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Security: After Iran admits building a second enrichment facility inside a mountain, the Pentagon shifts money from other programs to urgently fund the mother of all bunker-buster bombs. Why the need for speed? At the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh last month, President Obama announced, "The Islamic Republic of Iran has been building a covert uranium enrichment facility near Qom for several years." U.S. officials said they knew for some time that the facility existed. The announcement was made after U.S. officials learned Iran had told the International Atomic Energy Agency of Qom's existence. Our knowledge of the facility built in...

Security: After Iran admits building a second enrichment facility inside a mountain, the Pentagon shifts money from other programs to urgently fund the mother of all bunker-buster bombs. Why the need for speed? At the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh last month, President Obama announced, "The Islamic Republic of Iran has been building a covert uranium enrichment facility near Qom for several years." U.S. officials said they knew for some time that the facility existed. The announcement was made after U.S. officials learned Iran had told the International Atomic Energy Agency of Qom's existence. Our knowledge of the facility built in...

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Month and a half after plan to blow up tallest skyscraper in world exposed, 45 more suspects arrested in addition to eight arrested when plot unraveled. Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese among those detained. Iran suspected to be mastermind behind plot Roee Nahmias 09.15.09 / Israel News The defense apparatus in the United Arab Emirates arrested 45 suspects, most of them Palestinian and Lebanese, after the plot to blow up Burj Dubai (Dubai Tower) was uncovered. Dubai Tower, currently under construction, is the tallest building in the world. The current wave of arrests adds to the eight other suspects detained immediately after...

Iran's output of enriched uranium is stagnating, diplomats said Tuesday, suggesting that Teheran may be running short the material needed for producing nuclear fuel or the fissile core of warheads. The diplomats - who demanded anonymity because their information was confidential - emphasized that the possibility that Iran was running out of uranium oxide was only one of several possible explanations of why it had not increased its production of enriched uranium since May. But they said it seemed unlikely that the Islamic republic had deliberately decided to curb its production. They noted that despite the stagnation in output, Iran...

Defense: As the failure of engagement with Iran grows more apparent, the administration that has talked very softly may be getting the mother of all sticks ready. Guess we need high-tech Cold War weapons after all.Western intelligence sources have told London's Times that Iran has perfected the means to develop and detonate a nuclear bomb and is merely awaiting word from its supreme leader to produce its first one. Should the order be given, it would take just six months to enrich enough uranium and another six months to assemble the warhead. Time's up. Recently, and perhaps not coincidentally, Defense...

Note: The following blog entry is a quote: Blog Details Senior Iranian Official: We Did Not Stop Uranium Enrichment during Khatami's Presidency Hassan Rohani, who served as secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council during the Khatami administration, denied Ahmadinejad's accusations that the reformists had suspended Iran's uranium enrichment during Khatami's presidency. He claimed that one of the purposes of the nuclear dossier negotiations during that period was to buy time to complete the construction of the nuclear facilities in Esfahan and Natanz. He added that the Khatami government had not suspended for a single moment either the construction...

Note: The following blog entry is a quote: Blog Details Ahmadinejad: Iran's Entered Final Phase In Nuclear Fuel Production At an inauguration ceremony yesterday for a nuclear fuel production facility in Isfahan, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad expressed his pride at Iran's entering into the final phase in the nuclear fuel production cycle. He said that despite the threats from the West, "the Iranian train is moving ahead with increasing speed, on the right track." Iranian Atomic Energy Organization director Gholam Reza Aghazadeh said that the speed of the new centrifuges was five to six times greater than that of the...

Authorities in Iran nabbed two birds believed to be “spy pigeons” near the country’s contentious nuclear facility, the Agence France-Presse reported Monday. Both pigeons were caught near the city of Natanz, which is home to Iran’s uranium enrichment plant, AFP reported. Both had metal rings and invisible strings attached to them. A source declined to mention what will happen to the pigeons now that they’ve been caught.

via translation - ALERT - Nuclear: Iran has 5,000 to 6,000 centrifuges TEHRAN - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday that Iran had 5,000 to 6,000 centrifuges for uranium enrichment activities, confirming that the Islamic Republic has expanded its controversial nuclear programme, reported state radio.

Located in the Iranian desert, the Natanz uranium-enrichment facility has been shrouded in secrecy. Many of the buildings there, visible in the aerial image from September 2002 on the far left, are now out of sight, buried underground, near left. The site is also protected by anti-aircraft guns and barbed wire. ...

Iran announced today that it was embarking on a plan to install 6,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium at its main nuclear plant, in defiance of United Nations sanctions. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made his announcement at Natanz, in central Iran, as the country marked a "national day of nuclear technology", which falls on the day in April 2006 when uranium was successfully enriched for the first time. According to the latest report by the UN's nuclear watchdog, Iran has already installed around 3,000 centrifuges at an underground enrichment facility in Natanz. Nuclear experts believe between 20,000 and 30,000 centrifuges would be...

Iran is testing an advanced centrifuge at its Natanz nuclear complex, diplomats said on Wednesday, a move that could lead to Tehran enriching uranium much faster and gaining ability to build atom bombs. Tehran's quest to produce usable amounts of nuclear fuel has been hampered by its use so far of a 1970s vintage of centrifuge, the "P-1", prone to breakdown. A senior diplomat familiar with the International Atomic Energy Agency's file on Iran confirmed it recently began testing centrifuges based on a "P-2" design, used more recently in the West and able to enrich uranium 2-3 times as fast...

US Air Force B-2 Stealth Bombers Will Soon Be Fitted With Newly-Developed 15-Tonne Massive Ordnance July 23, 2007 DEBKAfile Reports American military sources say the gigantic new bunker-blaster is designed to hit fortified underground targets such as Iran’s uranium-enrichment facility at Natanz. It will be capable of drilling through many meters of earth or concrete. When it falls from a high altitude, the MOP – composed of 20% explosives, 80% hardened metal - will punch a hole in the toughest protective casing before exploding in depth. It is GPS guided. DEBKAfile’s military sources reveal that Israel’s RAFAEL has upgraded its...

WASHINGTON - Iran has been constructing a tunnel near a major nuclear facility. A U.S. research group reported that Iran was constructing a tunnel inside a mountain near a uranium enrichment facility. The group said the tunnel could be designed to conceal nuclear activity or anti-aircraft batteries. "The construction activity is taking place in the closest mountainous area to the Natanz site, strongly suggesting that the site is affiliated with Natanz," the Institute for Science and International Security said. The analysis, authored by David Albright and Paul Brannan, was based on commercial satellite imagery taken of Iran on June 11....

The sudden flurry of digging seen in recent satellite photos of a mountainside in central Iran might have passed for ordinary road tunneling. But the site is the back yard of Iran's most ambitious and controversial nuclear facility, leading U.S. officials and independent experts to reach another conclusion: It appears to be the start of a major tunnel complex inside the mountain. The question is, why? Worries have been stoked by the presence nearby of fortified buildings where uranium is being processed. Those structures in turn are now being connected by roads to Iran's nuclear site at Natanz, where the...

This week Dr. Mohammed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), will submit another report to the United Nations Security Council on Iran's nuclear program. The report, couched in vague diplomatic parlance, will state that Iran continues to ignore Security Council resolutions, is not allowing IAEA monitors to do their job properly, as it had pledged to, and continues to enrich uranium. The uranium enrichment facility at Natanz already has 1.600 centrifuges, 1.300 of which are operating well, at least according to the Iranians. This fact shows that Iran's nuclear experts have mastered the technology. According to...

Excerpt - VIENNA (AFP) - Iran blocked UN atomic experts on a first unannounced test inspection of an underground nuclear site where it enriches uranium, despite a pledge to allow such visits, diplomats told AFP Thursday. The watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency had in March told Iran to allow its inspectors to install surveillance cameras at the site in Natanz but Tehran refused this and in return promised to allow frequent, unannounced visits. A first test on April 21 of this agreement "was a total failure," said a diplomat in Vienna, home to the IAEA, who added that a successful...

When I told my friends and family I was going to Tehran, they looked at me as if I were taking a short break in Mordor, and expected that the next time they saw me I would be being paraded by Revolutionary Guards after confessing to espionage, and then publicly hanged from a large crane at a busy traffic intersection. Well, not quite. The people of Iran are probably the most pro-Western in the world, though that will not stop them fighting like hell if we are foolish enough to attack them. Not that they will do so with nuclear...

Iran expands uranium enrichment    ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer   NATANZ, Iran -        Iran announced Monday that it has begun enriching uranium with 3,000 centrifuges, defiantly expanding a nuclear program that has drawn U.N. sanctions and condemnation from the West.   President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said at a ceremony at the enrichment facility at Natanz that Iran was now capable of enriching nuclear fuel "on an industrial scale."   Asked if Iran has begun injecting uranium gas into 3,000 centrifuges for enrichment, top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani replied, "Yes." He did not elaborate, but it was the first confirmation...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is expected to announce on Monday the installation of 3,000 centrifuges for uranium enrichment in the Natanz nuclear facility, the official Iranian news agency reported.

IAEA pushes Iran to accept cameras at key atom site By Mark Heinrich VIENNA (Reuters) - The International Atomic Energy Agency is pushing Iran to agree to cameras in its underground nuclear plant within days and Western states are mulling whether to seek a crisis IAEA meeting if Tehran refuses, diplomats said. The U.N. Security Council widened sanctions against Iran last week after it defied a second deadline for it to stop enriching uranium, which Iran says will yield solely electricity but world powers fear is a disguised atomic bomb program. Tehran, disputing any obligation to do so, has refused...

ISRAELI AIR RAID ON NATANZ, ISFAHAN SHORTLY  by B. Raman The US and Israel----acting separately and in tandem--- have started stepping up psychological pressure on Iran. This PSYWAR campaign is directed at countering Iran's exploitation of the difficulties faced by the US in Iraq in order to advance its own agenda and to prevent any US intervention in Iran and to convey a message to the Iranian public that Iran will pay a heavy price if President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continues to defy the international community over its concerns regarding the real purpose of its acquiring an uranium enrichment capability....

ALARM - Iran installs centrifugal machines with Natanz VIENNA - Iran started to install centrifugal machines on its site of Natanz, where it hopes to use 3.000 of them to enrich by uranium in spite of the calls of UNO, declared Thursday of the diplomats.

Iran prevents the work of inspectors of the IAEA VIENNA - Iran prevents inspectors of the IAEA from installing cameras of monitoring in a nuclear installation where Teheran wishes to place 3.000 centrifugal machines to enrich by uranium on industrial scale, diplomats Thursday indicated to AFP. Inspectors of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are currently with the nuclear installation of Natanz (center of Iran) where an underground site is in the process of construction.

JERUSALEM -- The Israeli air force has decided to buy smart munitions kits from the Chicago-based Boeing aerospace company for an estimated $100 million, Israeli defense officials said Monday. The Jerusalem Post daily said the planned purchase was for the Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM, which converts conventional 2,000 pound bombs into satellite-guided, precision weapons. Defense officials said the acquisition was meant to replenish stores used up in last summer's monthlong war against the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon and increase future stock levels. The Jerusalem Post said the purchase would not require Congressional approval, as it was the exercise...

VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Iran's uranium enrichment program appears stalled despite tough talk from the Tehran leadership, leaving intelligence services guessing about why it has not made good on plans to press ahead with activities that the West fears could be used to make nuclear arms, diplomats said Thursday. Outside monitoring of Iran's nuclear endeavors is restricted to International Atomic Energy Agency inspections of declared sites leaving significant blind spots for both the agency and intelligence agencies of member countries trying to come up with the full picture. Still, Tehran's reluctance to crank up activities at its declared enrichment site...

Intelligence Services Believe the Natanz Site is a Front January 11, 2007 Associated Press USA Today VIENNA -- Iran's uranium enrichment program appears stalled despite tough talk from the Tehran leadership, leaving intelligence services guessing about why the country has not made good on plans to press ahead with activities that the West fears could be used to make nuclear arms, diplomats said Thursday. Outside monitoring of Iran's nuclear endeavors is restricted to International Atomic Energy Agency inspections of declared sites, leaving significant blind spots for both the agency and intelligence agencies of member countries trying to come up with...

It should be obvious to any thinking person that we in the west are engaged in a life-or-death struggle with the dark side of Islam. From the turmoil we are seeing in Iraq and Afghanistan, from the obvious support that so-called, peaceful Muslims in the Middle East give to the terrorists, and from the clear indications that in large portions of Europe, they have already won, it’s also clear that we are in for a long and difficult struggle for the survival of our way of life and of our civilization.

Excerpt - Vienna, 21 August (AKI) - Just hours before Iran is due to give world powers its response to a package of incentives aimed at persuading the country to give up its nuclear activities, new centrifuges have been installed at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility over the past two weeks, an anonymous source at the United Nations nuclear watchdog told Adnkronos International (AKI). Meanwhile, the country's heavy water reactor at nearby Arak in central Iran "will shortly be operational," the second in command of Iran's nuclear programme, Mohammad Saidi, was quoted as saying. Also on Monday, inspectors from the...

The madness of bombing Iran Robert Skidelsky As our leaders soften us up for a new war, here are the arguments we can’t afford to ignore.... THERE IS no doubt that Western opinion is being softened up for a US or Israeli strike against the Iranian centrifuges at Natanz. “Can anyone within range of Iran’s missiles feel safe?”, screams a full-page advertisement in the International Herald Tribune, displaying a map of the Eurasian land mass with Iran at its centre. As part of the softening-up come the justifications, as false as the ones that preceded the Iraq war, but more...

WASHINGTON [MENL] -- Iran has been reinforcing its underground uranium enrichment plant. The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security said Iran has constructed a tunnel entrance at the Isfahan uranium conversion facility. The tunnel was believed to house the processing of uranium into a feed material for enrichment. "This new entrance is indicative of a new underground facility or further expansion of the existing one," ISIS said in a statement.

TEHRAN, Iran - The president of Iran again lashed out at Israel on Friday and said it was "heading toward annihilation," just days after Tehran raised fears about its nuclear activities by saying it successfully enriched uranium for the first time.

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed Thursday that Iran won't back away from uranium enrichment and said the world must treat Iran as a nuclear power. The comments were made as Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, arrived in Tehran for talks aimed at defusing tensions over Iran's nuclear program. "Our answer to those who are angry about Iran achieving the full nuclear fuel cycle is just one phrase. We say: Be angry at us and die of this anger," the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. "We won't hold talks...

GOTTA SEE THIS - War for Enduring Freedom 3/18/06 - Samarra, Op. Swarmer, Natanz, Bushehr, Isfahan, Tehran BREAKING: Samarra -Operation Swarmer : U.S. and US-liberated-Iraqi soldiers meet minor resistance, capture weapons caches Natanz - facility perimeter and inside the uranium enrichment facility Bushehr - nuclear power plant weapon research site - Russian technicians Isfahan - uranium conversion facility (UCF) Tehran - female police graduation ceremony and with terrorist founder Khomeini QFN ==== YE OLDE QUAGMIRE-FREE NEWS Exclusive to FReerepublic PICTURES YOU WILL NEVER SEE IN THE MAIN STREAM MEDIA TODAY: IRAQ and IRAN: THE GOOD, THE BAD, and the PUG-UGLIES...

Iran-Ahmadinejad-NuclearPresident Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday toured various sections of Natanz Nuclear Facility and was briefed on the progress made by Iranian experts in making access to nuclear technology for peaceful use. A report released by the Presidential Office Media Department said that after the tour the president delivered a speech at the gathering of the administrators in charge of the facility. Turning to the ongoing hue and cry aiming to deprive Iran of its right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, he noted that what the enemies are afraid of is not production of nuclear bomb, given that in...

Tehran, Iran, Feb. 15 – The Islamic Republic’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a surprise visit on Wednesday to Iran’s uranium enrichment facility in Natanz. Speaking in Natanz, Ahmadinejad said that the West was opposed to Iran making scientific progress on its own. He vowed that Tehran would not retreat in the face of mounting international pressure over its nuclear activities. *** Additional report to follow ***

ALARM - Iran began the uranium enrichment: diplomats VIENNA - Iran actually began work to enrich uranium at ends by research in Natanz (center), indicated diplomatic sources to AFP.

Vienna, Feb 12 (AP): Inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog agency have stripped most surveillance cameras and agency seals from Iranian nuclear sites and equipment as demanded by Tehran in response to its referral to the UN Security Council, diplomats said. The diplomats, who demanded anonymity in exchange for revealing the confidential developments, said yesterday that the move was part of retaliatory measures announced by Iran that have left the International Atomic Energy Agency with only the most basic means to monitor Iran's nuke activities. It came as Iran's president suggested his country might even pull out of the Nuclear...

Iran has drawn up designs for a deep underground tunnel with remote-controlled heat and pressure sensors as part of what Western intelligence officials believe are preparations for a secret atomic test. The plans, which American and British intelligence conclude are genuine after studying them on a laptop computer smuggled out of Iran by a defector, appear to be the latest evidence that Teheran is conducting a clandestine nuclear weapons programme. The Natanz enrichment facility The existence of the sophisticated sketches for a 400-metre long subterranean test shaft was made public last week in The Washington Post. The welter of documents...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Iran has secretly built thousands of centrifuge machines for its nuclear plant at Natanz, an exiled opposition figure alleged. ADVERTISEMENT The claims by opposition figure Alireza Jafarzadeh could not be independently verified, but if confirmed, they would likely enflame the worsening standoff over Iran's nuclear program. The new allegations came hours after Iran resumed sensitive nuclear research after a two-year suspension, triggering fierce Western condemnation and risking censure by the UN Security Council. Jafarzadeh, citing what he said was intelligence from the Iranian opposition and sources within the Iranian nuclear program, said Tehran had already committed serious...

Iran has removed seals from a nuclear facility and will begin research there in the coming hours, a top Iranian nuclear official has announced. The move ends a two-year suspension of research, and could result in Tehran being referred to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions. Germany on Monday described Iran's planned move as "very, very ominous". Western countries fear Iran's nuclear programme could be used to make atomic bombs, but Tehran denies such a goal.

Ambassador Greg Schulte:The U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency says there is plenty of evidence Iran is building a nuclear weapon. In an interview with VOA, Gregory Schulte said Iran is entitled to nuclear technology, but not for military purposes. Ambassador Schulte has been in Vienna only a few weeks but has already experienced a special IAEA board meeting and is preparing for the next U.N. report on Iran's nuclear program. IAEA experts now say investigations confirm Iran's story that traces of weapons grade uranium were imported on contaminated equipment from Pakistan and not domestically produced. So does...

Washington DC—According to a 2 August 2005 Washington Post article, a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) projects that Iran is a decade away from manufacturing a key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years, according to government sources with first-hand knowledge of the new analysis. The intelligence estimate is contradictory—reflecting disagreement within the community. On one hand, the estimate is reassuring: Iran is alleged to be about ten years away from getting the bomb. On the other hand, the estimate is worrisome: “It is the judgment of the intelligence community that, left to its own...

Nuclear watchdog off to Iran 30/03/2004 20:37 - (SA) Vienna - UN atomic agency chief Mohammed ElBaradei is to hold talks in Iran next Tuesday to urge the government to co-operate fully with international monitoring of its nuclear program. It will be the third visit to Iran by ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, since the IAEA began in investigating February 2003 whether the Islamic Republic was secretly developing atomic weapons, as the United States alleges. The purpose of the visit is "to consult on outstanding issues relevant to the IAEA's verification of Iran's safeguards agreement"...

Iran: The Race Against Time Compiled By: Ryan Mauro PhilNDeBlank9@aol.com “If one day, the world of Islam comes to possess the weapons currently in Israel’s possession—on that day this method of global arrogance would come to an end. This is because the use of a nuclear bomb in Israel will leave nothing on the ground, whereas it will only damage the world of Islam.” ---Former Iranian President Rafsanjani, December 14, 2001. As the presidential election campaign heats up, yet another foreign policy crisis is emerging. While North Korea possesses nuclear weapons, and the Administration has failed to find any “actual”...

========= FINAL ================== GOTTA SEE THIS - War for Enduring Freedom 09/13/03 - Natanz, Bushehr, Fallujah, Tikrit, Bagram, Gaza, Hebron, Kabul, Manhattan, New York, Rafah BREAKING: Tikrit Raid BREAKING: Bagram, 911 memorial BREAKING: Gaza, air strike on Zahar - groundtruthing BREAKING: Kabul women and girls in school BREAKING: ABP - Buffalo, New York BREAKING: Bushehr, Natanz, Irans' nuclear facility ========= Afghanistan: Kabul ========= FREED BY THE USA AND IGNORED BY THE AMERICAN MEDIA (as is their way) In Kabul, Afghan girls rush to school. Before intervention of the valiant US military, they would have been raped and killed by the...

MOSCOW, April 22 (AFP) - Russia is concerned that Iran may be enriching uranium with a view to developing nuclear weapons, Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev said on Tuesday, quoted by the ITAR-TASS news agency. Rumyantsev referred to US press reports that Tehran had equipped a nuclear complex with the capacity to enrich its recently-disclosed uranium deposits, sparking fears that the country may be stepping up a covert weapons program. "Such centrifuges are capable of enriching uranium to a high enough concentration for developing weapons," he said. "If the media reports are accurate, the situation is alarming." "Iran must acknowledge...

WASHINGTON - When war ends in Iraq, the Bush administration will give "extremely high priority" to halting a secret nuclear weapons program in neighboring Iran, a senior administration official said Monday. John Bolton, the under secretary for arms control, joined National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice in warning that the White House sees nuclear weapons programs in Iran and North Korea as imminent threats. "The estimate we have of how close the Iranians are to production of nuclear weapons grows closer each day," said Bolton, a leading hawk within the administration. Both Bolton and Rice, in separate speeches to the...