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American investors in Bahrain advised to

pack up business operations and leave

March 30, 2007, 3:56 PM (GMT+02:00)

The advice came from officers with US Central Command 5th Fleet HQ at Manama, who spoke of security tension, a hint at an approaching war with Iran. Arab sources report the positioning of a Patriot anti-missile battery in Bahrain this week; they say occupancy at emirate hotels has soared past 90% due mostly to the influx of US military personnel. They also report Western media crews normally employed in military coverage are arriving in packs.

Thursday, March 29, Gen. Khaled al-‘Absi, Bahrain’s chief of air defense operations disclosed that new alarm networks had been installed and air defense systems upgraded to handle chemical, biological and radioactive attacks.

The USS Nimitz and its support ships will be departing San Diego Monday, April 2, to join the John C. Stennis Strike Group in the Persian Gulf. The nuclear carrier is due to relieve the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower , but military sources in the Gulf believe all three US carriers will stay put if tensions continue to climb or if fighting breaks out involving American, British and Iranian forces.

The mighty American armada is further supported by the USS Bataan and USS Boxer strike groups.

War tensions have been triggered most recently by the crisis over the seized British sailors and large-scale US sea, air and amphibious exercises in the Gulf.

1. DEBKAfile’s Tehran sources report that in the contest within the Iranian leadership over how to handle the affair of the captured British seamen, the wildest radical element has gained the upper hand, reducing the prospects of their imminent release. Heading the tough Tehran faction are hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Gen. Rahim Safavi, commander of the Revolutionary Guards whose naval wing performed the seizure.

They gained strength from the British premier Tony Blair’s initial passive, semi-conciliatory response. Tehran quickly grasped it had acquired not just a propaganda tool but a military asset, which the UK cannot match as long as the Americans desist from throwing their military might into the fray. Washington has refused to risk of a full-scale war confrontation with the Revolutionary Guards for the sake of the British sailors.

Iranian strategists also registered that, although the Blair government has begun moving mountains to gain the freedom of the marine crew held in Tehran, London appeared fairly laid back about the kidnap of BBC correspondent Alan Johnston in broad daylight by gunmen in Palestinian Gaza, although three weeks had gone by.

Revolutionary Guards serving with Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza no doubt filed a full report on the Johnston case to Tehran, which drew its own conclusions.

2. Taking part in the big demonstration of American naval, air and marine force launched March 27 are the two nuclear carrier strike forces Stennis and Eisenhower , thousands of marines and 100 warplanes. Maneuvers on this scale in the tight, overcrowded waters of the Persian Gulf carry risks of a collision between American and Iranian craft.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the Nimitz group is composed of the Princeton guided-missile cruiser, four guided missile destroyers – the Higgins , Chafee , John Paul Jones and Pinckney . The strike force is armed with two helicopter squadrons and a special unit for dismantling sea mines and other explosive devices.

Earlier, DEBKAfile quoted intelligence sources in Moscow as predicting that a US strike against Iranian nuclear installations codenamed Operation Bite has been scheduled for April 6 at 0040 hours. Missiles and air raids will conduct strikes designed to be devastating enough to set Tehran’s nuclear program several years back.

Russian intelligence sees U.S . military buildup on Iran border 17:31 | 27/ 03/ 2007 MOSCOW, March 27 (RIA Novosti) - Russian military intelligence services are reporting a flurry of activity by U.S. Armed Forces near Iran's borders, a high-ranking security source said Tuesday. "The latest military intelligence data point to heightened U.S. military preparations for both an air and ground operation against Iran," the official said, adding that the Pentagon has probably not yet made a final decision as to when an attack will be launched. He said the Pentagon is looking for a way to deliver a strike against Iran "that would enable the Americans to bring the country to its knees at minimal cost." He also said the U.S. Naval presence in the Persian Gulf has for the first time in the past four years reached the level that existed shortly before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Col.-Gen. Leonid Ivashov, vice president of the Academy of Geopolitical Sciences, said last week that the Pentagon is planning to deliver a massive air strike on Iran's military infrastructure in the near future. A new U.S. carrier battle group has been dispatched to the Gulf. The USS John C. Stennis, with a crew of 3,200 and around 80 fixed-wing aircraft, including F/A-18 Hornet and Superhornet fighter-bombers, eight support ships and four nuclear submarines are heading for the Gulf, where a similar group led by the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower has been deployed since December 2006. The U.S. is also sending Patriot anti-missile systems to the region.

DOHA (AFP) - Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani warned that Iran might launch a preemptive strike against US forces in the region to prevent an attack on its nuclear facilities.

Military Action Against Iran ‘An Option’ for USA

Fri 20 Jun 2003

10:43am (UK)

By John Deane, Chief Political Correspondent, PA News


President George W Bush reserves the right to take military action against Iran unless Tehran agrees to abandon efforts to develop nuclear weapons, a leading member of the US administration said today.

John Bolton, Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, stressed that such action was very much a last resort but insisted that Iran could not be allowed to develop a weapons capability which could destabilise the whole region.

Interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme about the US’s diplomatic efforts to get Tehran to abandon its weapons ambitions, Mr Bolton was asked whether ultimately the US was reserving the right to take Iraq war-style military action against Iran.

He replied: “The President has repeatedly said that all options are on the table. But that is not only not our preference, it is far far from our minds.”

But pressed on whether military action remained an option, he said: “It has to be an option.

“Nuclear weapons are incredibly dangerous and when you couple the Iranian nuclear programme with their aggressive efforts to expand the range of their ballistic missiles, they are bringing more and more of our friends and allies within range.

“It is one of the reasons we have pressed the Russians so hard and why President Putin has fundamentally agreed that it cannot be in Russian interests to have a nuclear-capable, ballistic missile-equipped Iran just to its south.”
 

The Mujahedeen Khalq (Iranians)

'planned Europe attacks'
From correspondents in Paris
June 19, 2003

A LEADING Iranian opposition group had planned attacks on Iranian diplomatic missions in Europe and elsewhere, a top French intelligence chief said today, explaining massive raids on the organisation a day earlier.

The head of the DST, France's counterintelligence agency, spoke at a news conference after a day of protests outside DST headquarters by scores of Mujahedeen Khalq members - three of whom set themselves afire. At least two were severely burned.

The Mujahedeen Khalq "was preparing to commit attacks outside Iran, including in Europe", said DST chief Pierre de Bousquet de Florian.

However, Iranian diplomatic missions in France, where the group is headquartered, were not among sites targeted, he said.

The group, which opposes the clerical government in Tehran, is listed as a terrorist organisation by the United States and the European Union.

However, it had few problems during most of its time in France, where the group located shortly after Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.

Of the 159 people detained in yesterday's raids, only 26 were still being held for questioning by the DST.

However, they included a highly symbolic figure, Maryam Rajavi, a leader and wife of Mujahedeen Khalq chief Massoud Rajavi.

Police seized between $US8 million ($12 million) and $US9 million ($13.5 million) in cash during the raids on 13 sites, Bousquet de Florian said, adding that the money - all in cash - had not been fully counted.

The main site raided was a walled compound in Auvers-Sur-Oise, north of Paris, that for years has served as headquarters for the Mujahedeen Khalq.

"They were making Auvers-Sur-Oise an operational centre for terrorism," the DST chief said.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said yesterday the group planned to turn France into a rear base.

The counterintelligence chief linked the terror plans to the Mujahedeen Khalq's setback in Iraq - where it maintained a well-equipped army to mount attacks on neighbouring Iran.

The US-led war in Iraq "deprived (the Mujahedeen Khalq) of its Baghdad headquarters" and of financing by the regime of Saddam Hussein, Bousquet de Florian said. US forces in Iraq disarmed the Mujahedeen Khalq forces in May.

The DST chief said the Mujahedeen Khalq functions like a sect, with Maryam and Massoud Rajavi veritable cult figures.

He transmitted a message from Maryam Rajavi asking followers not to burn themselves up. "Mrs Rajavi is sensitive to these immolations," he said. "She doesn't want demonstrators to express themselves in this way."

At today's demonstration, a woman identified as Marzieh Babakhani, 42, doused herself with a flammable liquid and lit a match, according to police and the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the group's so-called parliament-in-exile.

She was rushed to the hospital after other protesters put out the flames. Police said she sustained injuries on her face and upper chest, and a passerby's arm was burned.

A spokesman for the Council, Shahin Gobadi, said the woman had died, but police denied that.

Several hours later, a protester identified as Sedigheh Mojaveri set herself ablaze and was also hospitalised in critical condition, police said.

A third protester - identified as a woman by police but as a man by the Mujahedeen Khalq - burned himself in the late afternoon. The protester's condition was unclear.

In Bern, Switzerland, a man in his 50s tried to set himself afire in front of the French Embassy, dousing himself with petrol, but was stopped by police.

Yesterday, a 38-year-old man in London set himself afire during a protest outside the French Embassy.

The crackdown on the Mujahedeen came as pro-democracy protesters in Iran put pressure on the clerical government with demonstrations calling for greater freedom.

Iranian President Mohammed Khatami praised the French action, and said the United States should follow suit.

"It is natural that we want all the people who have been involved in terrorist acts," he said in an apparent reference that Tehran would like their extradition. Khatami said "there are documents and evidence against them".

Yesterday's raids by 1,300 police were carried out based on intelligence indicating the group's "dangerous and illegal" activities, government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope said.

"Our services had specific information on the development of activities of this organisation," Cope said.

The Mujahedeen have been based in France since shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the Iranian monarchy and brought Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power.

The group had initially supported the revolution, but fell out over its advocacy of a secular regime. It has offices in several western cities.

Iranian caught with two passports at NAIA

By Sandy Araneta
The Philippine Star 06/17/2003 An Iranian national posing as a Portuguese was arrested by Bureau of Immigration (BI) agents at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) after the foreigner was found to have another passport hidden in his underwear.
Ferdie Sampol, head supervisor of the BI-NAIA, identified the Iranian as Hajy Hosseinbigi Hamidreza, with passport number C5754084.

The immigration bureau said the Iranian had initially presented a Portuguese passport (H759348) that identified him as Ricardo Fernando. The Iranian was arrested Sunday evening upon arrival from Singapore.

He was immediately taken to the immigration main office in Intramuros, Manila.
In a report to Sampol, BI personnel said that at the immigration counter, the Iranian presented his Portuguese passport, saying he would be flying to Bangkok on June 26.

However, immigration agents had doubts as to the purpose of his visit in Manila and tried to ask for his airline ticket from Singapore.

The Iranian said he had disposed of it while insisting he was a Portuguese tourist.

He, however, had no hotel reservation in Bangkok and only $300 as pocket money, which is quite uncommon for arriving tourists, immigration agents said in their report.
Immigration agents then asked the Iranian to go inside their office for further investigation.

There, immigration agents asked him to remove his clothes and later discovered that the Iranian had his Iranian passport hidden in his underwear.

The Iranian admitted that he took a flight from Iran to Singapore using his real name. He planned to use Manila as a transit point using the fake passport before he resumes his journey to Japan, which he claims was his final destination.

No details were provided as to the purpose of his trip.

The Iranian was turned over to the chief of the BI Intelligence Division at the main office for further investigation and disposition. The Iranian has been blacklisted by the BI.

US Accumulates Evidence of Iran’s Nuclear Violations

DEBKAfile Special Report

June 16, 2003, 4:47 PM (GMT+02:00)

DEBKAfile’s Washington sources reveal that the Americans have turned up increasing indications that Iran is marching forward with its clandestine nuclear programs, which are the subject of the current International Atomic Energy Agency board meeting in Vienna on Monday and Tuesday, June 16 and 17. The board is examining evidence that the Iranians have secretly set up a massive uranium enrichment facility designed to house tens of thousands of centrifuges. This facility could support the production of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium.

To subscribe to DEBKA-Net-Weekly click HERE .

Washington will insist that the United Nations nuclear watchdog declare Iran to be in breach of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treat (NPT), which it has signed.

The IAEA chief Mohammed ElBaradei has already circulated a harsh report to board members, accusing Tehran of failing to give notice of certain nuclear material and activities. Inspection is hampered by Iran’s refusal sign the Additional Protocol which would grant international inspectors wider access and more intrusive, short-notice visits to suspected atomic sites. For example, Iran has denied ElBaradei’s request for inspection access to Kalaye Electric Company where parts for centrifuges are built in violation of the NPT.

Having Iran declared in serious breach of the NPT at the IAEA board meeting in Vienna would open the way for a United States complaint to the UN Security and the tabling of a resolution endorsing tough action against Iran.

Tehran, for its part, is employing dilatory tactics to block this move in order to buy extra time to complete its nuclear weapons program unhindered. Intelligence experts estimate that Iran will have developed a nuclear bomb and delivery-capable missiles by the end of 2004. To fend off mounting US pressure, the spokesman of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization to the IAEA took an aggressive tack: First give us access to nuclear technological data for civilian purposes and promise that our signature on the Additional Protocol will not interfere with our nuclear infrastructure development.

Iran’s posture against the US strikes a sympathetic chord in the European Union - with which Tehran is negotiating for a trade deal - raising the prospect of leaving Washington to go it alone in seeking international support for firm global action against Iran as happened in the case of Iraq. The ploy was borrowed from North Korea, who in the 1990s successfully persuaded the Clinton administration to part with the funds and technology for advanced nuclear reactors that later served Pyongyang for developing its nuclear program and its nuclear collaboration with Tehran.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly was the first publication on November 15, 2002 to expose Iran’s secret nuclear plants in Natanz and Arak. Both are supervised by the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, a state body controlled by the National Security Council that defers only to Iran’s radical spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Natanz, where nuclear fuel (enriched uranium) is produced, is located 100 miles north of Isfahan on the old Natanz-Kashan highway. A huge facility, big enough to employed hundreds of workers, it is buried many feet underground and set in layers of concrete. The director of this site is an IAEO official called Dawood Agha-Jani.

The Arak facility produces heavy water at a place called Qatran Workshop close to the Qara-Chai River, three miles from Khondab in northern Azerbaijan. A second IAEO official, Daryoush Sheibani, heads this project.

Unfinished structures were left at both locations to support official claims that building is uncompleted and the sites are not active.

Wednesday, May 21, 2003
Rumsfeld: Al-Qaeda Busy In Iran

Iran's Secret Nuclear Sites
Aug 16
John Lumpkin in Washington, AP
Members of an Iranian rebel group claimed Iran's Government was building at least two secret sites to support its nuclear weapons program.

Citing sources inside the Iranian Government, officials with the National Council of Resistance of Iran said the sites were a nuclear fuel production plant and research lab at Natanz and a heavy water production plant at Arak.

Both sites are in central Iran, south of the capital, Tehran.

"These two nuclear sites have been kept secret until now," Alireza Jafarzadeh, the US representative of the organisation, said at a press conference.

Both sites were close to completion, Mr Jafarzadeh said.

Heavy water from the Arak plant could support reactors capable of producing material for nuclear weapons, he said.

US officials familiar with the rebels' charges declined to comment on the specifics of their claims. However, the officials acknowledged Iran was moving forward with its clandestine nuclear weapons program.

Earlier this year, CIA Director George Tenet said US intelligence was worried countries such as Iran may make "sudden leaps" in their nuclear programs.

"Tehran may be able to indigenously produce enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon by late this decade," Mr Tenet told a congressional committee in March.

Much of the public attention given to Iran's nuclear effort focuses on a power reactor at Bushehr, which is being built with Russian assistance.

But its design and international oversight agreements are expected to prevent it being used to make material for nuclear weapons.

Instead, the main concern about it is that it will lead to more expertise in nuclear matters in Iran, benefiting its weapons program, US officials say. Mr Jafarzadeh's Paris-based group is a government-in-exile that backs violent overthrow of the ruling religious Government.

Officials say they want to install a democratic government in Iran that protects human rights.

The group has been labelled a terrorist organisation by the US State Department, but that didn't prevent it meeting the press in a posh Washington hotel two blocks from the White House yesterday.

The State Department accuses the group, also called People's Mujahideen or Mujahideen-e Khalq, of having Marxist sympathies and of killing several Americans in Iran in the 1970s; but some experts attribute the killings to a splinter faction.

It also receives support from the Iraqi Government of Saddam Hussein, an enemy of the Government of Iran, said the State Department, which also said both Iraq and Iran are supporters of terrorism.

Annotated Satellite Images of Iranian Nuclear Facilities
Images will open in new window
Arak -- Overview	Arak -- Close-up	Natanz -- Overview	Natanz -- Close-up

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