Israeli Nuclear Stockpile Reported

LONDON —  The Sunday Times of London says it has evidence that Israel has about 100 atomic weapons stockpiled after building such arms for 20 years at a secret underground factory in the Negev Desert.

Israel has repeatedly denied that it possesses nuclear weapons but has said it has the capacity to produce them quickly if any of its hostile Arab neighbors acquires them.

The newspaper, which said its information came from a former Israeli technician who has left his country, said the Jewish state has been building atomic warheads at the Dimona nuclear research facility in the Negev for two decades.

The weekly published photographs that it said the technician, identified as Mordechai Vanunu, had taken inside Dimona. It also published a diagram of an eight-level structure, mostly underground, where he was said to have worked.

The Sunday Times said the 31-year-old technician worked for nearly 10 years at a top-secret bunker that provided vital components for weapons production. It said he lost his job, along with 180 other Dimona workers, during a cost-cutting move.

The newspaper also said Israeli security agents had grown concerned about increasing contacts, described as “political,” between Vanunu and Arab students in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The Sunday Times said it tracked Vanunu down in Australia and that his story about weapons development appeared credible. The paper said the Israeli was flown to Britain and questioned by Dr. Frank Barnaby, a nuclear physicist.