The World - News from Feb. 25, 1987

Israel may have acquired enough nuclear weaponry “to level every urban center in the Middle East” with a population of over 100,000, according to a study by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The assessment is based, in part, on the disclosures of a former nuclear technician, Mordechai Vanunu, who suggested that Israel’s nuclear arsenal may number 100 to 200 weapons. Vanunu is to being held for trial for making public secret information about the Israeli program. The report also cautions that if rebels take power in South Africa or Pakistan and gain control of existing nuclear technology there, the result could be “one of the gravest dangers of the next decade.”