A remarkable claim about Israel's clandestine campaign against Iran's nuclear programme, published this week by WikiLeaks, has been dismissed out of hand by Israeli officials.

In one of millions of internal emails obtained in a hack attack on US strategic intelligence company Stratfor by the Anonymous collective, a Middle East "source" claimed that Israel had wiped out Iran's nuclear infrastructure.

In the email exchange, dated November 2011, Stratfor analysts discuss the explosion at an Iranian missile base near Tehran and quote a source who "was asked what he thought of reports that the Israelis were preparing a military offensive against Iran. Response: I think this is a diversion. The Israelis already destroyed all the Iranian nuclear infrastructure on the ground weeks ago."

Some of the Stratfor staff expressed the opinion that Israel had sent commandos into Iran, with the assistance of Kurdish fighters or Iranian Jews.

One security official said that "it is less credible than Arabian Nights. An unknown source, talking to an unreliable private company and then quoted by WikiLeaks, you can't get something less credible than that."