Iran Goes Gopher

Debka is reporting that Iran is digging a whole bunch of holes in the ground for real and fake missile silos.

The Iranians are frenziedly digging hundreds of new missile launch silos in central and Western Iran in readiness for a US or Israeli attack on their nuclear installations, DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources report.

Some Western sources have noticed that they are creating more silo bases than they have operational missile batteries in order to mislead their enemies about the locations of the genuine launch pads.

The dummy silos are fully equipped with air defenses including anti-air missiles which too are fake.

Iran is also building a whole bunch of missiles of the Shahab-2, Shahab-3 liquid fuel types and a lot of the new Sajil-2 solid fuel type. There are also indications that the Iranians may be working on a three stage missile patterned after the Pakistani Ghauri-3 series.

Analysis. There is a line spoken by Jim Hutton in The Green Berets where he talks about what he has learned on a reconnaissance of the local Viet Cong forces. The line goes something like this. “Charlie is building a lot of ladders and caskets. Ladders to get at us and caskets to be buried in.” Basically this was an attack warning.

It is difficult to tell if this is an attack warning or a defensive measure, or both. So far the Iranian government has chosen to work through proxies, Hezbollah and the Houthi, to advance its political and religious aims while preserving plausible deniability. I see no immediate reason for them to change tactics.

But they are pushing another button in Riyadh and Jerusalem. An array of missile silos would present a targeting nightmare to the Israelis and the Saudis.

If nothing, it would probably force them to use their supply of “bunker busters” on the missile silos and not on the nuclear facilities.

It is the Israeli F-15Is that are the only jets capable of delivering the bunker busters. They are not certified for the Tornado that I know of. I doubt that a Durandel would penetrate the top of a missile silo even if it was a direct hit.

Or, the Israelis will be forced to fly multiple attack waves and thereby deplete their Air Force. The other possibility is a nuclear strike against some of the targets by Jericho missiles and cruise missiles.

World Threats

Sunni Shia-phobe about islamized Iran's Policy

History Teaches How to Keep Iran From Going Nuclear

Tawfik Hamid

Iran's missile tests aim to demonstrate both Iran's military might and its readiness for any military threat.

The rogue nation's most recent tests, on Sept. 28, were upgraded versions of the medium-range Shahab-3 and Sajjil missiles. Both can carry warheads and have a range of 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers), putting Israel, American military bases in the Middle East, and parts of Europe within striking distance.

It is vital to make the right decisions on how to deal with such a regime. History can teach us many lessons on how we should respond to tyrants.

One of the greatest lessons we must learn from history is that integrating the will or the desire to do evil with the ability to do it is catastrophic. The Nazi regime, for example, would not have been capable of carrying out the Holocaust if the free world had had the conscience to stand against it at an early stage to prevent it from getting sufficient power to harm others.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad clearly expressed his desire to erase Israel from the map, which would entail killing millions of innocent people. It would be a disaster if the free world failed to stop him from getting the power to do so.

It is shameful that neither the Mulla regime in Iran nor the other Islamic scholars in the Sunni Muslim world denounced his statements to erase Israel.

It is unwise not to believe the Iranian president's statements. If we are not going to believe the Iranian regime in this, then why should we believe it when it says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes!

It is also important to mention that the title of the military operation to test the missiles, Al-Rasoul Al-AaZam (The Greatest Prophet-Mohamed), used Islamic names that carry certain a symbolism. "Shahab" and "Siggil" were used in the traditional Islamic text to indicate destruction of others. Here are their meanings:

Quran 37:10 — Except such as snatch away something by stealth, and they (the devils) are pursued by "Shahab" — a flaming fire, of piercing ability (to destroy them).

Quran 105:4-5 — Which smote them with "Sajjil" — stone-hard blows of chastisement pre-ordained, that caused them to become like a field of grain that has been eaten down to stubble.

Source: http://www.newsmax.com/tawfik_hamid/Iran_nuclear_threat/2009/10/02/267768.html

IAEA: Iran Has Knowledge Necessary for Nuke

An IAEA report tentively concludes that Iran has the necessary scientific expertise and knowledge to build a nuclear weapon.

Therefore, all Iran has to do now is enrich its current stocks of uranium to the 90% level required to create a nuclear explosion, and somewhere covert to do so.

The newly-announced Qom site is out of the question because it isn’t operational yet and inspectors are going to be working there by the end of the month, according to reports from today.

The report also confirms that from 2002-2003, Iran worked on reconfiguring the Shahab-3 to carry a nuclear warhead. The New York Times also reports:

“The atomic agency’s report also presents evidence that beyond improving upon bomb-making information gathered from rogue nuclear experts around the world, Iran has done extensive research and testing on how to fashion the components of a weapon. It does not say how far that work has progressed.”

This means either Iran has a covert site somewhere else, which would require massive construction efforts that can be detected by satellites easily, or they are just trying to build the infrastructure necessary to later produce an arsenal, rather than one bomb or two at a time at the earliest possibility.

My guess is that the second, wiser option is the one they are pursuing.

Source: World Threats

Iran tests long-range missiles

Iran has test-fired two long-range missiles which defence analysts say are capable of hitting Israel or US bases in the Gulf region.

The state-sponsored Press TV news channel said that the Shahab 3 and Sejil missiles were fired on Monday, the second day of military exercises by Iran's Revolutionary Guard.

Britain, France and the European Union all expressed their "concern" after the tests, which come just days before Tehran is due to meet the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, along with Germany, to discuss its nuclear programme.

"We call on Iran to choose the path of co-operation rather than confrontation, by immediately ceasing these deeply destabilising activities," a statement from the French foreign ministry said.

Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, said that the tests were consistent with the "provocative nature with which Iran has acted on the world stage".

He urged Tehran to allow "unfettered access" to its nuclear facilities and said there was an "international consensus" to address the issue

Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, also voiced concern about the missile tests.

"Of course it is worrisome when missile launches happen against the backdrop of an unresolved situation concerning Iran's nuclear programme," Russian news agencies quoted him as saying.

Lavrov was speaking to Russian reporters in New York after meeting his Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr Mottaki, whom he said he urged to be "maximally co-operative" with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in investigating the construction of a new uranium enrichment plant.

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Source: Al Jazeera (English)