Egypt's Al-Ahram reported Saturday that Iran was being prevented from developing staggering nuclear capabilities by Israel's Mossad chief, Meir Dagan, whom the paper dubbed "Israel's superman".

"The head of the Israeli Mossad, unknown to many because he works in silence and away from the media tumult, has delivered painful blows to the Iranian program over the past eight years and caused it to stall despite the hubbub surrounding it. This fact has made Dagan the superman of the Jewish state."

The report was written by the paper's former chief of Gaza Strip affairs, Ashraf Abu al-Haul.

"Those who follow occurrences within Israel know that the current Mossad chief has achieved things no one could have imagined in everything from the Iranian nuclear program and the capabilities of the Syrian army to Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad. However he has never published his activities, and publications have always come from the other side," he wrote.

Al-Haul credits Dagan with "very brave actions taken in the Middle East", including the assassination of Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus in 2008, the bombing of the Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007, and a strike on an arms convoy headed from Iran to Gaza through Sudan last year.