The mystery that surrounded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's unannounced trip to Russia was created by the Israeli government in a calculation to divert attention from a secret weapons test, according to sources.

The test, held at undisclosed Israeli military base while Netanyahu was traveling, was done with top-secret authorization from the White House, the sources reported.

Trusted confidential Israeli sources in Jerusalem close to the government told WND the Israeli military conducted the secret weapons test in preparation for a planned pre-emptive strike on Iran.

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They reported the Israeli government has set no date for a possible strike, but preparations already are in an advanced stage.

The plan to create a mystery out of Netanyahu's trip to Russia was deliberate – calculated to transform what in truth was a routine visit by the prime minister into the appearance of a secret mission involving Iran, the sources said.

To carry out the subterfuge, the Israeli prime minister's office stuck to the cover story yesterday, telling reporters only that Netanyahu was occupied with "secret and classified activities" during his unexplained absence of over 12 hours on Monday.

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The National Security Council press office in the White House did not respond to a WND request for comment.

WND was unable to learn the exact nature of the experimental weapon that was successfully tested, other than to confirm the Israeli military specifically designed the weapon to be used in a possible upcoming war with Iran.

Today, the Jerusalem Post reported a senior Kremlin official confirmed to the Russian paper Kommersant that Netanyahu did make a secret trip to Russia on Monday.

The Jerusalem Post further reported that the Russian official said this kind of development "could only be related to new and threatening information on Iran's nuclear program."

Reuters said today that Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko would neither confirm nor deny any meetings were held by Russian government officials with Netanyahu in Moscow. Israeli newspapers were outraged by what was being described as lies issued by the prime minister's office in a "major media fiasco" surrounding the trip.

Glyn Davies, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency, said earlier this week that the U.S. believes Iran is coming close to the "break out" threshold of possessing enough low-enriched uranium to produce one nuclear weapon, if the decision were made to further enrich it to weapons-grade, according to a report published by the Telegraph of London.

Today, Mojaba Samareh Hashemi, a top aide to Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said in an interview that Iran had no intention of entering into talks designed to halt its nuclear enrichment program, according to the Washington Post.

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