Saturday 27 October 2018
Exposé: Iran’s Covert High Explosive Facilities in Parchin Violate 2015 Nuclear Accord….
27 October 2018
27 October 2018
A report released by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) on October 23 offers new information and conclusions regarding the key role the high explosive test site in Parchin plays in the development of an Iranian nuclear warhead.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was never given access to the Parchin military site and so its regular reports on Iran’s implementation of the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran (JCPOA) never reflected this violation.
The ISIS draws its data mainly from the Iranian nuclear archive clandestinely obtained by Israel and publicly released by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on April 30, 2018.
He bared only a small section of that archive, which revealed that in 2003, Iran was operating a nuclear weapons program codenamed AMAD for building five nuclear weapons and preparing an underground nuclear test.
The ISIS assessed how the facilities at the Parchin high explosives site related to this program.
Those activities were halted in late 2003 or early 2004, but, some time in 2004, the nuclear program was substantially restructured to better evade detection by the IAEA and Western intelligence.
Meanwhile, the program covertly advanced.
Incumbent Iranian president Hassan Rouhani was then national security adviser to the supreme leader and in charge of executing this plan.
Project 110 for developing a nuclear warhead in the AMAD program was divided into two parts, covert and overt.
The latter part, relating to neutron sources used to initiate a nuclear explosion, went forward subsequently, unobserved at Parchin.
The Institute’s report on this facility is highly detailed.
• The main building is shown holding a large high explosive test chamber, belying Iran’s past and present claims that there was no chamber in that building.
• An underground high explosives storage bunker, from which explosives were taken for experimental devices, reposed in a small building nearby. This building was demolished and rebuilt in 2012.
• Another building was dismantled in 2012 and not rebuilt, probably used to mate explosives and detonators for later experimentation.
• Another building not addressed by the international watchdog is situated at the north end of the site and built into the hillside. This one was extensively modified after 2012 under a concealing pink translucent tarp.
• The nuclear archive found by Israel also revealed another building, backstopped in the hillside, that was evidently designed for projectile impact studies. It contains a smaller high explosive chamber and a flash X-ray system for examining small-scale, high explosive tests, such as those of hemispherical components of the AMAD program.
• Mohmmad Mehdi Tehranchi, [pictured above] a physicist who studied in Russia, was in charge of the project in those years. At present, he is acting president of Islamic Azad University and affiliated with the SPND, the direct descendent of the AMAD program and the most recent incarnation of Iran’s nuclear weapons effort. The IAEA never interviewed him.
The Institute has come to the following conclusions:
1. The nuclear archive shows that Iran conducted at Parchin [pictured above] more high explosive tests relating to nuclear weapons development than previously thought. There was much more going on there than the feasibility and scientific studies or acquisition of technical competences which the watchdog “revealed” in its 2015 report.
2. Iran appears to be preserving, curating and improving its nuclear weapons capabilities in readiness for a decision to reconstitute a full-blown nuclear weapons program at a later date. (The 2015 nuclear accord expires in 2025.). Iran’s failure to destroy all the documents contained in the nuclear archive - and also apparently the equipment used in the activities revealed there - is at odds with Tehran’s commitment when signing the JCPA that “under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire nuclear weapons.”
The accord was co-signed with the United States, the UK, France, Russia, China and Germany. President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the agreement last May. When will the slumbering world realise that Iran is rapidly being revealed as a budding nuclear power?? If the truth be known, and it is in enlightened quarters she acquired a nuclear capability many years ago.
Israel in Two Minds on Fresh Air Strikes over Syria, although Pushed by Washington….
26 October 2018
26 October 2018
Get back up in the sky, because Iran is flooding Syria with new weapons for Hizballah and must be stopped!
That was the message Washington was addressing to Israel on October 19 when “Western intelligence sources” leaked to Fox News the details of a new and dangerousIranian delivery to Lebanon.
During the past month, four US and British spy planes have been flying two to three missions a week over Syria from their air bases in Crete.
The American aircraft fly north along the Syrian Mediterranean coast up to the Turkish border, before turning back to their base at Heraklion airport;
The British aircraft fly over the northern Israeli port of Haifa, turn north towards the Jordanian-Syrian border and then keep going along the Mediterranean coast up to the meeting point of the Syrian, Jordanian and Iraq borders.
These are the details of the aircraft conducting these missions;
One of the two US spy planes is an MC-12S Enhanced Medium Altitude craft [pictured above] which has a Reconnaissance and Surveillance system (EMARSS-S), a suite of signal-snooping gear for tracking and listening in on enemy communications, as well as the ability to record full-motion video by day or by night.
The second is a USAF MC-12W Liberty intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft. [pictured above] Each of the two aircraft has a work station connected to the Distributed Common Ground System – Army (DCGS-A) intelligence data network, which is designed to collect, compile and distribute information rapidly across units.
The British spy planes, which are based at Souda Bay in Crete, are a Boeing RC-135,[pictured above] which is an Airseeker Electronic Snooping Plane and an R1 Sentinel, an airborne battlefield and ground surveillance aircraft. [pictured below]
The US and British surveillance and reconnaissance missions are assigned the tasks of tracking the hi-tech Russian S-300 air defence missiles and electronic warfare systems that Moscow installed in Syria after a Russian IL-20 jet was accidentally downed by Syrian missiles on September 17.
Moscow blamed the Israeli air force for the disaster and installed those measures to seriously hamper all future air operations over Syria.
On September 24, Russian Defence Minister General Sergei Shoigu revealed them as:
• The transfer to Syria of Russian S-300 anti-air missiles.
• Their upgrade to match the level of Russian batteries in Syria.
• Deployment of electronic warfare (EW) systems for jamming enemy ground- and airborne radar over Syria and the eastern Mediterranean.
However, our reliable military sources revealed that after Shoigu’s disclosures, the Russian army took further, more extreme, steps, which suggested that his apparent candour was intended to deceive US and Israeli air force chiefs about what the Russians were really up to in Syria.
This month, the broad scale of those measures came to light:
1. Three battalion sets of advanced S-300 medium-range PM-2 missiles, [pictured above] along with Russian teams, arrived in Syria in addition to the S-400 air defence missiles already deployed there.
2. Also installed around Syria’s main cities and military bases was another type of advanced air defence system, one especially designed to intercept cruise missiles and low-flying aircraft which the S-300s are not equipped to stop.
3. Cutting-edge electronic warfare gear was imported from Russia to Syria.
From late September, these systems were able to lock on to any flying object approaching Syrian airspace and mark it as a potential target for a Russian S-300 battery.
The reluctance of Israel Air Force commanders to resume air strikes against Iranian targets in Syria comes, our military and intelligence sources disclose, from the suspicion that the Russians are laying an electronic trap for bringing down at least one Israeli jet, if not more, in order to settle accounts for their lost IL-20 spy plane.
During the month-long pause in Israeli air operations over Syria;
a) US and British spy planes stepped in to take the measure of the newly-installed Russian EW gear and air defence missiles. Their intelligence calculates that the Russians will not shoot down American or British aircraft, unlike Israeli warplanes.
b) Iran and Hizballah are taking full advantage of Syrian skies clear of Israeli jets to substantially step up their supplies of hardware and fly them to Lebanon.
Israel’s policy-makers and military chiefs are locked in intense debate over whether or not to resume air operations over Syria.
The proponents argue that Iran and Hizballah cannot be allowed to continue replenishing their war arsenals, thereby nullifying the gains of nearly two years of destructive Israeli air operations.
These supplies are bringing the threat of war with Hizballah too close for comfort.
One group of Israeli officers maintains that, even if one or two planes are downed by Russian fire, this risk must be taken as the only way the Israeli Air Force can find out for certain if its EW measures can stand up to the new Russian set-up in Syria.
The counter-argument is advanced by a number of commanders and ministers, led by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
They urge patience because, they maintain, at the end of the day, President Vladimir Putin will return to their understandings andallow [?]Israeli warplanes to return to Syrian skies.
But even they recognise that the former freedom once enjoyed by Israeli jets is a thing of a past and restrictions will be in place.
An inkling of this debate leaked into the opening of the Knesset’s winter session on October 15, when Netanyahu in his speech said he was in “direct contact with Putin” who “prizes highly our relations of friendship and mutual respect, which enables us to stand up to extremely complex challenges in our region.”
He emphasised: “That connection is important for Israel’s security.”.
This was the prime minister’s way of smoothing over the unease caused by the pause in Israel’s aerial operations in Syria without making it a public admission.
Washington, however, was not satisfied.
The leak to Fox News about the continuing delivery of Iranian weapons to Syria and Lebanon for Hizballah was a hard nudge from the Trump administration for Israel to return to action and demolish Iranian arms deliveries, even at a price.
Hence the revelation that Iran’s Fars Air Qeshm flight number QFZ-9950 had touched down in Syria’s capital Damascus and continued to Beirut, carrying GPS devices formaking Hizballah rockets into precision-guided weapons.
This revelation was meant to put the Netanyahu government on the spot and force a decision.
This is a decision Moscow would rather avert, preferring the deterrent effect of their military build-up in Syria to putting their own advanced military systems to the test against Israeli hi-tech.
On Thursday, October 25, Russian Deputy Defence Minister Alexander Fomin [pictured above] stated that Russia’s Khmeimim Air Base in Syria had been subjected to a massive drone attack by unmanned aerial vehicles piloted by a US Poseidon 8 surveillance aircraft.
"This is very alarming data, of course, no one here should have any doubts about the conclusions, an appropriate analysis will be carried out by our military.”
And here we have, say our military sources, a typical Russian ruse for halting the US and British reconnaissance flights over Syria in case they are preparing the way for resumed Israeli air operations.
Prince MbS’ Enemies Waiting for Saudi King to Move against Him. In Vain?….
26 October 2018
26 October 2018
By Friday, October 26, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), [pictured above] had emerged damaged but unbeaten from three turbulent weeks of finger-pointing over the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2.
His rivals and foes watched in frustration as his father, King Salman bin Abdulaziz, [pictured below] allowed MbS to continue to run the kingdom with undiminished powers.
Instead, the king rallied the entire royal family to line up together and defend the kingdom and royal house against its foreign foes and critics, including their most prominent ally, the Trump White House.
The crown prince’s rivals were obliged to set aside their intrigues to topple him and focus on a united effort to dig the kingdom out of a hole.
As part of the effort to restore calm, the king and crown prince received the murdered journalist’s son and family to express condolences for their loss.
Khashoggi’s family were bound to accept the royal invitation, since no Saudi citizen would dare to refuse.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was persuaded by Washington to edit the threatened “naked truth” out of his speech to his parliamentary party on Monday, October 22, and in general to tone down his usual pugnacity.
That “advice” was most likely delivered by the US Central Intelligence Agency Director Gina Haspel, who visited Ankara the day before the speech for that purpose.
On Thursday, Erdogan declared he had no intention of filing charges against Riyadh with the international war crimes court at The Hague.
However, while complying with the American request, the Turkish president, true to character, couldn’t quite let go.
One of his top aides, Ilnur Cevik was heard to remark: “Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has blood on his hands.”
The Turkish president was keeping his drive against the Saudi throne bubbling on the front burner.
Every effort to resolve the Khashoggi [pictured below] mystery and lay it to rest has been thwarted so far by two unknowns:
1. The whereabouts of the slain journalist’s body. As long as his remains are not found, his murder is unproven and the manner of his death impossible to conclusively determine, in the face of the rumours pouring out in Turkey.
2. Who has the upper hand in the struggle for power in the Saudi royal house? Internal secrecy is traditionally ingrained in the Saudi ruling family and the truth about its inner workings rarely reaches outsiders. Even Western intelligence watchers are forced to be satisfied with speculative rumours.
On Wednesday, October 24, President Donald Trump commented that the Saudi Crown Prince bears ultimate responsibility for the operation that led to Jamal Khashoggi’s killing. “…Well, the Prince is running things over there more so at this stage. He’s running things and so if anybody were going to be, it would be him.”
This was more a shot in the dark than an expression of consistent White House policy for leaning on Riyadh to remove the crown prince.
Trump too suffers from a deficiency of data about the state of royal infighting.
Still, in the run-up to US midterm elections, the president needed to sound resolute about punishing the Saudi royal house for the Khashoggi murder.
The decision to deny 21 prominent Saudi officials the permission to enter the US was part of that drive.
Saudi experts estimate that Trump’s words and actions fell on deaf ears in Riyadh and were no help to the crown prince’s rivals.
They appear to have run out of ammunition in the current round of their battle for MbS’ ouster.
King Salman was not persuaded to give his favourite son the push; and no other figure in the kingdom is competent to perform this function.
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