I am shocked to hear that this may have happened. Shocked!
I wouldn't put something like this past Israel given their history.
ping
Goodness, if they can blow up a missile factory, why don’t they just assassinate the mullahs who run Iran?
The Iranis would dance in the streets.
IF it was Israel, how clever! To just walk in undetected and aerially bomb, and walk out undetected.
I tink its very wishful thinking to just blame the Israelis.
But like everything else, all backwards mid
easterners have to blame Israel and the democratic world for their failures and misgivings.
They have a longer history of that.
Well Amadjihad said it was an accident.....so I assume Mossad was successful.
Le Figaro is one of the two major newspapers in France (along with Le Monde), so it’s not a fringe source — I don’t know what their track record may be on reliability for this kind of story, but I’d guess this is worth taking seriously.
It used to be that Le Figaro was considered somewhat more conservative and business-oriented (for France), more like their WSJ compared to Le Monde (their NY Times), but I don’t know what the situation may be nowadays.
I don’t think Israel could have pulled off a strike like this without anyone noticing. It seems that accusing the Israelis of a strike like this is a very convenient excuse for Iran to cover up their own incompetence.
I recall back during the Cold War, one of the biggest strikes against the Soviet Navy came as a result of their own sloppy weapons handling procedures that lead to a massive explosion in one of their weapons handling depots.
Weapons handling accidents are not unheard of.
I am shocked to hear that this may have happened. Shocked!
aside from one exception, Le Canard Enchainee, all French newspapers accept government subsidies, and hence none of them can be considered truly independent.
Mike
In the media, when one does know, one “suggests.”
In the media, when one does NOT know, one “suggests.”
My family is French. Le Figaro is a right-of-center major, major newspaper, supporter of Sarkozy, and THE newspaper most likely to have access to French Intel sources. I would sayLe Figaro is about as reliable a source as you can find in France.
I wouldn’t put it past Iran to lie their collective buts off saying it was Israel, also, to gin up more hatred.
“Official Iranian reports stated that the explosion occurred after a fire broke out in a weapons depot.”
If the Iranians say it was their own problem, $$ to donuts it was. They’d be crying foul big time if they even had a suspicion it was the Evil Joooooos.
An explosion that killed 18 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard on October 12 was ordered by the Mossad, French newspaper Le Figaro suggested on Monday. Another cause for the blast mentioned by the paper was a targeted Israeli air raid. Official Iranian reports stated that the explosion occurred after a fire broke out in a weapons depot.And the official Iranian reports stated that because that was the actual cause of it. Thanks jhpigott.
thats just a sample,they can have the whole dish if they like
I SUGGEST that President Terrorist of Iran sent that against his own country.
As long as the Iranian Guards are dead, I don’t really care how it happened, just that it did happen.
Many more happy explosions, please!
http://www.debka.com/article/9087/Blasts hit secret Iranian missile launching-pad for US, Israeli targets
DEBKAfile Special Report October 15, 2010, 1:12 PM (GMT+02:00)
Tags: Iran Shehab-3 launchers Sabotage deep underground
A top-secret Iranian military installation was struck by a triple blast Tues. Oct. 12 the day before Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Lebanon. debkafile's military and intelligence sources report the site held most of the Shehab-3 medium-range missile launchers Iran had stocked for striking US forces in Iraq and Israel in the event of war - some set to deliver triple warheads (tri-conic nosecones).
The 18 soldiers officially reported killed in the blasts and 14 injured belonged to the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) main missile arm, the Al-Hadid Brigades.
The Imam Ali Base where the explosion occurred is situated in lofty Zagros mountain country near the town of Khorramabad in the western Iranian province of Lorestan. This site was selected for an altitude which eases precise targeting and the difficulty of reaching it for air or ground attack. It lies 400 kilometers from Baghdad and primary American bases in central Iraq and 1,250 kilometers from Tel Aviv and central Israel. Both are well within the Shehab-3 missile's 1,800-2,500-kilometer operational range.
Our Iranian sources report that Tehran spent hundreds of millions to build one of the largest subterranean missile launching facilities of its kind in the Middle East or Europe. Burrowed under the Imam Ali Base is a whole network of wide tunnels deep underground.
Somehow, a mysterious hand rigged three blasts in quick succession deep inside those tunnels, destroying a large number of launchers and causing enough damage to render the facility unfit for use.
In its official statement on the incident, Tehran denied it was the result of "a terrorist attack" and claimed the explosion "was caused by a nearby fire that spread to the munitions storage area of the base." In the same way, the regime went to great lengths to cover up the ravages wrought to their nuclear and military control systems by the Stuxnet virus - which is still at work.
In actual fact, debkafile's military sources report, Iran's missile arsenal and the Revolutionary Guards have also suffered a devastating blow. Worst of all, all their experts are a loss to account for the assailants' ability to penetrate one of Iran's most closely guarded bases and reach deep underground to blow up the missile launchers.
The number of casualties is believed to be greater than the figure given out by Tehran.
The soldiers' funerals took place Thursday, Oct. 14, at the same time as Ahmadinejad declared in South Lebanon that Israel was destined to "disappear." A few hours later, he ended his contentious two-day visit to Lebanon.
This week, Aviation Week discovered that the new intermediate-range BM-25 Musudan ballistic missile exhibited at the North Korean military parade Sunday Oct. 10 - at which Kim Jong-II also paraded his son and heir - bore a strong resemblance to the Iranian Shehab-3.
It is therefore possible that the explosions at the IRGC base in Lorestan Tuesday also sabotaged secret models of Iran's latest road-mobile, liquid-fuel version of the Shehab-3 ballistic missile.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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I doubt it, but if true, a well executed operation.