The debate among Iranian hardliners over whether Tehran should seek a nuclear bomb in defiance of an escalating U.S.-Israeli attack is getting louder, more public and more insistent, sources in the country say, Reuters reported. 

With the Revolutionary Guards ​now dominant following the killing of veteran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the start of the war on February 28, hardline views on Iran's nuclear approach are in the ascendant, two senior Iranian sources said.

While Western countries have long believed that Iran wants the bomb - or at least the ability to make one very quickly - it has always denied that, saying Khamenei had banned nuclear arms as forbidden in Islam and citing its membership of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, according to Reuters.