US Ospreys and Air Tankers Put Iran in Israel's Reach

A KC-130J load master watches a refueling of an MV-22B Osprey during a training mission in 2012. (Cpl. Michael Petersheim/US Marine Corps)

The United States plans to give Israel weapons that would enable it to send ground forces against Iranian nuclear facilities that it can’t penetrate from the air.
The deal includes air-refueling aircraft, advanced radars for F-15 fighter jets, and up to eight V-22 Ospreys, an aircraft that can land like a helicopter and carry two dozen special operations forces with their gear over long distances at aircraft speeds.
The Osprey “is the ideal platform for sending Israeli special forces into Iran,” says Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA analyst now at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy.

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Iran’s “Carrier Killer” Missile Improves Accuracy

Iran has improved the accuracy of its supersonic anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM), the Khalij-e Fars (Persian Gulf), considerably, an Iranian military official said earlier this week.
As previously reported, the Khalij-e Fars is a solid-fuel ASBM with a range of 300 km when carrying a 650-kg payload. Iranian officials have depicted it as a way to deny extra-regional navies—read the U.S. Navy— the ability to operate close to Iranian shores, including in the Strait of Hormuz.
In remarks to Iranian media outlets, Brigadier General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh, Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ (IRGC) Aerospace Division, said that Iran’s “defense experts” had increased the precision of the Khalij-e Fars from 30 meters to 8.5 meters.

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Report: Iran test-fires short-range missiles during military drill

TEHRAN, Iran –  Iranian media say the military has test-fired several short-range missiles, including the type Palestinian militant Hamas group used to attack Tel Aviv last November.
Thursday's report by the semi-official Fars news agency says the missiles were tested during an army exercise in central Iran. It says the missiles fired were Nazeat-10 and Fajr-5.
During weeks of fighting in November, Gaza's Hamas rulers fired Iranian-made Fajr-5 rockets that came close to Israel's heartland, including the cities of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem for the first time.

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Iran closer to nuclear 'red line': Israel

ISRAELI Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says diplomacy has so far failed to deter Iran from pursuing its nuclear program, warning the Islamic republic is getting closer to crossing a crucial "red line".

"Iran enriches more and more uranium, it installs faster and faster centrifuges," and it is "running out the clock" on diplomatic efforts to prevent it from obtaining a nuclear capability, Netanyahu said.
"We have to stop its nuclear enrichment program before it's too late," he warned in a speech via satellite from his office in Israel to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the largest pro-Israel lobby in the United States.
The Israeli prime minister warned that leaders in Tehran had opted to "just grit their teeth" through punishing international sanctions and pursue their nuclear plan, come what may.
"It's still not crossed the red line I drew with the United Nations last September," Netanyahu said, referring to the point at which Israel believes Iran would be able to build a nuclear bomb.

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US and Saudi send warnings to Iran and Syria

Kerry (R) also met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (L) during a meeting in Riyadh [AFP]

The United States and Saudi Arabia have presented a united front to Iran and Syria, alerting Iran's leadership that patience over its alleged nuclear ambitions is wearing thin and warning Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that they will boost support to rebels unless he steps down.
John Kerry, the US secretary of state, was in Saudi Arabia on Monday on the latest leg of a nine-nation tour through Europe and the Middle East on his first overseas trip as Washington's top diplomat
In Riyadh on Monday, Kerry reminded Iran that US President Barack Obama has vowed not to allow Iran to get a
nuclear weapon and that he has kept all options, including military options,on the table to prevent that from happening.
The window of opportunity for a diplomatic solution "cannot by definition remain open indefinitely", Kerry said. "There is time to resolve this issue providing the Iranians are prepared to engage seriously on the P5+1 proposal.

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Iran says it has 3,000 advanced centrifuges

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's nuclear chief says his country has produced more than 3,000 advanced centrifuges which are used to enrich uranium.

The semiofficial Fars news agency on Sunday quoted Fereidoun Abbasi as saying that the old generation of IR-1 centrifuges will be phased out soon. Iran has more than 12,000 IR-1 centrifuges enriching uranium at its main Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran.

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Anti-aircraft missiles Iran was trying to ship to Yemeni proxy were made at factory of state-owned Chinese corp.

It has been confirmed that the anti-aircraft missiles that Iran, according to American and Yemeni officials, was trying to send to its proxy, Houthi, in northwestern Yemen, in January were made at a factory represented by a state-owned Chinese corporation. The Iranian shipment was seized in Jan. by the United States Navy and Yemen’s security forces. It should be noted here that Iran has been accused of supplying weapons to its Middle Eastern proxies several times before also, but has always denied the charges, saying the United States and its Western allies have been doing false propaganda against the country. This time, however, there has been no comment by Iran so far.
Iran is a Shiite-led theocracy and believed to be a strong supporter of the Shiite community-dominated Middle Eastern states, including Syria, where the Shiite minority has been ruling the Sunni majority for decades. In a number of other Muslim countries as well, Iran is considered supportive of the Shiite community and like-minded groups.

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Satellite photos of Iran military site bring questions of explosives testing

New satellite imagery released by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) shows some changes at a military site of great interest to the UN nuclear watchdog.
The watchdog, or IAEA, suspects that Iran carried out explosives tests at the Parchin site back in the early part of the decade, tests consistent with the construction of a nuclear weapon. Iran denies that its nuclear program has a military dimension, but it will not let inspectors into Parchin.
In a satellite photo from August released by ISIS, visible is the structure where the explosives tests were believed to have been carried out, covered by a tarpaulin. In a September photograph, released today, the tarpaulin is off. The photograph is not evidence of an explosives test, but it is suspicious, given the IAEA has been asking for access to Parchin, and Iran will not let its inspectors in.

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Iran-UAE Island Dispute Could Escalate

Disputed Persian Gulf Islands

WASHINGTON, DC — Together, Abu Musa, Greater Tunbs and Lesser Tunbs amount to fewer than 26 square kilometers of sand and scrub.  But their location in the middle of Persian Gulf shipping and tanker lanes near the Strait of Hormuz gives the islands huge strategic importance.

And this importance extends not only to the United Arab Emirates and Iran – both of which claim the islands -- but far beyond.  The dispute over who has sovereignty over the islands dates back more than a century.  Until recently, the debate was a regional matter. Now, in the light of rising tension over Iran’s nuclear plans and Israel’s threats to attack Iran, the dispute could heat up quickly.
 
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Defecting Iranian cameraman brings CIA priceless film of secret nuclear sites

Iran nuclear 

Hassan Golbankhan and Rev Guards chiefs

debkafile reveals one of the CIA’s most dramatic scoops in many years, and epic disaster for Iran. Our most exclusive Iranian and intelligence sources disclose that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s personal cameraman, Hassan Golkhanban, who defected from his UN entourage in New York on Oct. 1, brought with him an intelligence treasure trove of up-to-date photographs and videos of top Iranian leaders visiting their most sensitive and secret nuclear and missile sites.
The cameraman, who is in his 40s, is staying at an undisclosed address, presumably a CIA safe house under close guard.
He stayed behind when Ahmadinejad, after his UN speech, departed New York with his 140-strong entourage. For some years, Golkhanban worked not just as a news cameraman but personally recorded visits by the Iranian president and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of top-secret nuclear facilities and Revolutionary Guards installations.
When he left Tehran in the president’s party, his luggage was not searched and so he was able to bring out two suitcases packed with precious film and deliver it safely into waiting hands in New York.

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Experts: Iranian military stuck in the past

Military parade in Iran


If war breaks out with Iran, the Islamic Republic would prefer fighting on foreign soil due to its outdated equipment, claim Israeli experts who believe Iran's nuclear program is a cover for its limited military capabilities.

"Their most advanced aircraft is still the phantom, which we used in the Yom Kippur War 40 years ago," says Dr. Soli Shahvar of the Haifa University.

On Wednesday, the New York Times exposed a Pentagon intelligence report which suggested that in 2008, the Iranian military was so wary of an Israeli attack it fired on its own aircraft.

Iran's leaders may not miss a chance to threaten Israel but its ability to realize those threats is almost non existent, experts claim. 
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Iran building new naval vessels: admiral

TEHRAN – The commander of the Iranian Navy has announced that the country’s experts are building new destroyers, submarines, and missile-firing warships. 

 

In an interview with the Persian service of IRNA published on Wednesday, Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari said that the projects to build destroyers of the Jamaran class, semi-heavy and light submarines, and missile-firing warships are well underway. 

 

The Jamaran is the first domestically manufactured destroyer. It can carry helicopters and is equipped with torpedoes. It is 94 meters long and weighs over 1,500 tons. The warship is capable of engaging in surface, air, and undersea warfare. 

  

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Gates-warns-against-attack-on-Iran

 

 

Iranian soldiers march during the annual military parade on September 21, 2012 in front of the mausoleum of the Iran's late leader Ayatollah Khomeini in Tehran, Iran. The parade marks the beginning of the 1980-1988 war between Iran and Iraq. UPI/Maryam Rahmanian 

NORFOLK, Va., Oct. 4 (UPI) -- Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said a military attack on Iran could "prove catastrophic."
Gates -- who headed the Pentagon during the administration of former President George W. Bush and remained at the post when Barack Obama became president -- said America and Israel lack the capability to wipe out Iran's underground facilities permanently, and an unprompted attack would ensure a nuclear Iran eventually, after the country digs its labs deeper underground and redoubles its resolve, the (Norfolk, Va.) Virginian-Pilot reported Thursday.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2012/10/04/Gates-warns-against-attack-on-Iran/UPI-53791349381847/#ixzz28RBeu4Zz

Iran Offers Plan, Dismissed by U.S., on Nuclear Crisis

WASHINGTON — With harsh economic sanctions contributing to the first major protests in Iran in three years, Iranian officials have begun to describe what they call a “nine-step plan” to defuse the nuclear crisis with the West by gradually suspending the production of the uranium that would be easiest for them to convert into a nuclear weapon.
But the plan requires so many concessions by the West, starting with the dismantling of all the sanctions that are blocking oil sales and setting off the collapse of the Iranian currency, that American officials have dismissed it as unworkable. Nonetheless, Iranian officials used their visit to the United Nations last week to attempt to drum up support, indicating that the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is finally feeling the pressure. 

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Top Iranian Official: Iran Needs “24 Hours And An Excuse” To Annihilate Israel

WASHINGTON (CBSDC) — A top Iranian official says that Iran will be able to annihilate Israel within a day.
According to The Jerusalem Post, Hojjat al-Eslam Ali Shirazi, representative to Iran’s Qods Force for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, claims that all they need is “24 hours and an excuse” to attack the Jewish state.
“If such a war does happen, it would not be a long war, and it would benefit the entire Islamic umma [the global community of Muslims],” Shirazi said, according to the Post. “We have expertise in fighting wars of attrition and Israel cannot fight a war of attrition.”

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Attack Operations For Iran Weighed

October 01, 2012

David Fulghum Washington
Aerial bombing of Iran's nuclear and missile programs offers little political, deterrent or military value. That judgment encompasses bombing raids by either Israel or the U.S., contend a growing number of U.S. analysts.
There is evidence that patience on the part of the West may provide less-obvious opportunities to delay or halt the programs. But Israel fears that U.S. caution will turn into a containment policy that will enable Tehran to build a nuclear weapon.
“If the Iranians really wanted a store of enriched uranium, they could buy it,” says a longtime U.S. defense specialist with links to the U.S. military's world of clandestine operations. “And they don't have to process it themselves except for the national prestige it would give the country and to keep the international spotlight on Tehran.”
In fact, North Korea and Iran agreed to broad technology exchanges during an August meeting in Tehran of nonaligned nations. Large numbers of North Korean scientists have been traveling to Iran. The agreement calls for cooperation in research, student exchanges, and joint laboratories in the areas of information technology, engineering, biotechnology and renewable energy.

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Iran police clash with protesters over currency crisis

Riot police clashed with demonstrators in the streets of Tehran, firing tear gas, reports say

Riot police in Iran have clashed with protesters in the capital over sharp falls in the currency, the rial.

Tear gas was used to disperse the demonstrators, some of whom were setting fire to tyres and rubbish bins. There were many arrests, reports say.
Eyewitnesses told the BBC that scores of people gathered outside the central bank, calling for the governor to stand down, chanting anti-government slogans.
The rial has plummeted to record lows against the US dollar in recent days.

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Iran Reported To Have Given Syrian Regime Up To $10 Billion

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Today, Iran's currency plummeted to an all-time low: 32,500 rial to the dollar. The hyperinflation is thought to be the result of oil sanctions that could lose the resource-rich nation $50 billion in revenue this year. Yet reports coming out today say they also are giving billions to the Assad regime in Syria to help fund the civil war — up to $10 billion according to the Times of London.
Huh?
Throughout the brutal civil conflict in Syria, Iran has sided with the Assad regime — much to the chagrin of the international community — due to its ideological and religious ties. The Assad family are members of the Alawite faith, which is an off-shoot of the Shiite Islam that guides the Iran's Islamic Republic. Iran has confirmed they have troops on the ground in Syria. They've also been flying arms over Iraqi airspace (Iraq is now facing international pressure to stop shipments).

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Iran may still be years away from any nuclear-armed missile

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran already has enough low-enriched uranium for several atomic bombs if refined to a high degree but it may still be a few years away from being able to build a nuclear-armed missile if it decided to go down that path.

Israel's warning last week that Iran will be on the brink of developing a nuclear weapon by mid-2013 seemed to refer to when it could have a sufficient stock of higher-grade uranium to make a quick dash to produce a bomb's worth of weapon-grade material.
But, analysts say, Tehran would need time also for the technologically complicated task of fashioning highly refined uranium gas into a nuclear warhead small enough to fit on a missile - if it opts for such weapons of mass destruction.
"If they haven't worked out all the steps with dummy materials beforehand they will have a lot to do," said a Vienna-based diplomat who is not from one of the six world powers involved in diplomacy over Iran's disputed nuclear activity.


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Azerbaijan eyes aiding Israel against Iran

(Reuters) - Israel's "go-it-alone" option to attack Iran's nuclear sites has set the Middle East on edge and unsettled its main ally at the height of a U.S. presidential election campaign.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exudes impatience, saying Tehran is barely a year from a "red line" for atomic capacity. Many fellow Israelis, however, fear a unilateral strike, lacking U.S. forces, would fail against such a large and distant enemy.
But what if, even without Washington, Israel were not alone?
Azerbaijan, the oil-rich ex-Soviet republic on Iran's far northern border, has, say local sources with knowledge of its military policy, explored with Israel how Azeri air bases and spy drones might help Israeli jets pull off a long-range attack.


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