Death toll from blast in train carrying explosive materials in Iran reaches nearly 300

Haaretz News Ticker ^ | 2/18/2004 | Israel Radio

[yonif]

Death toll from blast in train carrying explosive materials in Iran reaches nearly 300; quake likely caused accident (Israel Radio)

[blackdog]

It was reported that the blast could be seen and felt eighty miles away.

Them's must be some mighty fine explosives to be trucking around. Just what were these explosives being used for? Make more sand?

Very, Very Suspiscious! Rocket fuel maybe?

[gundog]

What's with these people? The footage I saw on ABC showed people cheering for the camera in front of the flaming wreckage. Is it just habit with them?

[oceanview]

sounds no different then the LA riots.

[CJ Wolf]

You are culturally insensitive. those "People" show pain by cheering and smiling. Either that or they thought they were welcoming American troops.

[blackdog]

What a challenge it is, to govern any country with a population courtesy of Islam. Simple animals they are.

Saddam and many other dictators in the same predicament just kill what won't behave. Building jails or controlling them with laws is pointless. You can't build that many jails.

We have a real mess ahead, thinking these animals want a decent society. They've never proven it in two hundred years. I don't think they are going to be anything different.

[EUPHORIC]

"What's with these people? The footage I saw on ABC showed people cheering for the camera in front of the flaming wreckage. Is it just habit with them?"

Back in the mid 70's I was on a hill in LA and saw heard and felt a large tank truck full of ammonium nitrate fertilizer mixture explode and blow several warehouses sky high. Looked like and sounded like a small nuke.

I cheered too. :)

[blackdog]

I think I'm going to convert to Islam. That way whenever I pass a wreck on the highway, the family can jump on the hood waiving AK-47's and cheering as they extracate the victims.

Those folks sure know how to have a good time.

[gundog]

OK...but these people were jostling each other to get between the camera and flaming wreckage...some were wearing masks to protect themselves from the fumes.

I like a good explosion as much as the next guy...you can't imagine my disappointment when my own government wasn't able to make 50,000 gallons of fuel oil go BOOM! on their first try(New Carissa wreckage) but I was a few miles away.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

See this earlier thread comment:

According to Mohammad Maqdouri, head of the local emergency operations headquarters, the cars rolled out of the station at 4 a.m. (Un attended )

[gundog]

We have a real mess ahead, thinking these animals want a decent society.

Yeah, and the worst of it will be the lib gloating on these shores...Oh, well...it's a legitimate tactic of warfare to commence with one's plans and present its' detractors with a fait accompli.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

see post #10.

[alpha-8-25-02]

debka reported today that the train was headed to the taliban in afganistan and it was sabotage,not that they get it all correct but they where the first to report saddam being captured

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

That is interesting!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Lets see if this correlates with anything else!

_____________________________________________________________________________________

From Debka

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Iran's death train was carrying explosives to Afghanistan

18 February, 2003

DEBKAfile's exclusive sources in Tehran report:

Little credence is given in Tehran to the official claim that the colossal train explosion which killed at least 300 people and razed five villages in the northeastern Khorassan province Wednesday was caused by colliding wagons carrying industrial chemicals and fertilizers, as well as diesel fuel and cotton. Such flammable freights are usually shipped separately in Iran.

DEBKAfile’s sources note that Iranian officials, two days before a highly controversial parliamentary election, are doing their best to play down the disaster outside Neyshabur which rocked houses 50 miles away in Mashad. The Islamic Republican News Agency tried to blame an earth tremor of 3.6 magnitude, but the US Geological Institute in Colorado said no seismic activity was recorded in the area.

Most of the dead were fire and rescue workers, but also the city’s governor Mojtaba Farahmand-Nekou, its mayor and fire chief.

DEBKA’s sources in Tehran have heard unconfirmed reports that the disaster was no accident, but possibly sabotage carried out by anti-government forces in Khorassan province, which borders on Afghanistan. This report ties in with another that claims the train was not carrying innocent industrial cargoes but hundreds of tons of explosive materials Iran was smuggling into Afghanistan via the Shiite city of Herat to be used by Iranian saboteurs and agents for guerrilla attacks on US troops and the forces of President Hamid Karzai, as well for supplying the Taleban in their Kandahar stronghold.

DEBKAfile’s sources report that there were a series of blasts; the first inside the Neyshabur train station was powerful enough to trigger a second explosion in the remote station of Khayyam. There, it set ablaze another train carrying fuel and other flammable material.

Iran has long used Khorassan province as a conduit for smuggling thousands of its agents into Afghanistan. But the province is also home to nearly two million Afghan refugees, some of whom hire out as agents to the Kabul government or the US military. The suggestion is that a group of these agents were ordered to blow up the train when it pulled into Neyshabur. Their mission: to deter the Iranians from further meddling in Afghanistan.

It would not have been hard to persuade Afghan refugees to undertake the mission. As Sunni Muslims, they harbor strong feelings of resentment against their discrimination at the hands of Iran’s Shiite majority. Three years ago, Afghans were responsible for a large explosion in Mashad, an attack launched after Iran ordered the destruction of a makeshift mosque the refugees had built. Several weeks later, a similar blast occurred in Zahedan, capital of Iran’s Baluchestan province, where Iranian authorities had pulled down another mosque constructed by the refugees.

It just so happens that in the historic town of Neyshabur, site of Wednesday’s horror, the 11th century poet Omar Khayam was born and buried.

[alpha-8-25-02]

i have israeli business asociates that watch this site daily
not to change the subject,however i asked them today if they thought the passion was anti semetic.
there response was. no!
so much for our liberal media

[Chris Talk]

Make that 1382 years.

[BushisTheMan]

If it is religious and promotes the love of God, then the MSM are going to try to make it controversial.

It will be the biggest money-maker of all times and the leftist, immoral Democrats will hate that. That's enough reason for me to go see it.

[tet68]

Some where, some one, is going to get a medal for this.
And we will never know about it.

[alpha-8-25-02]

EYES THAT SEE
HEARTS THAT FEEL
EARS THAT HEAR
AND MOST IMPORTANT!
BRAINS THAT THINK

[McGavin999]

That Debeka post is interesting. It makes a lot more sense than a train that rolled out at 4 am and didn't crash until 9 am.

All I know is that the people of Iran are on the side of the US and would love to have the opportunity we are offereing to Iraq.

[rocksblues]

"We have a real mess ahead, thinking these animals want a decent society. They've never proven it in two hundred years. I don't think they are going to be anything different."

For sure. Love your tag!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Something is funny about the train rolling off on its own!

[McGavin999]

Yeah, and even funnier that it rolled for 5 hours before it blew up.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

[Something is funny about the train rolling off on its own!]

Yeah, and even funnier that it rolled for 5 hours before it blew up.

Where you boys been? Train leaves the station at 4 am with no engine, rolls for 5 miles toward Afganistan, and then exlopdes with the force of a 2.6 earthquake -- well, this happens all the time.

[F14 Pilot]

Thanks for posting this!

[claptrap]

Whomever detonated the "shipment" might or might not have known what they were doing?

[spald]

I read in today's WSJ that the train contained huge amounts of fertilizer and diesel oil. This is the same combination that composed the bombs of the first WTC attack and on the Mura building in Oklahoma City.

I'd like to think our intel/ops boys clandestinely did their job here. If so, it's doubly sweet seeing the Iranians cheering the explosion.

God Bless America.