GMT

Adopt defence system or face disaster, warns US official

Failure by the European allies to adopt a missile defence system could lead to the break up of Nato, the top US official responsible for promoting the controversial project warned today

Lt Gen Henry Obering, director of the US Missile Defence Agency, painted almost apocalyptic scenarios at a conference at the Royal United Services Institute in London today. He said that Iran could simultaneously block the Straits of Hormuz and provoke terrorist attacks in Europe, and that al-Qaida could acquire nuclear weapons

Iran would be able to launch ballistic missiles which could hit most capitals of Europe in "the next two or three years", he said

He described a hypothesis in which in 2015 Iran announces it has long-range missiles with a nuclear capability and Europe does not have a missile defence system.

"We would start to see fractures in the alliance,"

another 2015 scenario, he said al-Qaida would capture ships and nuclear-armed missiles