Iran, Britain, Germany and France after two days of talks in Paris that could see Tehran avert United Nations Security Council sanctions over its disputed nuclear programme. - Reuters.

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