Free Republic

Ho-hum, another day in Tehran, another incident of careless explosive-tank handling. Or so the Iranians want everyone to think, for now. Officials claim that “careless handling” of oxygen tanks triggered an explosion south of Tehran that killed two people in Baghershahr late yesterday. “Human error,” the Iranian regime called it: Two men have been killed in yet another Iran explosion, as officials blamed ‘human error’ for the blast.The explosion rocked the Sepahan Boresh factory in the city of Baqershahr, south of Tehran, in the early hours of Tuesday morning, according to state media.It was caused by ‘workers being negligent...

An explosion deep within Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility has destroyed much of the installation, trapped about 240 personnel deep underground, according to a former intelligence officer of the Islamic regime, and reported by Reza Kahlili on Thursday. The previously secret nuclear site has become a center for Iran’s nuclear activity because of the 2,700 centrifuges enriching uranium to the 20-percent level. A further enrichment to weapons grade would take only weeks, experts say.“The level of enrichment has been a major concern to Israeli officials, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly has warned about the 20-percent enriched stockpile. The explosion occurred...

[Tehran] is in a difficult position because it labeled the explosion an accident, but it is now facing a deluge of foreign media reports seeking to conclude that the explosion was perpetrated by a state or group. This is what Iran's regime is reading: Major media from The New York Times to The Washington Post and local media such as Kuwait's Al-Jarida have all sought to assert that Israel was involved in the mysterious July 2 explosion at a warehouse in the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility... [t]hat could set back the program for months or a year. Iran, however, is...

Report: In Devastating Blow, Israel Sets Back Iran's Nuke Program Two YearsThe last couple of weeks have seen a string of apparent sabotage incidents in Iran. Questions about them abound. Possible answers are intriguing to say the least. Probably the most significant attack came early Thursday morning at Natanz, when, as the New York Times reported:...A Middle Eastern intelligence official…said the blast was caused by an explosive device planted inside the facility. The explosion, he said, destroyed much of the aboveground parts of the facility where new centrifuges…are balanced before they are put into operation…. ... ... Instead, Iran appears...

Iran is stewing over the potential loss of its most advanced centrifuge production plant after some kind of explosion and fire severely damaged it. Naturally, the Iranians are being pretty closemouthed about the incident. They haven’t said much about the fire and explosion at what was suspected to be a nuclear research facility in the mountains outside of Tehran, either. But it’s hard to hide what happened at Natanz — the nuclear facility with the highest-profile in the country. And Iran is hinting that the destruction of its advanced centrifuge plant might have been caused by some kind of variation...

Kuwait's Al-Jarida newspaper on Friday reported that Israel was responsible for a Thursday "accident" at an Iranian nuclear facility in Natanz. It is believed that the Natanz facility is used to enrich uranium. According to the Al-Jarida report, the explosion was caused by an "Israeli cyber attack" which targeted the computers which control the pressure gauges inside gas containers. Tehran has allegedly lost 80% of the uranium hexafluoride gas it needs in order to enrich uranium. The report also claimed that Israel is responsible for the Parchin blast which occurred last week. On Thursday, Iran's state news agency IRNA published...

Israel was responsible for two blasts at Iranian facilities — one related to uranium enrichment, the other for missile production — over the past week, a Kuwaiti newspaper reported Friday. The Al-Jareeda daily cited an unnamed senior source as saying that an Israeli cyberattack caused a fire and explosion at the largely underground Natanz nuclear enrichment facility in the predawn hours of Thursday morning. According to the source, this was expected to set back Iran’s nuclear enrichment program by approximately two months. The newspaper also reported that last Friday Israeli F-35 stealth fighter jets bombed a site located in the...

My, but Iran must have a lot of defective “industrial gas tanks” lying around. A week after Iranian officials tried to explain away a massive explosion at Parchin as a civilian-area accident, a large fire at Natanz might prove more difficult to dismiss. Natanz, like Parchin, is a site where the US alleges that Iran has performed work on their nuclear-weapons program, and experts believe that uranium-enriching centrifuge work might have been the target this time: Iran says there has been an “incident” at one of its nuclear facilities.Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi did not...

Iraqi security forces were on Friday (June 26) interrogating pro-Iran fighters detained for planning a rocket attack in the first such raid in a country caught in the tug-of-war between Teheran and Washington. Since October, nearly three dozen deadly rocket attacks have hit US military and diplomatic installations in Iraq, with the US blaming pro-Teheran faction Kataeb Hezbollah. Infuriated, Washington has demanded Iraq take tougher action to hold the perpetrators accountable and Thursday's unprecedented raid appeared to be a response to this call. Just before midnight Thursday, the elite Counter-Terrorism Service stormed a base in southern Baghdad used by Kataeb...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An explosion that rattled Iran’s capital came from an area in its eastern mountains that analysts believe hides an underground tunnel system and missile production sites, satellite photographs showed Saturday. What exploded in the incident early Friday that sent a massive fireball into the sky near Tehran remains unclear, as does the cause of the blast. The unusual response of the Iranian government in the aftermath of the explosion, however, underscores the sensitive nature of an area near where international inspectors believe the Islamic Republic conducted high-explosive tests two decades ago for nuclear weapon...

Live coverage and speculation about a military base, Iranian guards outpost or a large natural gas reservoir in the area Still night there

A large explosion was heard east of Tehran on Thursday night, with video from local sources showing a bright light lighting up the night sky.

Senator Markey has announced his support for the Iran deal that will let the terrorist regime inspect its own Parchin nuclear weapons research site, conduct uranium enrichment, build advanced centrifuges, buy ballistic missiles, fund terrorism and have a near zero breakout time to a nuclear bomb. There was no surprise there. Markey had topped the list of candidates supported by the Iran Lobby. And the Iranian American Political Action Committee (IAPAC) had maxed out its contributions to his campaign. After more fake suspense, Al Franken, another IAPAC backed politician who also benefited from Iran Lobby money, came out for the...

Unknown people have bricked up the entrance to a mosque in northeastern Germany and stuck racist flyers to their masonry work. Police in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania have opened an investigation after the 1 meter-high brickwork was found in the doorway of the mosque, which is currently under construction, on the morning of August 26th, a police report states. According to broadcaster NDR, police are investigating two charges — one of property damage, the other of incitement of hatred. …

The only Obama administration official to view confidential "side deals" between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) admitted Wednesday she and her team have only seen rough drafts. "I didn't see the final documents. I saw the provisional documents, as did my experts," said Wendy Sherman, a lead U.S. negotiator for the deal, at a Senate Banking Committee hearing. Sherman, undersecretary of State for political affairs, said she was only allowed to see the confidential deals "in the middle of the negotiation" when the IAEA "wanted to go over with some of our experts the technical details." She...

The chief of the U.N. nuclear agency insisted Monday that a probe of a suspected nuclear weapons research site in Iran does meet strict agency standards, while acknowledging that Iranian experts provided samples from the site for analysis. Such sampling is usually done by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s own experts. But IAEA chief Yukiya Amano told reporters that Iranians carried out that part of the probe at Parchin, where the agency suspects that explosive triggers for nuclear weapons might have been tested. The arrangement was first revealed in confidential draft agreement between the sides seen last month by The...

The bologna surrounding the Nuclear Iran Deal was sliced even more thinly on Monday, Sept. 21. Remember the alarms raised when a version of one of the confidential secret side deals obtained and reported on by the Associated Press revealed that Iran would be permitted to inspect its own Parchin military site? At least some of Iran’s nuclear weapons activity is suspected to have taken place at Parchin. On Monday, most of the headlines about the Parchin inspections revealed that what had been suspected was, in fact, the case. Tehran said that Iranians “independently collected samples” at Parchin with no...

A spokesman for Iran’s atomic agency announced Monday that Iranian scientists collected environmental samples from a military site without international inspectors present, a move sure to evoke anger from opponents of the Iran nuclear deal who charge it with having lax inspection provisions. {Snip} The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday that the Iranian self-verification activities at Parchin were “conducted in a manner consistent with our standard safeguards practices.” “The agency can confirm the integrity of the sampling process and the authenticity of the samples, which were taken at places of interest to the Agency at the...

Environmental samples have been taken at a sensitive military site in Iran, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog said on Monday, citing "significant progress" in its investigation of Tehran's past activities. Such sampling is usually done by experts of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency. But IAEA chief Yukiya Amano says that Iranians carried out that part of the probe at Parchin. The transfer appeared to be part of a confidential draft agreement with the agency that allows Iran to gather its own samples. Inspecting the Parchin military site is a crucial part of the International Atomic Energy Agency's...

Iran appears to have built an extension to part of its Parchin military site since May, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said in a report on Thursday delving into a major part of its inquiry into possible military dimensions to Tehran's past atomic activity. A resolution of the International Atomic Energy Agency's Parchin file, which includes a demand for fresh IAEA access to the site, is a symbolically important issue that could help make or break Tehran's July 14 nuclear deal with six world powers. The confidential IAEA report, obtained by Reuters, said: "Since (our) previous report (in May), at a...