Guma Aguiar case: Coast Guard reports offer new details on missing millionaire

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Among the belongings found on missing multimillionaire Guma Aguiar's boat after the sea delivered it to shore without him: A leather prayer box that holds religious texts.

Left at home: His watch and wedding ring.

Notes compiled by members of the U.S. Coast Guard search and rescue team only add to questions about Aguiar's state of mind when he took what may have been his final voyage.

They are a rough profile of the man described as "unstable," and "on medication for depression" whose whereabouts remain a mystery more than two months after he vanished.

The Coast Guard reports — released in response to a Freedom of Information request by the Sun Sentinel — offer new details about the 35-year-old investor who was last seen steering his boat into bad weather and six foot swells on the evening of June 19.

Yet these "watchstander" logs, compiled by multiple officers involved in the 48 hour air and sea search for Guma, do not prove a planned suicide or anything else, said Commander Darren Caprara,chief of response for U.S. Coast Guard Sector Miami.

"They are comments, based on interviews and investigators' notes," Caprara said. "The only facts we had were GPS coordinates. We saw him on camera, getting on a boat and we knew where it went and where it beached itself without him."

The logs say "security cameras caught him leaving his house with a purpose" and "not in a good frame of mind due to financial [sic]."

Also noted, in different handwriting: "Jewish prayer book [sic] – not usually there" and "Argument w/wife over divorce//left watch, wedding ring."

And this awful notation: "All PFDs (life jackets) accounted for."

Aguiar's 31-foot Jupiter center console boat floated onto the sand in front of Fort Lauderdale's Elbo Room beachfront bar, a ghost ship with engines running, at 1:15 a.m. June 20, five hours after he'd left home.

"We don't truly know where something went wrong," Caprara said. "We ask hundreds of questions to try and get any small detail to aid our search. What we are really trying to get to is what he could have done out there."

Caprara said the leather box — used by Jews during weekday prayers and called a tefillin — "is just another lead. It could have meant he had a resounding desire to live, and was a highly spiritual person."

Aguiar's mother said she was unfamiliar with her son's rituals while he was boating.

"I can only speculate that when he left the house, he was upset and took things that gave him solace," Ellen Aguiar said.

The notes don't list sources or authors, and not all are correct. For instance, there was not an open divorce case in Broward County court.

But Aguiar did struggle with mental health, relatives have said, and he was stressed by massive lawsuits that threatened his wealth and family harmony.

Did he have reasons to disappear, or was he depressed enough to end his life?

Friends say he loved his wife and children, and can't imagine he'd intentionally leave them.

More than two months later, Aguiar's whereabouts are still unknown and he remains a missing person case for Fort Lauderdale police.

"My son, who I love very much, is missing," Ellen Aguiar said. "I continue to pray that wherever he is, he is well, and at peace."

Hasidic director aims to ‘Fill the Void’ about insular community with new film

VENICE, Italy  — Israeli director Rama Burshtein provides an intimate look inside the private world of Tel Aviv’s Hasidic community in the film, “Fill the Void,” which premiered this weekend in competition at the Venice Film Festival.

A Hasidic Jew herself, Burshtein said she wanted to create a portrait of family life within the community without presenting it in conflict with the secular world.

“The Orthodox world is so interesting it does not need to cope with the secular,” Burshtein told a news conference Sunday. “It can be very interesting and the drama can be very strong inside.”

The film is about an 18-year-old girl named Shira who struggles with whether she wants to marry her brother-in-law, Yochay, after her sister Esther dies giving birth.

The decision is all Shira’s, despite the strict formality within the community, and the movie ultimately is a story about facing a difficult decision and becoming a woman.

“It’s all about emotions and choices and what leads you to do what you do,” said actress Hadas Yaron, who played Shira. “I’m also young. But Shira is different from me because she is not familiar with all these feelings she experiences for the first time.”

 

The movie shows intimate rituals of the Hasidic community, from Esther’s funeral to her infant son’s circumcision ceremony immediately after, Sabbath dinner and the workings of the matchmaker, who helps brokers marriages as girls reach Shira’s age.

The community, while residing inside the bustling and secular city of Tel Aviv, is very self-contained. In one scene, as the men study, someone gets up to close the windows that allow sounds of secular Tel Aviv to drift inside.

“This moment in the movie really gives the idea of being in the environment,” said Yiftach Klein, who plays the brother-in-law Yochay.

Burshein, 45, was born in New York and graduated from film school in Jerusalem in 1994. During that period, she became deeply religious. She has since been making films within the Orthodox community to help promote self-expression.

“I love this world. I chose this world. I was not born to this world,” she said.

She said, however, that the Hasidic world did not appear inviting when she first contemplated it from the outside 20 years ago.

“Part of that was because how I thought they saw women,” she said. Once inside, however, she said she found she liked traditional roles between men and women.

“I love my role as a woman. I feel it is true. I chose it. It doesn’t stop me from doing films, but the way I see the home, between a man and a woman, I love it like this. It is more sexy.”

Crown Heights - Four-Alarm Fire Spread Quickly at Large Apartment Building

Twenty-two people were hurt -- including 11 firefighters -- in a four-alarm fire in Crown Heights early Monday, fire officials said, just blocks from where revelers would soon march in the West Indian Day Parade.

The blaze, at 1365 Carroll St., started around 2:30 a.m. on the second floor of the renovated building before spreading, said Deputy Assistant Fire Chief Jack Mooney.

"I just ran out of the building and I actually saw flames," said resident Mushky Giro. "It was really scary."

Fire marshals are investigating the cause of the fire. Officials said it might have been set intentionally because it was so fast-moving.

"If we had stayed in there for 20 more seconds, 30 more seconds, our chances for survival would have been very, very low," said Eli Raskin, whose third-floor apartment was destroyed. "We got out without a scratch."

Of the 22 people injured, the 11 civilians were treated at the scene. One firefighter was being treated for burns on his neck, another for chest pains, and eight for exhaustion at Kings County Hospital, Mooney said.
   

NY Pol's Reliance On Rabbi Pinto Comes Back To Haunt Him

NEW YORK — When he announced his run for congress in the fall of 2009, future U.S. Rep. Michael Grimm, then a political novice, sorely needed a rainmaker who could get the dollars flowing to his nascent campaign. He found one in an Israeli rabbi, Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto.

Now, that fruitful association has turned into a big headache for the Staten Island Republican — one involving allegations of illegal donations, a bizarre blackmail claim and potentially embarrassing associations with people in the pornography business.

In mid-August, FBI agents arrested an Israeli businessman who had helped Grimm raise hundreds of thousands of dollars from Pinto's wealthy, zealous followers in New York.

The entrepreneur and rabbinical aide, Ofer Biton, was charged with lying about his financial dealings in 2010 when he applied for a U.S. visa.

The arrest came as the FBI has been investigating claims made by other Pinto followers, who say they made tens of thousands of dollars in illegal contributions to Grimm during his 2010 run, including gifts that were passed through straw donors to hide the true source of the donations.

FBI agents have recently been requesting records and interviewing people who were on the campaign staff.

Grimm, himself a former FBI agent, has repeatedly declined to be interviewed by The Associated Press about the matter. He has acknowledged raising $250,000 to $300,000 from Pinto's supporters — about a third of all money contributed in the first 12 months of his campaign — but denied any knowledge of improprieties.

"My campaign and I followed the fundraising rules, and took reasonable measures to vet the contributions received by my campaign," he said in a statement to the AP. "Indeed, I relied on Rabbi Pinto's status as a clergyman and holy man when agreeing to meet with individuals associated with his congregation."

Campaign records and other public documents make it clear, however, that after tapping the rabbi's followers for money, Grimm wound up getting help from people who candidates normally keep at arm's length.

One of the rabbi's closest aides, Benzion Suky, owned a company that distributed porn videos and has settled lawsuits by adult film studios who accused him of selling bootlegged DVDs, according to court records.

Suky and his wife gave a combined $9,600 to Grimm's 2010 campaign and a real estate partnership that lists Suky as its managing member gave $4,800, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Another big donor was Rafi Maman, proprietor of companies in North Bergen, N.J., that distribute adult films and sex toys.

He also has settled lawsuits accusing him of bootlegging, including two which also named Suky as a defendant.

Maman, his wife and a real estate partnership that he listed as his employer gave $19,200 to Grimm's campaign. That total includes $7,200 in individual contributions from Maman, or $2,400 more than is allowed by law.

A third Grimm contributor, Eli Halali, is listed in business records as the agent of another company that distributed pornographic movies.

His name also appears on at least one such video, "Blonde & Beautiful Vol. 1," as the keeper of records verifying that the film's performers were over age 18. He gave $4,800. Two apparent relatives, Bluria Halali and Jaclyn Halali, each contributed $4,800.

Biton, formerly one of Pinto's top aides, also had a hand in adult entertainment. Florida business records list him as being the president of AMOB Inc.

The company is registered at the same address as the Miami Playground, a shop once named by an alternative newspaper as the city's the best adult video store.

Election records do not list any donations from Biton, who, as an Israeli citizen without permanent residency in the U.S, is barred from giving money to political candidates.

But the Israeli helped Grimm in other ways that are allowed, including accompanying him on fundraising visits to congregation members, several of whom were heavy hitters in New York's real estate and jewelry businesses.

Suky, who is also a real estate investor, says he is no longer involved in distributing adult films and has now devoted his life to helping Pinto spread his message.

During the bootlegging lawsuits, he had argued that he was unaware DVDs he purchased from a supplier were knockoffs.

Halali, who is also a co-owner of a popular chain of New York pizza shops, declined through a relative to comment about his donations. Maman didn't return numerous phone messages. It was unclear whether either man was actively involved in Pinto's congregation.

Grimm told his hometown newspaper on Staten Island, The Advance, that he began cultivating a relationship with Pinto in October of 2009 on the advice of a friend, who thought the rabbi might be helpful raising money.

At age 38, Pinto has achieved a fervent following in Israel, and has become famous there for his connections to political figures and business tycoons, some of whom credit him with mystical powers to bless their deals.

His success as an adviser to the rich and famous has made his organization wealthy; the Israeli edition of Forbes magazine recently ranked Pinto as Israel's 7th richest rabbi, based on organizational holdings.

Long based in the Mediterranean port city of Ashdod, Pinto opened a second headquarters in 2002 in New York, where he resides in a $6.5 million town house and delivers sermons in a building purchased in 2009 for $28.5 million.

When Grimm's campaign began, Pinto's U.S. followers had also begun to establish themselves as a source of campaign cash for pro-Israel candidates.

A handful had given hundreds of thousands of dollars to political committees controlled by U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican, and U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, a Democrat.

Grimm, a Catholic ex-Marine and a ferocious supporter of Israel, received his first bundle of checks from the rabbi's supporters in December of 2009, just two months after entering the race.

One donor, New York deli owner Josef Ben Moha, said he and his wife gave a combined $4,800.

"It's not something that I had to have my arm twisted. I was asked nicely. I decided he was a nice guy," said Ben Moha, who has been one of Suky's partners in a real estate venture. "The people who seemed to be helping him, they saw good qualities in him. I guess I did too."

In the two years since the election, Pinto's religious organization, Mosdot Shuva Israel, has been a frequent target of media scrutiny.

News articles in the Jewish press accused it of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on luxury travel and raised questions about its handling of millions of dollars in donations.

Pinto's own father-in-law, an influential rabbi in Argentina, complained in a court filing that Pinto — who professes to have no worldly possessions — had enlisted him in a scheme to conceal his ownership of luxury apartments in Jerusalem.

More recently, a Pinto aide, rabbi Abraham Israel, was detained by Israeli police in April as part of an ongoing investigation into suspected money laundering and theft at an anti-poverty charity, Hazon Yeshaya. A spokesman for Pinto said he had no involvement in that charity.

Large amounts of Shuva Israel's money have also disappeared, according to the organization's lawyers. In December, Pinto and his supporters publicly blamed Biton, claiming he had embezzled large sums.

They also made allegations, first reported last year in The New York Times, that Biton had conspired with another member of the congregation to extort money from the rabbi by threatening to plant damaging stories about him in the media.

Biton has called the extortion and embezzlement allegations lies.

In the waning days of the 2010 election, Pinto also began telling associates, including then-Congressman Anthony Weiner, that his support of Grimm had been coerced.

Weiner wound up reporting that murky allegation to the FBI. He told the AP he didn't say anything publicly at the time and won't discuss the details of the rabbi's allegations now, because, "I didn't know whether it was true or not." A law enforcement official confirmed that the FBI had received the report.

Grimm has called any suggestion that he was tied up in some sort of plot with Biton, "profoundly absurd."

The criminal complaint filed against Biton in August makes no mention of blackmail, embezzlement or the campaign allegations, but focuses instead on information he submitted in 2010 when he applied for a visa available to foreigners who invest at least $500,000 in a U.S. business.

In his application, Biton said most of his investment money had been loaned to him by a family friend. But the FBI said it had bank records showing that the money had actually been funneled through an account controlled by an unnamed "co-conspirator," who, in turn, had demanded most of the cash from an unnamed witness to pay off a debt. Biton's lawyer, Jeffrey Udell, declined to comment.

Pinto's attorney in New York, Arthur Aidala, said the rabbi was "very satisfied with the arrest, and looks forward to the prosecution of this defendant and others who have done harm to rabbi Pinto and his family."

The investigation has been more than a distraction for Grimm as he battles for re-election against Democratic challenger Mark Murphy. His campaign has incurred $320,000 in legal fees this year, according to campaign records.

Grimm's lawyer, William McGinley, confirmed that the FBI is probing claims of illegal donations by Pinto's followers, and that the campaign has turned over documents, but he said there is no evidence of any wrongdoing. He said Grimm was being victimized by a smear campaign and "malicious leaks" by law enforcement.

"Yes, there is an investigation, but we have no reason to believe that it will lead to charges and every reason to believe that ... the (Department of Justice) investigation will vindicate Congressman Grimm," McGinley said.

Israeli actress Orly Weinerman urges Tony Blair to save Gaddafi’s son

Orly Weinerman

The last-known girlfriend of Colonel Gaddafi’s playboy son Saif al-Islam has called on his ‘old friend’ Tony Blair to save his life.

Saif Gaddafi is facing the death penalty in Libya where he is on trial for his role in the killing of protesters during last year’s uprising against his father.

Human rights groups are concerned that he will not face a fair trial and efforts to extradite him to the International Criminal Court in the Hague have failed.

Now Orly Weinerman, a 41-year-old Israeli model and actress who dated Saif for six years after meeting him in London in 2005, has called on Mr Blair to make Saif’s accusers ‘see reason’.

She said: ‘Saif worked closely with Mr Blair before he was captured.

'The two are old friends – it is time that Mr Blair returned some loyalty.

'Mr Blair is a man of God – as a Christian he has a moral duty to help a friend in need.’

Saif’s close links with Mr Blair were illustrated in documents found during the uprising.

A letter written by Mr Blair in 2007 gave suggestions to help with Saif’s PhD, which he was taking at the London School of Economics.

Miss Weinerman added: ‘You should just ask Mr Blair what a serious, honourable person he is.

The ICC has let him down, and so has the international community.

‘Killing him will achieve absolutely nothing, beyond punishing him for who his father was. Absolutely everything must be done to save him.’

The Israeli actress said her ‘discreet relationship’ with Saif al-Islam - whose name means ‘Sword of Islam’ - began in April 2005 when they were introduced by mutual friends.

It was strained from the start because she is Jewish - a fact that caused complications in an Islamic country such as Libya.

Her parents - her father is a green energy consultant and her mother a pianist - were also opposed to her converting to Islam, she said, and her relationship with Saif came in for much criticism in the Israeli press.

‘It was something we had to deal with,’ said Miss Weinerman, who is now based in her home city of Tel Aviv.

‘The fact that Saif was prepared to involve himself in a loving relationship with a Jew is a measure of how open and civilised he is.

‘He judged people for what they are - not what people perceive them to be. Saif never made an issue of my religion, or the country I came from.’

She had previously denied having any contact with Saif, after publications including Germany’s Der Spiegel reported their romance in 2006.

Saif’s reputation is as a notorious womaniser, and he has been photographed surrounded by gorgeous women.

When his father ruled Libya, Saif played a key role in dealings with the West, and in particular with Mr Blair who met the tyrant in the infamous ‘Deal in the Desert’ in 2004 to bring Libya in from the cold.

It was around then that a grubby backroom deal is suspected of being done to free the Lockerbie bomber, although Mr Blair denies any part in this.

When Mr Blair stepped down as premier, he pursued business interests in the North African country, assisting international companies to make profits from its oil and gas reserves.

Miss Weinerman did not meet Mr Blair or any of Saif’s other high-profile Western contacts, but says she was dating him during the period when he was meeting them.

She was also busy with modelling assignments and soap opera parts in mainly Israeli TV shows at the time.

At one stage the couple talked of marriage, she said, but were finally separated last year when the Libyan uprising toppled the dictator after 42 years in power, and Saif went on the run.

The trial of Saif Gaddafi, being held in the mountain town of Zintan, will be one of the biggest events the country has seen.

Previous attempts to bring him to trial had been plagued with arguments over whether the case should be heard in the capital.

The Zintan brigade fighters - who captured him - insisted he be tried in their home town amid fears he might escape with the help of sympathisers if he was put in the dock in Tripoli, or that he would be treated leniently.

The decision was also complicated by a demand from the International Criminal Court that Saif be tried at The Hague.

One official from the Libyan prosecutor’s office said recently: ‘We are sure that the evidence we have gathered is solid and it will shock and surprise the world. We believe we are capable of holding a fair trial.’

Three Libyan judges will hear the case, which is expected to last for up to six months, with two prosecutors.

Saif has so far refused to appoint a lawyer to defend him, and one will be appointed for him if he continues to refuse.

Human rights groups have argued that the Libyan justice system is not capable of dealing with such a high-profile case.

Amnesty International said an unfair trial in Libya would go against ‘justice and accountability’.

Yesterday a spokesman for Tony Blair declined to comment.

Detroit police recover stolen Secret Service truck carrying Biden supplies

Police have recovered a stolen rental truck that was carrying equipment for Vice President Joe Biden's Labor Day visit to Detroit.

The U-Haul truck was stolen late Saturday or early Sunday outside the Westin Book Cadillac hotel in downtown Detroit.

It was found Monday in the New Center area north of downtown, Detroit Police Sgt. Eren Stephens told the Detroit News.

Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan told the newspaper it was found in an apartment parking lot near Henry Ford Hospital

Donovan had said the truck had equipment on board but no weapons or anything that could put the public at risk. He declined to say whether any of the equipment was stolen.

A law enforcement official briefed on the issue told the Detroit News the vehicle held portable metal detectors and that some of the equipment was missing when the truck was recovered.

Biden was in Detroit to address a union rally Monday to mark Labor Day. The rally site is near the hotel.

Iranian athlete refuses to shake hands with Kate at Paralympics

Kate Middleton was given a “cultural snub” when a Paralympian refused to shake her hand, it emerged today.

The Duchess of Cambridge was presenting gongs in the Stratford stadium on Sunday night to discus throwers in front of 80,000 fans.

But after hanging a silver around the neck of Iranian Mehrdad Karam Zadeh, 40, he kept his hands clamped firmly to his chest.

Kate, 30, did not extend her hand to be clutched.

British winner Aled Davies, 21, and China’s Lezheng Wang, who got bronze, both warmly embraced the royal from the podium.

Fatal House Fire On Long Island Under Investigation

Long Island police are investigating whether a young mother was torched in her house early Monday.

The 21-year-old victim’s husband was being questioned about the suspicious Freeport blaze that left her dead with “extensive burns,” a police source said.

Friends of the woman said her two kids, ages 5 and 2, were visiting family in Guyana.

She had lived at a group home for unwed mothers until she graduated from high school and married her much older boyfriend two years ago.

“She was happy and thought he was the one,” said Elaine McArthur, who worked in the group home, Regina Maternity Services of Merrick.

“She said they had their normal arguments but I never thought it would be something like this. He just seemed like a very nice guy.”

Regina’s manager, Linda Jones, said the victim had not complained of any abuse.

“I cannot imagine anyone doing that to a human being, let alone their spouse,” she said.

Berlin prosecutor drops charges against rabbi who pledged to continue circumcising

The Berlin prosecution has dropped its investigation against a prominent local rabbi who vowed to continue performing circumcisions, saying that his statements did not constitute any illegal behavior.

Berlin prosecutor Matthias Weidling told Rabbi Yitzhak Ehrenberg that the charges filed against him in mid-August — for “disturbance of the public peace and other offenses” — had been halted.

Weidling stopped the proceedings even before initiating a investigation because the police complaint against him contained “no indications of illegal behavior.”

As reported by The Times of Israel, Ehrenberg had become the second German rabbi to be charged in connection with remarks he made regarding the current circumcision controversy raging in that country. In June, a Cologne court declared the ritual illegal.

As a direct consequence of that ruling, a German citizen last month filed a police complaint against Rabbi David Goldberg, from the Bavarian town of Hof, who said he had performed hundreds of circumcisions in recent years.

On July 11, Ehrenberg — a well-known figure among German Jews — participated in a debate on “Anne Will,” a popular talk show, dedicated to the Cologne ruling and its implications. “Circumcision is a basic law for us Jews. There is no Judaism without circumcision, and therefore — we will continue,” Ehrenberg said during the show.

In a letter to Ehrenberg, Weidling, the Berlin prosecutor, wrote that the law obligates the authorities to follow every hint received of an illegal act.

However, he added that authorities could only start investigating if there were concrete indications of any such activity. “This is currently not the case,” Weidling wrote.

The question of how to apply the Cologne ruling to Ehrenberg’s pledge to continue circumcisions could “remain open,” the prosecutor added.

 

Since the Ehrenberg’s remarks didn’t call on others to commit illegal acts and no cases are known of circumcisions that were performed as a direct result of his words, there was no reason to further investigate the issue, he wrote.

 

www.timesofisrael.com

PM Netanyahu urges international "red lines" to stop Iran

Netanyahu's remarks suggested a growing impatience with Israel's main ally, the United States, and other countries that have been pressing him to give diplomacy and sanctions more time to work and hold off on any go-it-alone strike on Iran.

Recent heightened Israeli rhetoric has stoked speculation that Israel might attack Iran before the U.S. elections in November, believing that President Barack Obama would give it military help and not risk alienating pro-Israeli voters.

"I believe the truth must be stated: The international community is not placing a clear red line for Iran and Iran does not see international resolve to stop its nuclear programme," Netanyahu told his cabinet.

"Unless Iran sees this clear red line and this clear resolve it will not stop moving forward with its nuclear programme, and Iran must not have nuclear weapons," he said, repeating his view that sanctions so far have not curbed Tehran's atomic ambitions.

Although Netanyahu did not single out Obama in his criticism, Israeli officials have said they hope for stronger language from the president about possible U.S. military action.

Obama, who has had a frosty relationship with Netanyahu, has insisted he will not allow Iran to build atomic weapons and that all options are on the table.

Israel's popular YNet news website described the prime minister's latest comments as a stinging rebuke of Obama. In a U.S. election year, Republican candidate Mitt Romney has also sharply criticized Obama's handling of Iran as not being tough enough.

And in another sign of a rift with Washington, Israeli officials voiced disappointment over recent remarks by the United States's top general signalling reluctance to intervene on Israel's behalf if it attacked Iran.

Tehran says it is refining uranium to fuel a planned network of nuclear power plants so that it can export more of its oil and gas. The United States and its allies accuse Iran of a covert bid to develop the capability to make nuclear bombs.

Israel, believed to have the only atomic arsenal in the Middle East, views a nuclear-armed Iran as a threat to its existence.

U.N. ADDRESS

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, has suggested Washington would not be drawn into conflict with Iran should Israel attack.

"I don't want to be complicit if they choose to do it," Britain's Guardian newspaper quoted him on Friday as saying.

Gilad Erdan, Israel's environment minister, said on Israel Radio that Dempsey's remarks "were definitely not to our liking". Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said the general's choice of words "was not the best".

Israeli officials have said Israel has yet to decide on whether to attack Iran, amid divisions within its security cabinet and warnings by military and security chiefs that a strike would have only a limited effect.

Netanyahu has said he will speak out about what he termed the dangers Iran poses to the world in an address this month to the U.N. General Assembly in New York. He is also expected to meet Obama during his visit, but no announcement has been made.

A senior Israeli official told Reuters last week Netanyahu would seek a firm pledge of U.S. military action if Iran did not back down on uranium enrichment. Such a promise could dissuade Israel from attacking Iran alone, Israeli officials have said.

A United Nations report said on Thursday Iran had more than doubled the number of centrifuges in its fortified bunker at Fordow since May, despite Western pressure and threat of Israeli attack. The new machines are not yet operating, the report said.

"The report confirms what I have been saying for a long time, international sanctions are a burden on Iran's economy but they are not in any way delaying the advancement of Iran's nuclear programme," Netanyahu told his cabinet.

"The Iranians are using the talks with the world powers to win time and to advance their nuclear programme," he said.

An Iranian general said that if Israel were to strike Iran, Israeli officials would be the target of retaliation, Iranian media reported on Sunday.

"In case of Israel's military attack against Iran, the officials of (Israel) will be among the first victims of such an attack," Mohammad Ali Assoudi, a brigadier general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, told Iran's English-language Press TV.

His broadcast remarks gave no details, but Press TV paraphrased him as saying Israel's policies had induced hatred of its officials among residents of the occupied territories.

Iran has undertaken large-scale military maneuvers this summer and unveiled upgrades to weapons it says are defensive, including what it said was a more accurate short-range missile.