Report: Israel Tested Stuxnet Worm Linked To Iran Nuclear Troubles

Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant has been plagued with difficulties

A U.S. news report says experts at an Israeli facility were involved in testing a computer worm that is believed to have sabotaged Iran's nuclear centrifuges and disrupted Tehran's potential to develop an atomic weapon.

"The New York Times" report says the tests are among the strongest indications suggesting that the destructive worm, called Stuxnet, was "designed as an American-Israeli project to sabotage" the Iranian nuclear program.

The report says tests of the worm had occurred at Israel's heavily-guarded Dimona complex in the Negev desert.

The report says Iran's centrifuges have been plagued by breakdowns recently, with one-fifth of them being knocked out of operation, and security experts have speculated its nuclear program may have been targeted in an attack using Stuxnet.

Iran's atomic chief and acting Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi denied that the nuclear program was hit by Stuxnet.

U.S. and Israeli officials have refused to comment officially about the worm.

compiled from agency reports