WarSclerotic

Report: Explosion rocks Iran city of Isfahan, home to key nuclear facility – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Semi-official Fars news agency says blast heard distinctly in several parts of the western Iran city; a uranium conversion plant near Isfahan went online in 2004.

By Yossi Melman and Reuters Tags: Iran threat Iran nuclear

An explosion rocked the western Iranian city of Isfahan on Monday, the semi-official Fars news agency reported, adding that the blast was heard in several parts of the city.

According to reports, frightened residents called the fire department after the blast, forcing the city authorities to admit there had been an explosion.

Speaking with Fars news agency, Isfahan’s deputy mayor confirmed the reports and said the authorities are investigating the matter. However, after the incident was reported in Israel, the report was taken off the Fars website.

It seems that city authorities and the Iranian government were embarrassed by the reports of a blasts, releasing contradictory versions of the alleged events. One example is a statement given by the same deputy mayor to the Mehr news agency, saying he had no reports of an explosion.

Another confirmation came from the head of the city’s judiciary, who said an explosion-like sound was heard. Meanwhile, the Mehr news agency reported there has been a blast at a petrol station near the city. Another report pointed to a training accident.

The reported incident occurred about two weeks after Gen. Hasan Tehrani Moghaddam was killed together with 20 other Guard members Nov. 12 at a military site outside Bidganeh village, 40 kilometers southwest of Tehran.

The Revolutionary Guard said the accidental explosion occurred while military personnel were transporting munitions.

It should be noted that Iran operates a uranium conversion plant near Isfahan, one with an important function in the chain of Iran’s nuclear program.

It first went into operation in 2004, taking uranium from mines and producing uranium fluoride gas, which then feeds the centrifuges that enrich the uranium.

Since 2004, thousands of kilograms of uranium flouride gas were stockpiled at Isfahan and subsequently sent to the enrichment plant in Natanz.

Earlier Monday, a top Israeli security official said that the recent explosion that rocked an Iranian missile base near Tehran could delay or stop further Iranian surface-to-surface missile development.

The official added, however that the Iranian nuclear program was continuing to gain ground, despite considerable international pressure and attempts to destabilize the Iranian regime.

‘Mysterious explosion rocks Iran… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

    A large explosion rocked the western Iranian city of Isfahan, semi-official FARS news reported Monday afternoon.

According to the report, the blast occurred shortly after 2:00 p.m. FARS did not reveal the cause of the explosion, which was large enough to be heard throughout Iran’s third largest city.

The head of the judiciary in the province said a sound similar to an explosion was heard from Isfahan, according to Iran’s ISNA news agency.

“In the afternoon, there was a noise like an explosion, but we don’t have any information from security forces on the source of the noise,” Gholamreza Ansari was quoted as saying.

The Mehr news agency said other unidentified Iranian news media had reported that the blast took place at a petrol station at a town near Isfahan city.

Isfahan is home to nuclear experimental reactors, and also a uranium enrichment facility for producing nuclear fuel.

The explosion occurred two weeks after a massive explosion west of Tehran which killed 17 troops, including an IRGC officer responsible for the development of some of Iran’s most advanced weapons.

The cause of the explosion was unknown and Iran claimed it occurred when soldiers were moving explosives between bases. There was some speculation on Sunday that sabotage had caused the blast and Israel was involved with the assistance of local Iranian opposition groups.

It was not the first time that mysterious explosions struck in Iran. In recent years, a number of scientists have been killed in car bombings and dozens of IRGC officers have also been killed in various plane crashes.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report November 28, 2011, 7:56 PM (GMT+02:00)

Coffin of Syrian elite pilot

A group of military officers from NATO and Persian Gulf nations have quietly established a mixed operational command at Iskenderun in the Turkish Hatay province on the border of North Syria, debkafile‘s military sources report. Hailing from the United States, France, Canada, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, with Turkish officers providing liaison, they do not represent NATO but are self-designated “monitors.” Their mission is to set up “humanitarian corridors” inside Syria to serve the victims of Bashar Assad’s crackdown. Commanded by ground, naval, air force and engineering officers, the task force aims to move into most of northern Syria.

Laying the groundwork for the legitimacy of the combined NATO-Arab intervention in Syria, the UN Independent International Commission set up to assess the situation in Syria published a horrendous report Monday, Nov. 28 on the Assad regime’s brutalities. It documented “gross violations of human rights” and “patterns of summary execution, arbitrary arrest, enforced disappearance, torture including sexual violence, as well as violations of children’s rights.”
Syrian foreign minister Walid al-Moallem fought back by showing a press conference Monday photos of dismembered bodies of Syrian soldiers as proof of the atrocities he claimed were perpetrated by the anti-Assad opposition.  He also complained that “the Arab League and others refuse to believe that there is a foreign conspiracy targeting Syria.”

debkafile military sources report exclusively that the Western-Arab intervention in the Syrian crisis is in an advanced state of operational planning. It entails a buffer zone in northern Syria encompassing beleaguered towns, primarily Idlib, Rastan and Homs – but also Aleppo, Syria’s largest city (2.5 million mostly Sunni and Kurdish inhabitants).

The protest movement never caught on in Aleppo, home to the moneyed classes who run the country’s financial and trading sectors, and it was confined to the highway network feeding the city. Therefore, for the Assad regime, bringing Aleppo into the “humanitarian corridor” system under foreign military control will round of the damage caused by the economic sanctions approved this week by the Arab League. Losing Aleppo will fatally hammer the economy into the ground and rob the Syrian ruler of funding for sustaining his military crackdown to wipe out the unrest in the areas remaining under his control.

Aware of this threat, Foreign Minister al-Moallem accused the Arab League of declaring economic war on Syria.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

France says Assad’s ‘days are numbered’; Russia to send warships to Syria in 2012.

Al Arabiya

Monday, 28 November 2011

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe has said that has country will ask European Union leaders to set up protected escape routes for Syrians wishing to flee the country. (Reuters)

inShare0

Report: North Korea supplying Syria, Iran, with prohibited nuclear technology – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

German newspaper Die Welt reports that Pyongyang has provided the countries with ‘maraging steel,’ used to upgrade missiles and centrifuges.

By Yossi Melman Tags: Iran Iran nuclear North Korea Syria

North Korea has supplied Syria and Iran with a special kind of steel used to upgrading missiles and building centrifuges for Uranium enrichment, the German newspaper Die Welt reported over the weekend.

The material, called maraging steel, appears on the monitoring list of the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the Missile Technology Control Regime, and its export is prohibited to countries under sanctions such as Iran.

It has been known for years that Iran is trying to obtain the steel through its clandestine purchasing networks around the world. The steel would enable Tehran to construct modified centrifuges, which would in turn allow it to enrich higher quality Uranium at a faster speed.

According to the report, the delivery of the steel is part of a wider North Korean expertise package to Syria, which is building a new missile factory near Homs. According to other reports, the factory is partly funded by Iran, and is expected to become operational within 18 months.

Maraging steel would significantly upgrade Syria’s Scud missile capabilities and the amount of damage their warheads could inflict.
The German newspaper, citing unnamed “Western security sources,” also reported that Syria is trying is trying to supply Hezbollah with M-600 missiles, that have a range of up to 300 kilometers. These would be equipped with warheads that were upgraded using maraging steel.

Several UN resolutions forbid North Korea from exporting weapons or weapons technology.

Also on Monday, a top Israeli security official said that a recent explosion that rocked an Iranian missile base near Tehran could delay or stop further Iranian surface-to-surface missile development.

Earlier this month, Iran reiterated that the explosion at a military base near Tehran that killed 17 members of the Revolutionary Guards was an accident.

It says that contrary to media speculation, the blast, which also killed a missile expert, was not carried out by Israel or the United States.

Speaking at a meeting of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, head of the research department of Israel’s military intelligence said that while the blast may have stalled some avenues of Iranian weapons development, it was from stopping all of the Islamic Republic’s options.

UN report: Syria committed crimes against … JPost – Middle East.

    GENEVA – A United Nations commission of inquiry on Syria said on Monday Syrian military and security forces had committed crimes against humanity including murder, torture and rape and the government of President Bashar al-Assad bore responsibility.

The panel, which interviewed 223 victims and witnesses including defectors, called on Syria to halt the “gross human rights violations”, release prisoners rounded up in mass arrests and allow media, aid workers and rights monitors access to the country.

Syria is “responsible for wrongful acts, including crimes against humanity, committed by members of its military and security forces as documented in the present report,” the three-member panel said in a 39-page report to the UN Human Rights Council.

It catalogs executions, torture, rapes including of children, arbitrary detentions and abductions carried out since March by Syrian forces quashing pro-democracy demonstrations while enjoying “systemic impunity” for their crimes, it said.

“The commission therefore believes that orders to shoot and otherwise mistreat civilians originated from policies and directives issued at the highest levels of the armed forces and the government,” said the team, led by Brazilian expert Paulo Pinheiro.

More than 3,500 people have been killed in the violence, according to the United Nations, while activists say that up to 30,000 have been arrested, many kept in open-air stadiums.

The UN Security Council stopped short of taking action against Syria when China and Russia vetoed a resolution in October. After continuing international criticism of Assad’s handling of the crisis, the Arab League approved sanctions against Syria on Sunday.

On Monday, tens of thousands of Syrians protested in state-backed rallies against the sanctions, the toughest imposed by the Arab League against one of its own members

Russia sending warships to its base in Syria – JPost – Headlines.

By REUTERS
11/28/2011 16:28

    MOSCOW – Russia is sending a flotilla of warships to its naval base in Syria in a show of force which suggests Moscow is willing to defend its interests in the strife-torn country as international pressure mounts on President Bashar al-Assad’s government.

Arab League sanctions and French calls for the establishment of humanitarian zones in Syria have increased international pressure on Assad to end bloodshed that the United Nations says has killed 3,500 people during nine months of protests against his rule.

Russia, which has a naval maintenance base in Syria and whose weapons trade with Damascus is worth millions of dollars annually, joined China last month to veto a Western-backed U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Assad’s government.

Izvestia newspaper reported on Monday, citing retired Russian Admiral Viktor Kravchenko, that Russia plans to send its flagship aircraft carrier the “Admiral Kuznetsov” along with a patrol ship, an anti-submarine craft and other vessels.