Middle East
Iran denies test-firing long-range missiles in Gulf
Iran has denied reports by state media that it test-fired long-range missiles during military exercises in the Gulf. "The exercise of launching missiles will be carried out in the coming days," Iran's senior navy commander is quoted as telling Iran's Press TV. Earlier the semi-official Fars news agency and other outlets reported that land-to-sea missiles had been fired. The naval exercises come at a time of increased tensions between the West and Iran over its nuclear ambitions. On Tuesday Iran threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil export route, if new sanctions were imposed over its nuclear programme.
Has the War with Iran Already Begun?
Two incidents that occurred on Sunday - Iran's claim of a shoot-down of a U.S. drone, and an explosion outside the British embassy in Bahrain - may have been unrelated. But they appear to add to growing evidence that an escalating covert war by the West is under way against Iran, and that Tehran is retaliating with greater intensity than ever. Asked whether the United States, in cooperation with Israel, was now engaged in a covert war against Iran's nuclear program that may include the Stuxnet virus, the blowing-up of facilities and the assassination or kidnapping of scientists, one recently retired U.S. official privy to up-to-date intelligence would not deny it.
Blast at Isfahan damaged nuclear facility
The Times reported on Wednesday that the mysterious explosion that rocked the city of Isfahan two days ago struck the uranium conversion facility located just outside Iran's third-largest city. According to the British newspaper, satellite images clearly show billowing smoke and destruction, despite Iran's claim that no such blast had taken place.
Photos show Iran base decimated by blast
A recent deadly explosion at a missile base in Iran caused major devastation and will take much longer to repair than a top Iranian general has predicted, according to an analysis of new satellite photos of the site. In commercial satellite photos released by a private Washington institute, the sprawling compound west of Tehran looks decimated, with buildings seriously damaged or completely wiped out from the November 12 explosion.
The Iranian threat
The brutal clerical regime is doubtless a threat to its own people, though it does not rank particularly high in that respect in comparison to US allies in the region. But that is not what concerns the military and intelligence assessments. Rather, they are concerned with the threat Iran poses to the region and the world. The reports make it clear that the Iranian threat is not military. Iran's military spending is "relatively low compared to the rest of the region", and of course minuscule as compared to the US. Iranian military doctrine is strictly "defensive, designed to slow an invasion and force a diplomatic solution to hostilities". Iran has only "a limited capability to project force beyond its borders". With regard to the nuclear option, "Iran's nuclear programme and its willingness to keep open the possibility of developing nuclear weapons is a central part of its deterrent strategy".
China says it opposes Western sanctions on Iran
China's Foreign Ministry on Wednesday said it opposes unilateral sanctions against Iran,days after several Western countries announced new measures against Tehran to halt its nuclear program. The United States, Britain and Canada announced new measures against Iran's energy and financial sectors on Monday and France proposed "unprecedented" new sanctions, including freezing the assets of its central bank and suspending purchases of its oil.
Iran: New Western nuclear sanctions ‘in vain’
Iran has dismissed new Western sanctions imposed against it because of growing concerns about its nuclear programme. A senior Iranian official said the sanctions would unite the Iranian people, would have no impact and would be "in vain". On Monday, the US, UK and Canada announced new measures targeting Iran.
Iran and the I.A.E.A.
I've been reporting on Iran and the bomb for The New Yorker for the past decade, with a focus on the repeated inability of the best and the brightest of the Joint Special Operations Command to find definitive evidence of a nuclear-weapons production program in Iran. The goal of the high-risk American covert operations was to find something physical - a "smoking calutron," as a knowledgeable official once told me - to show the world that Iran was working on warheads at an undisclosed site, to make the evidence public, and then to attack and destroy the site.
Iran nuclear program – 5 key sites
China Iran’s New Best Friend
Following this week's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report concluding that Tehran appears to be well on its way to developing the possibility of manufacturing a nuclear weapon, the next step for world powers is to seek tougher sanctions in the United Nations Security Council. But meaningful restrictive measures are not likely to happen, say many analysts, considering China's close relationship with Iran, in part to satisfy China's great thirst for oil. Today, Chinese and Russian diplomats announced that they believe no new sanctions on Iran are necessary.
Nuclear Smuggler Or Kidnapped Iranian Businessman
IAEA Iran Report Thrives on Laptop of Lies
According to a cable released by the Wikileaks in October 2009, "Amano reminded [the] ambassador on several occasions that he would need to make concessions to the G-77 [the developing countries group], which correctly required him to be fair-minded and independent, but that he was solidly in the US court on every key strategic decision, from high-level personnel appointments to the handling of Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program."
Israel engaged in war of signals over nuclear Iran
The possibility that Israel may launch a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities is heading the Jewish state's public agenda again, dominating news reports and generating debate and analysis. It began Friday, when respected veteran journalist Nahum Barnea published an article entitled 'Atomic Pressure,' which asked whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak have already decided to launch a strike.
UK military steps up plans for Iran attack amid fresh nuclear fears
Britain's armed forces are stepping up their contingency planning for potential military action against Iran amid mounting concern about Tehran's nuclear enrichment programme, the Guardian has learned. The Ministry of Defence believes the US may decide to fast-forward plans for targeted missile strikes at some key Iranian facilities. British officials say that if Washington presses ahead it will seek, and receive, UK military help for any mission, despite some deep reservations within the coalition government.
The west’s previous attempts to derail Iran’s nuclear programme
Zakaria: How to deal with Iran’s nuclear future
Iran could make atom bomb material despite hurdles
Iran’s Nuclear Facility Losing Power, Experts Say
Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Plant Shuts for Tests, Government Says –
Iran nuclear site draws defiant aura from namesake
Why Tehran Cannot Stop Nuclear Enrichment
Iran has posed the most serious nuclear challenge to the international community, and experts believe that it is only steps away from getting the nuclear weapons capability. Yet, international efforts have to date failed to stop the mullahs and evidence shows that they are carrying out secret work to further enrich uranium.
SPIEGEL Interview with Former Nuclear Watchdog: The Iranians ‘Tricked and Misled Us’
In a SPIEGEL interview, Olli Heinonen, the former deputy director of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, offers his first assessment of his 27 years at the global nuclear watchdog. He addresses Iran's nuclear program, his concerns about the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and mistakes made in Fukushima.
Iran nuclear drive heightens risk of strike: France
Iran’s nuclear setbacks More than just bad luck
Iran's star-crossed nuclear and energy programs have suffered a rash of setbacks, mishaps and catastrophes in the past two years. Assassins killed three scientists with links to Iran's nuclear programs. The Stuxnet computer worm that infected computers worldwide zeroed in on a single target in Iran, devices that can make weapons-usable uranium.
US Again Slams Iran Over Nuclear Aims
U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu criticized Iran Monday for its nuclear activities, accusing the Islamic Republic of "denial, deceit and evasion.'' Iran has moved some of its uranium enrichment operations to an underground bunker. The West fears it is a first step in building a core for a nuclear warhead.
Must America Accept A Nuclear Iran
The world learned to its horror the price of appeasement when, fearing war, it allowed Adolf Hitler to ignore the Treaty of Versailles in his quest to establish a Thousand Year Reich. More than 50 million people paid that price in death. Now the world is facing another mad dictatorship in an Iran bent on mass destruction.
Exclusive interview with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad The president of Iran on his release of the hikers, his next nuclear plan, the Palestinian statehood vote, and more.
New clues – but no proof – on Iran’s illicit nuclear trade
Given that both Iran and North Korea are pursuing nuclear weapons capabilities in defiance of UN mandates, it would seem logical for the two outlaw programmes to share their respective know-how. After all, each is prevented by UN sanctions from legally acquiring the material and technological wherewithal needed to develop nuclear weapons that can be reliably delivered.
As Arab Spring unfolds, who is watching Iran?
EU says Iran must meet global demands before sanctions are lifted
Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant connected to national grid
Iran Is Said to Be Trying to Shelter Nuclear Fuel Program
Iran is moving its most critical nuclear fuel production to a heavily defended underground military facility outside the holy city of Qum, where it is less vulnerable to attack from the air and, the Iranians hope, the kind of cyberattack that crippled its nuclear program, according to intelligence officials.
Iran launches production of banned carbon fiber
Iran Reportedly Shows U.N. Advanced Nuke Equipment
Iran’s covert war with Israel in Caspian
Russia hopes Iran talks will be based on Moscow ideas
Ahmadinejad Says Iran Nuclear Plant to Start on Time, RT Reports
Iran’s nuclear partner Russia seeks to revive global talks
US Senators urge sanctions on Iran finances
Iran’s dangerous concoction of nuclear ambitions and Shiite Messianism
Iran Claims Progress Speeding Nuclear Program
The march toward a nuclear Iran
For years it was assumed that economic sanctions and diplomacy would produce a pliable negotiating partner in Iran. But Iran s truculence has effectively undermined the once-popular notion, while a degree of confusion and consternation has gripped the international community. The often-unstated hope is that denial of critical technologies and sabotage can slow the Islamic Republic s nuclear program until, somehow, an alternative strategy, or an agreement, emerges.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, ‘Moderate’
Killing Focuses Attention On Iran’s Nuclear Program
Iranian President Wants to Openly Develop Nukes
Survivor of Attack Leads Iran’s Nuclear Acceleration
Eight months after he narrowly survived an assassination attempt on the streets of Tehran, Fereydoon Abbasi, the nuclear physicist whom Iran s mullahs have put in charge of the country s Atomic Energy Organization, is presiding over what intelligence officials in several countries describe as an unexpected quickening of Iran s production of nuclear material.
Sanctions aren’t slowing Iran’s nuclear progress
ACCORDING TO a recent story in The Post, the Obama administration is quietly toasting the success of international sanctions against Iran. The Islamic republic is having increasing difficulty arranging imports, including food, and the central bank is reportedly short of hard currency. Billions of dollars in foreign investment projects have been canceled, and few banks, insurance companies or shipping firms are willing to do business with Tehran.
Iran prepares for nuclear work in bunker
Iran’s Nuclear Moves Point to Increased Tensions
Iran’s nuclear threat is escalating
On 8 June, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, Fereydoun Abbasi Davani, announced plans to triple Iran's capacity to produce 20% enriched uranium, transferring enrichment from Natanz to the Fordo plant. Inside Iran this announcement by a discredited regime drew little comment and was quickly overshadowed by the domestic political theatre of the latest high-profile tussles between Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But it was an important statement because it makes even clearer the fact that Iran's programme is not designed for purely peaceful purposes.
Busting Iran’s New Missile Bunkers
Three men accused of exporting nuclear technology to Iran
U.S. Fails to Find Suppliers to Iran
Saudi Suggests ‘Squeezing’ Iran Over Nuclear Ambitions
Analysts Dispute Iran’s Uranium-Enrichment Claims
Iran Without Nukes
I do. It s been two years since the Iranian people rose up to protest a stolen election with a bravery that stirred the world and presented Americans with a truer image of a young and highly educated nation than the old specter of the bearded Islamic zealot. The Green Movement was suppressed through barbaric violence but its example helped kindle the Arab Spring.
Iran Nuclear Progress Report
For six months, global attention has fixed on the historic upheavals roiling the Arab world from Tunisia to Bahrain. But the biggest Middle Eastern story continues to be the steady progress Tehran has made toward acquiring the components of a deliverable nuclear weapon. The most recent news is disquieting, to say the least.
Iran accelerates uranium enrichment Danger or bluff?
Iran to Test First Nuclear Bomb by 2012
Iran Guard Anticipates Domestic Nuke Test
An Iranian nuclear-weapon test would be followed by "an ordinary day," Iran's Revolutionary Guard said in an April article seen by Western intelligence officials as an indicator of significant support within the Middle Eastern state for an atomic detonation, the Associated Press reported on Thursday (see GSN, June 8).
Iran Plans High Level of Uranium Enrichment
Iran declared Wednesday that it aims to triple production of nuclear fuel this year and, at a site that had been secret until 2009, increase enrichment to 20 percent. Enrichment at that level indicates technological progress that experts say would make the weapons-grade level of 90 percent enrichment much closer
Obama New sanctions against Iran may be coming
Iran to triple capacity to enrich 20% uranium
Ahmadinejad No offer from world powers could halt Iran’s uranium enrichment
Iran says no offer could stop it enriching uranium
Iran is willing to hold nuclear talks but its atomic advances have no brake and no reverse gear according to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Amid fears it is developing nuclear weapons, world powers want Tehran to stop enriching uranium. But when asked whether it could be offered any incentive to do so, Iran s president answered a reporter with just one word: 'No.'
IAEA New information points to possible Iran nuclear weapon program
Pressure builds over Iran nuclear activities
Iran rebuffs UN atom body on military-linked queries
Iran’s Nuclear Threat – Real or Not
Is Iran actively trying to develop nuclear weapons? Members of the Obama Administration often talk as if this were a foregone conclusion, as did their predecessors under George W. Bush. There's a large body of evidence, however, including some of America's most highly classified intelligence assessments, suggesting that the U.S. could be in danger of repeating a mistake similar to the one made with Saddam Hussein s Iraq eight years ago - allowing anxieties about the policies of a tyrannical regime to distort our estimates of the state's military capacities and intentions.
Obama aides dismiss Seymour Hersh’s Iran story
Woodland Hills man pleads guilty to trying to ship missile components to Iran
An Iranian man living in Woodland Hills has pleaded guilty to attempting to illegally export missile components and radio test sets from the United States to Iran. Davoud Baniameri, 38, pleaded guilty in federal court in Illinois to one count of conspiring to export goods and technology to Iran without a license and one count of attempting to export defense articles without a license.
Does Iran Now Have Nuclear Capable Warheads
According to reports from Iran, two missile warheads with nuclear capability have been delivered to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Based on reports received by the Green Experts of Iran, the range of the missiles, produced by the Ministry of Defense Industries, has also been boosted and can now travel a distance of 2,000 miles. Simultaneously, a joint military-industrial project with Iran, Pakistan, China and the Ukraine has begun to produce nuclear warheads, including the first manufactured nuclear-capable warheads. These are now in the possession of the Revolutionary Guards.
Inspectors Pierce Iran’s Cloak of Nuclear Secrecy
German-based bank tied to Iran defies closure order
The Hamburg-based bank Europ isch- Iranische Handelsbank (EIH) defiantly announced on its website that it will not have to 'discontinue its operations.' According to a report in the German-language edition of the Financial Times on Thursday, EIH will mount a legal challenge to the European Union decision to sanction its operations because of its involvement in Iran s nuclear-proliferation program.
Nuclear talks call Iran’s bluff
Last week brought new indications that the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran want to make a nuclear bomb. The disclosure was part of the newly released nine-page report by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). It stated that "Tehran has conducted work on a highly sophisticated nuclear triggering technology that experts said could be used for only one purpose: setting off a nuclear weapon
Sarkozy says more sanctions on Iran to come
Iran’s Bid For Africa’s Uranium
Watchdog Finds Evidence That Iran Worked on Nuclear Triggers
The world s global nuclear inspection agency, frustrated by Iran s refusal to answer questions, revealed for the first time on Tuesday that it possesses evidence that Tehran has conducted work on a highly sophisticated nuclear triggering technology that experts said could be used for only one purpose: setting off a nuclear weapon.
China denies role in North Korea-Iran missile trade
Iran, North Korea trade missile technology
A leaked UN report says North Korea and Iran have been exchanging ballistic missile technology in violation of UN sanctions, according to Reuters news agency. "Prohibited ballistic missile-related items are suspected to have been transferred between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Islamic Republic of Iran on regular scheduled flights of Air Koryo and Iran Air," the report said on Saturday.
Iran’s nuclear program still trying to overcome international sanctions
Iran says second cyber attack hits country, months after computer worm targets nuclear program
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