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Discovery of Iran's secret uranium enrichment facility near Qom several months ago is a "warning sign" for anyone who thinks that the Islamic Republic's nuclear program is for civilian purposes, head of Military Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin said Tuesday. Speaking at a conference on security challenges in the 21st century at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, Yadlin said that Iran is extremely close to mastering the necessary nuclear technology and will wait on the threshold until it feels that the international community is too weak to stop them to move forward towards the bomb. Iran, he...

Terror State: A dithering world has for years underestimated the costs of appeasement toward Iran. Tehran's aggressive plans for 10 new nuclear plants show they want dominance, not just a bomb or two. To any informed observer, it's no surprise that Iran is now collecting its 10-to-1 winnings in the high-stakes game Tehran's Islamofascist government has been playing with the free world for years now. There's been a United Nations censure, demands to halt the building of the newly revealed enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom, and multiple rounds of economic sanctions. The U.S., Britain, France and Germany...

Note: The following blog entry is a quote: Iranian Official: The U.S. Is No Longer Immune to Attack At a November 21, 2009 conference in Qom, Ali Saeedi, Khamenei's representative in the IRGC, aimed a veiled threat at the US, saying that this country is no longer immune to attack. Assaults like 9/11 have proved that its stability can be compromised, he explained. Source: Fars (Iran), November 22, 2009 Posted at: 2009-11-22

Iranian construction of a previously secret uranium enrichment site is at an advanced stage, with high-tech equipment already in place at the fortified facility ahead of its 2011 startup, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report Monday. The revelation of the existence of the underground plant known as Fordo, near the holy city of Qom, has heightened concerns of other possible undeclared Iranian facilities that are not subject to IAEA oversight and therefore could be used for military purposes. In Washington, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the IAEA report "underscores that Iran still refuses to comply fully...

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...

In a remarkable interview with Time, CIA Director Leon Panetta reveals that the U.S. has known about the secret Qom site, built into the side of a mountain, since 2006. This raises a number of questions. First, that 2007 National Intelligence Estimate looks absurd — and entirely disingenuous — in retrospect. The 2007 report led us to believe that the military program had been discontinued. The report was issued a year after we first knew of the facility. Sure there remained some questions (it could have been a dummy site to conceal another secret site someplace else), but we at...

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...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - U.N. experts will inspect Iran's newly disclosed uranium enrichment plant on Oct. 25, the IAEA nuclear agency chief said on Sunday, praising a shift "from conspiracy to cooperation" between Tehran and the West. The underground nuclear fuel facility near the holy Shi'ite city of Qom had been kept secret until Iran disclosed its existence last month, setting off an international furore. Iran agreed with six world powers -- the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany -- in Geneva on Thursday to allow IAEA inspectors unfettered access to the site. "IAEA inspectors will visit Iran's new...

In Iran's main Friday sermon today, Hujjat Al-Eslam Kazem Sadeqi said that Saeed Jalili, the Iranian representative at the Geneva talks, had presented Iran's package of proposals and that it had been discussed at the meeting. He said that the arrogance (i.e. the U.S.) had now found a new subject (that is, the Qom enrichment facility) to lock horns with Iran over. While this matter was nothing new, he added, the Americans want to use it to raise a furor. He called the new Qom enrichment facility a facility of Iran's nuclear pride. Sadeqi said that Iran had always declared...

US President Barack Obama characterized Thursday's landmark meeting with Iran as a "constructive beginning," following Iran's apparent agreement to open its nuclear facilities to inspection, to meet again later in the month and in principle to have a third party provide it with nuclear energy. "Today's meeting was a constructive beginning, but it must be followed by constructive action by the Iranian government," Obama said during a brief White House appearance following the talks held in Geneva. He gave Iran two weeks to allow IAEA inspectors into its recently revealed second uranium enrichment facility at Qom. "Iran must take concrete...

The revelation of an Iranian uranium-enrichment facility buried in a mountain at an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps base near the religious city of Qom might seem ominous. If, that is, the Iranians were determined to develop a nuclear weapon. Fortunately, we are advised that they are not. In November 2007, U.S. intelligence agencies wrote a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) concluding, “We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.” The intelligence community appears to be sticking by its judgment, which means — cue the sighs of relief — that the Qom facility may be...

The revelation of an Iranian uranium-enrichment facility buried in a mountain at an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps base near the religious city of Qom might seem ominous. If, that is, the Iranians were determined to develop a nuclear weapon. Fortunately, we are advised that they are not. In November 2007, US intelligence agencies wrote a National Intelligence Estimate concluding, “We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.” The intelligence community appears to be sticking by its judgment, which means — cue the sighs of relief — that the Qom facility may be only...

Deep-cover MI6 agents who have described the workings of the once-secret underground uranium enrichment plant near the Iranian city of Qom now have discovered a staggering five more similar operations, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin. They, like the Qom facility, are buried deep inside the mountains of north Iran and are guarded by divisions of Revolutionary Guards. The details were sent this weekend to some G20 leaders who met in Pittsburgh when the Qom facility was revealed to the world. The MI6 agents have established that, like Qom, the new plants are staffed by nuclear scientists...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told TIME that President Obama should back off on his pressure to force Iran to disclose all its nuclear activity. He said that Obama is making a “mistake” and that Iran has “no secrecy.” Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown opened the Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh this morning by accusing Iran of having a second, previously secret nuclear facility. Obama said: “The Iranian government must now demonstrate through deeds its peaceful intentions or be held accountable to international standards and international law.”

The crisis in relations with Iran escalated ominously yesterday after the leaders of the US, Britain and France accused the regime in Tehran of operating a secret uranium enrichment facility buried deep in a mountain bunker near the ancient religious city of Qom. Barack Obama called Iran's activity "a direct challenge" to the international community. The accusations were made public in an extraordinary joint statement by the US President, flanked by Gordon Brown and the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy before the start of the G20 economic summit in Pittsburgh. Iran had previously insisted that its plant at Natanz, which is...

The plethora of press reports on the Qom nuclear-enrichment program focus largely on the history of our intelligence and President Obama's joint press conference, passing quickly through what appears to be a compromise of that intelligence to the Iranians. The central question becomes: How did our intelligence become known to the Iranians? Secondary question: Is this CIA payback for the Holder and Pelosi agendas?

Iran's newly disclosed nuclear fuel facility will soon become operational, an aide to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Aali Khamenei was quoted as saying on Saturday.

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...

An aerial image of the suspected nuclear facility in Qom Barack Obama raises spectre of nuclear conflict as Allies find site near Iran holy city Catherine Philp in New York and Francis Elliott in Pittsburgh Britain, France and the United States set the stage for a dramatic confrontation with Iran when they revealed the existence of a secret nuclear site inside a mountain near the holy city of Qom as evidence of Tehran’s efforts to deceive the international community. The coup de théâtre came at the opening of the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh after three days of intense diplomacy...

It was three years ago that American intelligence agents began picking up signs that someone was tunnelling into the side of a mountain in the desert outside the city of Qom... Intelligence agents were on the lookout for a secret enrichment plant, reasoning that if UN inspectors were monitoring the known facility at Natanz, Tehran would look elsewhere to carry out its work. Yesterday’s revelations about Iran’s secret uranium enrichment facility at Qom came after three years of intensive investigation and surveillance by the most trusted of America’s intelligence allies: Britain, France and Israel... The Western allies kept quiet as...

Title only.

Baghdad, 5 May (AKI) - Radical Iraqi Shia cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr, is reported to have assumed the title of Grand Ayatollah after concluding his studies in the holy city of Qom in Iran. Sources close to the cleric's faction released the news to the Arab daily, al-Sharq al-Awsat. Around 70 supporters of al-Sadr on Sunday concluded a conference in the Turkish city of Istanbul where they elected new leaders and mapped out their future. Al-Sadr, who leads the Mahdi Army militia, also met both Recep Tayyip Erodgan, the Turkish prime minister, and president Abdullah Gul in Ankara on Friday during...

London, Asharq Al-Awsat - In response to the claim that the Shia cleric Muqtada al Sadr is present in the Iranian city of Qom, Asmaa al Mousawi, leading member of the Al Sadr political bloc in Iraq, told Asharq Al-Awsat, “We can neither confirm nor deny this information and we cannot discuss the whereabouts of Sayyed Muqtada al Sadr for security reasons.” A reliable Iraqi source based in Qom told Asharq Al-Awsat Friday, “Al Sadr is held in a house affiliated to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. He is isolated from others; nobody is allowed to see him and he...

BAGHDAD (AP) — A feisty Muqtada al-Sadr, making his first public appearance since May, said in a TV interview aired Saturday that he was in almost total control of the Mahdi Army and that the "liberation" of Iraq was his militia's chief goal. snip Al-Sadr is widely thought to be spending his time between Iran's holy city of Qom and Najaf, another holy Shiite city south of Baghdad. But nothing in the room where the interview took place offered a hint of his location. snip In the interview, al-Sadr said the militia's "strategic objective" was "the liberation of Iraq from...

A leading figure in the movement led by Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said the group would not pardon anyone if their leader is harmed. “In the event Sadr is harmed, Iraqi will them swim in a lake of blood,” warned Sheikh Sadeq al-Hasnawi. Hasnawi is one of the top officials leading the movement in Sadr’s absence. He said the cleric was currently in Iran “studying and mediating” in the religious city of Qom which is the Iranian equivalent of Iraq’s holy city of Najaf where Shiite clerics are educated and trained. Hasnawi made the remarks in response to unconfirmed reports...

The 'Manchurian Mullah' February 01, 2008 New York Post Amir Taheri AS the "student" arrives in a bulletproof limousine with heavily armed guards, his teachers, ignoring that he's two hours late, greet him deferentially. The scene takes place at the Shiite seminary in Qom, Iran's holy city. The 35-year-old "student": Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of the Mahdi Army, a militia often deemed one of Iran's chief assets in Iraq. Sadr has spent much of the last 10 months in Iran, living in a 14-bedroom villa in Tehran's posh Farmanieh neighborhood. From there, he travels 90 minutes to Qom twice a week,...

Iran: AIDS rate doubles in the holy city of Qom Tehran, 11 Jan. (AKI) - In the past year, the incidence of AIDS has doubled in the holy Shia city of Qom, second only to the Iraqi city of Najaf in religious significance. "The great share of the newly infected have contracted the HIV virus, not through using infected syringes, but through unprotected sexual relations," said Amir, Akbari, director of the city's health centre. In the past year the number of those affected by AIDS in Qom has risen from 177 to 324. Forty per cent of those infected are...

It's clearly necessary to begin thinking about what form deterrence will take against future terrorist attacks on the U.S. At least 5 such attacks have been prevented at the operational stage by Bush administration policies over the last six years. What is needed is more serious consideration of the value of policies that deter such attacks. This is likely to become a more pressing concern, as America's ability to interrupt such attacks, if a Democrat becomes President, will be severely eroded. The Democrats are profoundly indifferent to national security, and have even managed to convince themselves that terrorism is some...

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...

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...

No one knows Qom and its al Hawza al Ilmiya except those who have studied there; it is a difficult place to explore for strangers. One must remain in it for years to discover its hidden secrets, diversity and the truth about what goes on within it. Despite its fame, knowledge about its ideological trends is scarce, especially in light of the fact that Qom and al Hawza al Ilmiya are constantly changing. Hujjat al Islam Mohsen Kadivar may be the best person to speak about the hawza; he studied there for over 17 years, moving in the circles of...

Military operations: Iran carries out shootings of ballistic missiles TEHERAN (Iran) - Iran carried out its first shootings of ballistic missiles Shahab-3 with a load with fragmentation at the beginning of the started operations of scale Thursday morning, brought back Iranian television Al-Alam. "Of the Shahab missiles, with a load with fragmentation, able to have a range of 2.000 km, were drawn from the desert located in approximately of Qom", city located at 120 km in the south of Teheran, brought back television Al-Alam. the General Yahya Rahim Safavi, the commander of the guards of the revolution, the ideological...

Tehran, Aug. 13: One of Osama bin Laden’s sons, Saad, together with a number of top Al Qaeda commanders, including Seif al Adel, are hiding in Iran and are not in Syria as reported by several Western papers this week, a well informed source said. The source, a top Iranian intelligence official until a few months ago, said Al Qaeda and members of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, the Pasdaran, are negotiating coordinated actions against the United States and Israel. The Al Qaeda members had been living for the past four years in a neighbourhood in northern Tehran under the surveillance...

The grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini, the inspiration of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, has broken a three-year silence to back the United States military to overthrow the country's clerical regime. Hossein Khomeini's call is all the more startling as he made it from Qom, the spiritual home of Iran's Shia strand of Islam, during an interview to mark the 17th anniversary of the ayatollah's death. "My grandfather's revolution has devoured its children and has strayed from its course," he told Al-Arabiya, an Arabic-language television station. "I lived through the revolution and it called for freedom and democracy - but it has...

1,000 arrested after police and Sufis clash in Iran 15 Feb 2006 Source: Reuters TEHRAN, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Iranian police have arrested around 1,000 people in the central seminary city of Qom after violent clashes over the closure of a house of worship used by mystical Sufi Muslims, city officials said on Wednesday. Officials and a Qom resident said the police had fired teargas to disperse a crowd of dervishes, or mystics, and those who had gathered to support them. They said the dervishes were armed with knives and stones. Around 200 people were hurt in the clash, one...

Sufis, Iranian police clash in holy city: report Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - IranMania.com LONDON, February 14 (IranMania) - Clashes broke out Monday between members of the Sufi sect and Iranian police in the Shiite Muslim holy city of Qom, the semi-official Fars news agency and websites reported. Fars said some 50 Sufis demonstrated against the closure of their place of worship in Qom. "There was some violence," it said, without elaborating. The website Baztab, which is close to the conservative camp in Iran, said the security forces used tear gas to break up the protest after local authorities decided...

We had arrived at Jamkaran, a holy shrine outside the Iranian city of Qom and site of a water well where the 12th and last imam of Shia Islam, the Mahdi, is said to have disappeared a little over a thousand years ago. Many Iranians believe that the so-called hidden imam, or "imam zaman" (lord of all the ages), will at any moment choose this place to make his return to solve the world's problems. In recent years, the millenarian cult of the well of Jamkaran has become so popular that a hotel has been built nearby and the old...

One of my favorite reporters called late last week, saying he had learned that Coalition forces in Iraq had captured an Iranian vehicle entering Iraq with large quantities of shaped explosives, obviously headed for the terrorists. "So what?" was my reply. It happens most every day. But he was baffled. Why would the Iranians be supporting terrorist actions against Shiites? After all, didn't they want the Shiites to prevail in Iraq, so that there could be an Islamic republic there? His question — and he's a good reporter — shows once again how totally false stereotypes distort our ability to...

GOTTA SEE THIS - War for Enduring Freedom 2/22/04 - Mashhad, Qom, Tehran, Archangelsk, Meridiani Planum, Plesetsk cosmodrome, Fallujah BREAKING: Mashhad, Iran - deserted polling for the fixed election BREAKING: Tehran, Iran - A visit to terrorists BREAKING: 'Archangelsk' - Putin at the failed demonstration BREAKING: Meridiani Planum, Mars - US technology rocks QFN ==== QUAGMIRE-FREE NEWS Exclusive to FReerepublic PICTURES YOU MAY NEVER SEE IN THE GENERAL MEDIA ========= Mashhad ========= BREAKING: FIXED ELECTIONS In Mashhad, Iran, a deserted public polling station in a boycott after the conservative [Iranian Conservative = American leftist] Islamic theocracy banned ~2,400 candidates.Only the...

The recent reports that Ayatollah Ali Sistani was playing a central role in defining how a future Iraqi government and constitution would be chosen highlighted once again the profound importance, and paradoxes, of the Shiite clergy in Iraq and Iran. Although Shiites are a minority in the Muslim world and are scattered all over the Middle East and Indian subcontinent, they are a majority in Iran, Iraq and Lebanon. Shiite seminaries and religious sites are mostly located in Iraq and Iran, and two religious strongholds ­ Najaf in Iraq and Qom in Iran ­ provide an insight into the dynamics...

Sidelined Ayatollah Preaches Moderation Washington Post - By Karl Vick Nov 18, 2003 Iranian Censors Limit Cleric's Reach QOM, Iran -- Ayatollah Ali Meshkini stood erect in the pulpit of this holy city's central mosque, delivering the political portion of his Friday sermon by engaging the 3,000 worshippers in a familiar volley of call and response. "The first issue and only issue is Palestine," said Meshkini, a lean figure who wore a white turban. "The Great Satan is supporting Israel unconditionally. That's why they are repressing the Palestinians." "Down with the U.S.A.," chanted the faithful. A few blocks down Riverbank...

ISLAMISM DISINTEGRATING and New Fatwa Killings August 25, 2003 Iranscope Sam Ghandchi The news from inside Iraq is that Ayatollah Mohammed Saeed al-Hakim uncle of SCIRI leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim, whose group is represented on the U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council, and who has been working hand in hand with the IRI terrorist Ayatollahs all these years, has been the subject of a terrorist attack, although he has survived three of his aids have died. SCIRI leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim is the same person who basically condoned the murder of Ayatollah Khoi a few months ago. The first time...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 25 — A religious edict issued in Iran and distributed to Shiite mullahs in Iraq calls on them "to seize the first possible opportunity to fill the power vacuum in the administration of Iraqi cities." The edict, or fatwa, issued on April 8 by Kadhem al-Husseini al-Haeri, an Iraqi-born cleric based in the Iranian holy city of Qum, suggests that Shiite clerics in Iraq are receiving significant direction from Iran as they try to assert the power of Iraq's long-oppressed religious majority. It is not yet clear how much popular support Mr. Haeri and other clerics emerging...

<p>Will France try to hide its connections arming Iraq?</p>