WarSclerotic

US sources: Terror alert prompted by suspected suicide bombers with implanted explosives.

New threat from implanted explosives.

The Obama administration continued Monday, Aug. 5, to try and impress Americans and the world that its far-reaching still ongoing terror alert across a host of Muslim countries was serious and credible. Members of the House and Senate intelligence committees – Democrats and Republicans alike – fully backing the White House, said the chatter picked up over the past two weeks exceeds anything in the past decade.
US officials are beginning to release nuggets of information about the nature of the threat.
According to one high placed US official, concern focuses on the possibility of terrorists carrying explosive devices implanted inside their bodies. debkafile’s counterterrorism sources add that plastic explosives in the body of a would-be suicide bomber without metal components are undetectable by standard screening devices such as those used at most international airports.

It has been suspected for some years that doctors and surgeons in Yemen in the service of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula were experimenting with implanting of plastic explosive devices inside the bodies of suicide bombers or even animals. According to Western counterterrorism sources, the surgeon would open the abdominal cavity and implant the explosive device amongst the bomber’s internal organs.
Some US sources are calling the current threat the most serious since 9/11. They are alarmed by the degree of confidence AQIM leaders show in openly using electronic communications to boast about the unstoppable attack they are plotting.

A senior US official described the terrorists as saying the planned attack is “going to be big” and “strategically significant.”
Britain, Germany and France closed their embassies in Yemen Sunday and Monday. British authorities said some embassy staff in Yemen had been withdrawn. Canada also closed its embassy in Dhaka, Bangladesh

US sources explain the exceptionally broad geographic area covered by the terrorist alert – from Mauritania to Bangladesh including the Middle East, North Africa, the Indian subcontinent and homeland America. We don’t know the exact target of the planned attack, according to one US official. “We do not know whether they mean an embassy, an airbase, an aircraft, trains.”
US agencies are concerned that just three or five suicide bombers with undetectable implanted devices would not be caught in time to prevent them form detonating their devices in a coordinated attack on three or more continents. This might set off the signal for a large wave of bombing attacks in many more countries.

debkafile reported earlier on the extention of the terror threat to the American homeland.

Saturday night Aug. 3, the global warnings issued last week by the US State Department and Interpol against terrorist attacks covering almost the entire Muslim world, suddenly reached the American homeland. Sunday morning, Aug. 4, as US missions closed in 22 countries, including Egypt and Israel, the New York Police Department went on high alert. Security was beefed up in high-profile areas outside houses of worship and transportation hubs, although Police Commissioner Ray Kelly complained that “a lack of specific information was cause for concern.”

Friday, Aug. 2 the State Department issued a worldwide travel alert warning to Americans overseas of potential al Qaeda attacks in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia.

Saturday night, National Security Adviser Susan Rice convened security officials on the situation. The White House stated: “Given the nature of the potential threat through the week, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and counter-terrorism Lisa Monaco has held regular meetings with relevant members of the inter-agency to ensure the US government is taking those appropriate steps.”
Nothing in this statement specified the nature of the “potential threat.”

Sunday, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey told the ABC that the threat was “more specific than previous ones” and “the intent is to attack Western, not just US interests.” He reported that the diplomatic facilities closed “range from Mauritania in northwest Africa to Afghanistan.”

Western and Middle East terrorism and intelligence experts say that in additional to the lack of information, at least six elements don’t add up in the various global warnings released since Thursday Aug. 1:

1. Thursday, US President Barack Obama ordered that “all appropriate steps” be taken to protect Americans in response to a threat of an al-Qaeda attack. What does this mean? The experts comment that even if all US agencies were pressed into service worldwide, there is no way they could protect all Americans in the vast area marked out in the warnings.
2.  If the threat is specific why does the warning extend to so many countries? Al Qaeda is not even active in all them. If the danger is so immediate, why haven’t any governments in North Africa and as far east as Bangladesh declared their own terror alerts?

3.  US officials reported that some of the intelligence came from terrorist communications intercepted by the National Security Agency over the past days. This too raises questions, considering that al Qaeda leaders are wont to avoid electronic media and satellite phones for their communications on operations, preferring couriers who are not susceptible to electronic interception or eavesdropping. The Internet serves them for propaganda and planting red herrings.
4.  In the past week, US drones conducted three attacks against al Qaeda targets in Yemen, where the organization is defined by US officials as al Qaeda’s most dangerous affiliate and capable of attacking the US embassy in Sanaa.

The last drone attack Aug. 1 killed five low-profile al Qaeda operatives, who were driving in a vehicle in the Qatan Valley of Hadramouth province (Osama bin Laden’s place of birth).
All 12 US drone attacks in Yemen of the last eight months targeted Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Although its deputy chief Said al Shiri, a former inmate of the Guantanamo Bay facility, was eliminated, AQAP’s entire high command has remained intact and fully functional. In other words, US intelligence counter-terror agencies have not discovered their whereabouts.
5.  Neither have they run down the location of al Qaeda’s top leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. Tuesday, he released a communiqué accusing US agents of engineering the coup which deposed the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood president by penetrating the Egyptian army. He called for more attacks on America.
6.  Saturday, the international police agency, Interpol, published a global security alert following “the escape of hundreds of terrorists and other criminals” in the past month, including jailbreaks in Iraq, Libya and Pakistan. Interpol feared that the escapees would team up with al Qaeda to hit Western targets. Yet none of its 190 member states have declared terror alerts on this score either.
7. Finally, the sweeping warnnings from the Obama administration dramatically refute its own oft-heard claims that al Qaeda is no longer a force to be reckoned with, because it has lost its compact central command and control of its component branches, which have split up into regional franchises operating autonomously. Al Qaeda, they have been saying, is no longer capable of large-scale terrorist attacks on a global scale.

Report: Iran’s Arak reactor to have nuclear weapons grade plutonium by next summer | JPost | Israel News.

Obama’s fundamental failure on Iran – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Op-ed: US president must focus on preventing nuclear Iran regardless of how Israel-PA talks develop

Dan Calic

President Obama apparently is at it again. A report has emerged citing an unnamed source, that any effort by the US to curtail Iran‘s development of their nuclear program will be directly tied to Israel’s commitment to peace with the Palestinians.

Some of the details remain rather ambiguous. For example, when did Obama communicate this to Prime Minister Netanyahu? Another unknown is whether he’s referring to peace talks taking place, or if they are successful?

While certain details remain unclear, this is not the first time Obama has in essence blackmailed Israel. Virtually the same suggestion was floated early his first term. Along with this, he engaged in some other activities which brought serious strain to relations between the two countries.

For example, he threatened to expose a confidential understanding between Israel and the US regarding the existence of nuclear capabilities at Israel’s Dimona facility. Additionally, routine travel of scientists from Israel was interrupted.

In fact, Obama initiated so many anti-Israel actions during his first term that at one point both houses of Congress sent him letters signed by an overwhelming majority of lawmakers, telling him to stop treating Israel so unfairly. Such a public rebuke is extremely rare.

Yet some three years hence the president apparently hasn’t learned his lesson. Aside from the sheer strong-arm tactic by Obama, the question I have is why is he butting into the affairs of Israel and the Palestinians regarding Iran? Iran is a separate nation which has no voice in the issues between Israel and the Palestinians. Iran has also made it clear it wants to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. This is unrelated to any potential outcome of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

So what good does peace between Israel and the Palestinians do if the goal of Iran is to wipe Israel out? This gross misjudgment by President Obama is just one in a long list of international matters reflecting poor decision making on the part of the US and its intelligence community. The reason Iran wants to wipe Israel out is because their religious leaders believe they must annihilate the Jews in accordance with their beliefs.

Mr. Obama needs to concentrate his efforts on preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons regardless of what happens between Israel and the Palestinians. In fact, I submit that if a peace agreement is reached it will actually make matters worse regarding Iran. Why? With a peace deal Israel’s continued existence will bother Iran. It will also likely mean Israel will retain most, if not complete control over Jerusalem. Iran will be quite displeased with this and likely will continue to threaten Israel’s existence.

If Obama seeks peace between Israel and the Palestinians, he needs to stop pressuring Israel into making all the sacrifices, such as giving up huge amounts of land and releasing murderers from prison. His efforts should be directed at the Palestinians to stop fomenting and glorifying terrorism, and to accept Israel’s right to exist.

Forcing Israel to be the only party to make sacrifices will not achieve a meaningful peace. Moreover, Iran is going to continue to threaten Israel and the US as long as Israel exists. Mr. Obama needs to surround himself with staff and intelligence who have a realistic understanding of the Middle East, rather than those who continue to reflect his incorrect and anti-Israel views. Such views will not bring peace, and will not prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons.

Dan Calic is a writer, history student and speaker. See additional articles on his Facebook page

Embassy closings, travel warning renew debate over NSA data collection | McClatchy.

( I was waiting for some validation of my idea that these ridiculous embassy closings were motivated by an attempt to justify the NSA’s vile, overreaching surveillance of Americans. Here it is… – JW )

Yemeni protesters shout slogans outside the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa, Yemen, on Thursday, September 13, 2012. | Mohammed Mohammed/MCT

WASHIGNTON — The closing of U.S. embassies in 21 predominantly Muslim countries and a broad caution about travel during August that the State Department issued on Friday touched off debate Sunday over the National Security Agency’s sweeping data collection programs.

Congressional supporters of the program, appearing on Sunday morning talk shows, said the latest rounds of warnings of unspecified threats showed that the programs were necessary, while detractors said there was no evidence linking the programs, particularly the massive collection of cell phone records of hundreds of millions of Americans, to the vague warnings of a possible terrorist attack.

Meanwhile, there were no reports of violence or unusual activity in any of the countries where the United States had kept its embassies and consulates closed when they would have ordinarily been open on Sunday. Nevertheless, the State Department announced that embassies and consulates in 16 countries would remain closed throughout the week, including four African nations that had not been on the original list. Diplomatic posts in five other countries would reopen Monday, the State Department said, including those in Afghanistan and Iraq, where terrorist attacks have been frequent.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the extended closures were “not an indication of a new threat stream.”

“Given that a number of our embassies and consulates were going to be closed in accordance with local custom and practice for the bulk of the week for the Eid celebration at the end of Ramadan, and out of an abundance of caution, we’ve decided to extend the closure of several embassies and consulates,” she said.

An official who’d been briefed on the matter in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, told McClatchy that the embassy closings and travel advisory were the result of an intercepted communication between Nasir al-Wuhayshi, the head of the Yemen-based Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, and al Qaida leader Ayman al Zawahiri in which Zawahiri gave “clear orders” to al-Wuhaysi, who was recently named al Qaida’s general manager, to carry out an attack.

The official, however, said he could not divulge details of the plot. AQAP’s last major attack in Sanaa took place in May 2012 when a suicide bomber killed more than 100 military cadets at a rehearsal for a military parade.

“Al-Qaida is on the rise in this part of the world and the NSA program is proving its worth yet again,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“This is a good indication of why they’re so important,” Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a leading critic of the program, took the opposing position on CNN, saying the program that has raised the most opposition in Congress, the daily collection of so-called cell phone metadata that details numbers called, the location where a call originated, and the length of a call, appears to have had nothing to do with either the closing of the U.S. diplomatic outposts or the travel advisory.

“If you look at the one that’s most at issue here, and that’s the bulk metadata program, there’s no indication, unless I’m proved wrong later, that that program, which collects vast amounts of domestic data, domestic telephony data, contributed to information about this particular plot,” he said.

The disagreement highlighted the growing debate over the domestic versus international component of the NSA’s data collection efforts, an issue that has become increasingly convoluted in controversies surrounding the agency.

There are two communication intercept programs in particular that have come under scrutiny in the wake of leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, both of which operate under different provisions of U.S. law.

The collection of the telephone records was authorized by the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows the collection of business records without a subpoena. In early June, Snowden revealed that the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Court had secretly ordered a Verizon subsidiary to provide the NSA on a daily business the metadata for all of its cell phone accounts, the first confirmation that the NSA was collecting records on millions of U.S. cell phones.

A second program was authorized under a separate law, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Under that program the NSA collects data on Internet traffic that moves through nine Internet companies, including Facebook and Yahoo. NSA has insisted that only data about accounts outside the United States is collected.

Obama administration officials have struggled in recent weeks to clearly articulate how successful either program has been in thwarting terror plots in the face of open skepticism by some members of Congress. Instead, officials told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that individual successes of the programs are impossible to determine.

“That’s a very difficult question to answer in so much that it’s not necessarily how these programs work. That’s actually not how these programs work,” NSA Deputy Director John Inglis said when asked how many terror plots the telephone metadata programs had been critical in identifying. “What happens is you simply have a range of tools at your disposal.”

The distinction between the two programs has become an important part of the NSA debate as more and more lawmakers have proposed legislation to reform the agency’s practices when it comes to domestic metadata collection.

“Do we need to collect all of the phone records of all of the people living in America for five years so that if we’re going to target one particular person we’re ready to jump on it?” Senate Assistant Majority Leader Richard Durbin, D-Ill, asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Last week, Durbin inserted a provision into a defense spending bill that would require the NSA to detail how many Americans had been affected by the collection of phone records, how much it cost NSA to collect and store those records, and to list any specific plots that had been thwarted by those records. The Appropriations Committee approved the provision and it the Senate will consider the legislation when it reconvenes in September.

Durbin said that President Barack Obama had said he was “open to suggestions” on making the NSA program more transparent during a meeting with nine members of Congress last week.

Graham, however, seemed to indicate that the fight to curb the NSA programs is likely to be fierce.

“To the members of the Congress who want to reform the NSA program, great; but if you want to gut it, you make us much less safe and you’re putting our nation at risk,” he said. “We need to have policies in place that can deal with the threats that exist, and they are real and they are growing.”

The Sunday embassy closings became part of that argument, despite questions about what role either program might have played or how real the threat will turn out to be.

“The good news is that we picked up intelligence. That’s what the NSA does,” said Rep. C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” he said, “NSA’s sole purpose is to get information intelligence to protect Americans from attack.”

Chambliss had a similar view. “These programs are controversial, we understand that. They’re very sensitive. They’re what allow us to have the ability to gather this chatter we refer to,” he said.

“If we did not have these programs we wouldn’t be able to listen in on the bad guys. And I will say it’s the 702 program that’s allowed us to pick up on this chatter.”

Just what role the programs had in intercepting the communication is yet to be known.

The State Department list of extended closings included embassies and consulates in Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Yemen, Libya, Djibouti, Sudan, Madagascar, Burundi, Rwanda and Mauritius – the last four of which had not been on the list announced Friday. Embassies and consulates in Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Iraq, and Mauritania would reopen on Monday.

In Sanaa, the epicenter of concern, Yemeni officials said they were on high alert, but there was little evidence that anything was amiss. Traffic clogged major arteries as residents prepared for the end of the fasting month of Ramadan and the upcoming Eid al-Fitr holiday.

The Yemen-based AQAP has been the most active al Qaida chapter in recent years in attempting attacks on U.S. targets. In 2008, it launched an assault on the U.S. embassy in Sanaa and was responsible for the failed 2010 Christmas Day plot to detonate a bomb hidden a passenger’s underwear aboard a plane landing in Detroit.

But the organization is under increasing pressure. AQAP recently acknowledged the death in a January drone strike of its deputy leader, Said al-Shihri, and many in Yemen expect AQAP to try to avenge his death.

In addition, a U.S.-backed government offensive against Ansar al Shariah, an AQAP-affiliated militant group, has pushed the group from its strongholds in Abyan and Shabwa provinces though it still retains its bastion in Abyan’s mountainous district of al Mahfad.

Analysts say they believe the promotion of AQAP’s head to a major position in the core al Qaida franchise is likely to increase pressure on the group to strike out.

Baron reported from Sanaa. Email: awatkins@mcclatchydc.com; dlightman@mcclatchydc.com; Twitter: @alimariewatkins, @davidlightman, @adammbaron

Kristol: Obama said al-Qaida on the run now we’re on the run | The Daily Caller.

Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol remarked on Sunday that President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign rhetoric on foreign policy stood in stark contrast to the turmoil in the Middle East stirred by threats from al-Qaida, pointing out that the U.S. closed 22 embassies throughout the Muslim world.

“Four years ago President Obama gave a much heralded speech as outreach to the Muslim world,” Kristol said. “And now, four years later we are closing embassies throughout the Muslim world. A year ago, the president said al-Qaida is on the run. And now we seem to be on the run.”

“I’m not criticizing the decision to close the embassies. That’s probably the right thing to do for the sake of trying to save American lives and others, but it’s a terrible thing,” he added. “That you know, just a year ago boasting al-Qaida is on the run and Osama bin Laden is dead.”

Kristol made his remarks on Sunday’s “Fox News Sunday” during its panel segment. He also warned closing the embassies affected tourism and further indicated the severity of situation.

“And now an unprecedented closure of 22 embassies and the travel alert, which lasts for a month, which incidentally — I’m not sure people understand that State Department hates to do that,” Kristol said. “You know, this is the highest level of the travel advisory they do routinely, and the travel alert, every host government dislikes that. It cuts tourism. They are objecting to the ambassadors there. The ambassadors are cabling back to the State Department saying, ‘Travel alert, are you sure we have to do that?’ For the U.S. government and the State Department to issue a travel alert for the next month means the threat is serious.”

Dempsey Lands in Israel.

Michael Kadichevski

4/8/2013

The US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, is expected to arrive in Israel today (Sunday), for the purpose of a work visit. General Dempsey will be arriving as a guest of IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz. The visit will focus on improving the military cooperation between the US and Israel with regards to regional developments, such as the ongoing conflict in Syria. Reports published in the US and around the world have attributed attacks within Syria to Israel, which has denied any involvement.

Another issue to be dealt with during Dempsey’s visit is the Iranian nuclear program and concerns in Washington over the possibility that Israel might launch a surprise attack against Iran. These concerns have been fueled by recent statements made by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Speaking about the issue of Iranian nuclear weapons program in an interview to CBS two weeks ago, Netanyahu said that “Israel will have to consider how to stop Iran. The leaders in Tehran are mistaken if they think that we will allow them to reach a nuclear bomb. I am determined to do whatever is necessary to protect my country against a regime that repeatedly threatens its very destruction”.

Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke today at a government meeting about the swearing in of new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. “Iran’s president might have been replaced, but the regime has remained as it was,” Netanyahu said. “One of Iran’s intentions is to develop nuclear capability and weapons with the purpose of destroying Israel. This is a risk for both Israel and the whole world, and we are all committed to preventing this from happening.”

Iran Seen Trying New Path to a Bomb – WSJ.com.

U.S., European Officials Say Tehran Could Start Making Weapons-Grade Plutonium by Next Summer

WASHINGTON—Iran could begin producing weapons-grade plutonium by next summer, U.S. and European officials believe, using a different nuclear technology that would be easier for foreign countries to attack.

The second path to potentially producing a nuclear weapon could complicate international efforts to negotiate with Iran’s new president, Hasan Rouhani, who was sworn in Sunday in Tehran. It also heightens the possibility of an Israeli strike, said U.S. and European officials.

Until now, U.S. and Western governments had been focused primarily on Iran’s vast program to enrich uranium, one path to creating the fissile materials needed for nuclear weapons. Now, the West is increasingly concerned Iran also could use the development of a heavy water nuclear reactor to produce plutonium for a bomb. A heavy-water reactor is an easier target to hit than the underground facilities that house Iran’s uranium-enrichment facilities.

Some Iranians and foreign diplomats hope that Mr. Rouhani, a former top nuclear negotiator, will try to negotiate an end to the sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy. After being sworn in, Mr. Rouhani called on the West to drop the sanctions. “If you seek a suitable answer, speak to Iran through the language of respect, not through the language of sanctions,” he said.

In Washington, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Mr. Rouhani’s inauguration represented “an opportunity for Iran to act quickly to resolve the international community’s deep concerns over Iran’s nuclear program.” “Should this new government choose to engage substantively and seriously to meet its international obligations and find a peaceful solution to this issue, it will find a willing partner in the United States,” Mr. Carney said.

In recent months, U.S. and European officials say, the Tehran regime has made significant advances on the construction of a heavy water reactor in the northwestern city of Arak. A reactor like the one under construction is capable of using the uranium fuel to produce 40 megawatts of power. Spent fuel from it contains plutonium—which, like enriched uranium, can serve as the raw material for an explosive device. India and Pakistan have built plutonium-based bombs, as has North Korea.

The Arak facility, when completed, will be capable of producing two nuclear bombs’ worth of plutonium a year, said U.S. and U.N. officials.

Iran has notified the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, that it plans to make the reactor operational by the second half of 2014 and could begin testing it later this year.

The IAEA has been monitoring Arak since its construction began. But following Iran’s latest timeline, the site’s importance has vastly shot up for Washington and Brussels, said U.S. and European officials. “It really crept up on us,” said an official based at the IAEA’s Vienna headquarters.

Iran denies it is seeking to develop nuclear weapons. It has told the IAEA it is building Arak to produce isotopes used in medical treatments, said U.N. officials.

The development is of deep concern to Israel, which fears it could become the target of any Iranian nuclear attack. It presents a new challenge to the Obama administration’s efforts to engage with Mr. Rouhani, a Scottish-educated cleric who has pledged to negotiate with the U.S. and other world powers over Tehran’s nuclear program.

U.S. and European officials said in recent interviews that they are hoping to start negotiations with Mr. Rouhani’s new government in September.

“At this stage, our most pressing concern is dealing with the enrichment of uranium. But we are increasingly concerned about activity…at Arak,” said a senior European official involved in the Iran diplomacy.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities if international diplomacy stalls. He publicly warned Iran in July not to move forward with the commissioning of the Arak reactor, or risk facing military action.

“They’re pursuing an alternate route of plutonium…to build a nuclear bomb,” the Israeli leader said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on July 14. “They haven’t yet reached it, but they’re getting closer to it. And they have to be stopped.”

Israel has twice destroyed reactors in neighboring Middle East countries before they could produce plutonium, believing they were part of covert nuclear-weapons programs. The Arak plant is viewed as a much easier facility for the Israeli military to strike than Iran’s enrichment facilities in the cities of Natanz and Qom.

“There’s no question that the reactor and its heavy water are more vulnerable targets than the enrichment plants,” said Gary Samore, who served as President Barack Obama’s top adviser on nuclear issues during his first term. “This could be another factor in Netanyahu’s calculations in deciding how long to wait before launching military operations.”

Any Israeli strike on the reactor complex, said current and former U.S. officials, would likely have to take place before Tehran introduces nuclear materials into the facility, because of the potential for a vast environmental disaster a strike could cause.

Iran started building the Arak facility in 2004 based on designs provided by Russia, according to former U.N. officials. Two years later, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution requiring Tehran to cease construction because of the IAEA’s concerns Iran might have a covert nuclear-weapons program.

Tehran has refused to comply, one of the reasons the U.N. has enacted four rounds of sanctions on Iran. It has also significantly restricted the IAEA’s ability to inspect the reactor and its development plans, according to U.N. officials.

In June, Tehran announced it installed the reactor’s vessel, which houses the facility’s nuclear fuel load. Tehran also has been mass producing “pellets,” comprised of natural uranium, to make up the fuel rods to run the plant. In March, Iran told the IAEA it would produce 55 bundles of fuel rods to power Arak by August.

Iran’s plans to start running Arak by next summer might be ambitious, said current and former IAEA officials.

Iran has missed a number of self-announced deadlines in the past to finish building parts of its uranium-enrichment program. The IAEA also says that it has no indications yet that Tehran has built a reprocessing facility at Arak, which would be needed to harvest the plutonium from the reactor’s spent fuel.

Still, nuclear experts who have studied Arak said it was likely Iran could start running Arak by the end of next year. “There is a good possibility that [the reactor] can reach its first nuclear criticality by the end of 2014,” said Olli Heinonen, a former head of the IAEA’s inspections unit, who is now at Harvard’s Belfer Center, which focuses on the studies of nuclear-arms reduction. “However…no significant quantity of plutonium should be available for actual extraction before 2016.”

U.S. and European officials are closely monitoring the formation of Mr. Rouhani’s new government to gauge what policies the president might pursue in future nuclear negotiations.

On Sunday, Mr. Rouhani nominated U.S.-educated diplomat Mohammad Javad Zarif as foreign minister. Mr. Zarif, Iran’s former U.N. ambassador, has been a strong proponent of engagement with the U.S. He closely cooperated with the George W. Bush administration after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan to put in place the government in Kabul now headed by President Hamid Karzai. U.S. and European officials, who said Mr. Zarif’s nomination is a promising sign, are closely watching who Mr. Rouhani will name as his chief nuclear negotiator.

—Laurence Norman in Brussels contributed to this article.