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A landmark report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will detail how specialists from Pakistan and North Korea have also helped to take the Islamic regime to the threshold of full nuclear capability.
Tension has risen in the Middle East in anticipation of the report, amid suggestions that Israel may use it to justify a pre-emptive military strike against Iran.
Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, warned Israel on Monday that such action would be a “very serious mistake fraught with unpredictable consequences”.
Russia and China are also likely to oppose new, tougher UN Security Council sanctions against Iran, despite the IAEA making clear the extent of the regime’s nuclear ambitions.
Its report will disclose that North Korea has provided mathematical formulas and codes involved in designing a nuclear device and that Abdul Khan the “father” of Pakistan’s atom bomb, has handed over plans for a neuron initiator, a key element in a bomb.
It will also say that the Iranians were aided for at least five years by a former Soviet scientist, alleged by The Washington Post to be Vyacheslav Danilenko. He was allegedly contracted in the mid-1990s by Iran’s Physics Research Centre, a facility linked to its nuclear programme. There is no evidence that Moscow knew.
According to intelligence sources and documents provided by the Iranians, he helped to design a so-called R265 generator, a high-explosive device used to trigger a nuclear chain reaction. The West also believes that Tehran has a blueprint for a nuclear device small enough to fit into a warhead, and has completed a steel container the size of a double decker bus in which the high-explosive element of such a device could be tested.
The UN’s nuclear watchdog will detail how the regime plans to triple its capacity to enrich uranium to weapons grade at a facility deep inside a mountain near Qom and is experimenting with detonators and neutron physics in a way that can only be for military purposes.
VIA AP
Despite weeks of tough warnings, the Obama administration has backed away from its calls to impose new and potentially crippling economic sanctions on Iran in retaliation for an alleged plot to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador on U.S. soil, according to diplomats and American officials.
Though U.S. officials had declared that they would “hold Iran accountable” for a purported plot, they now have decided that a proposed move against Iran’s central bank could disrupt international oil markets and further damage the reeling American and world economies.
The pivot to more limited tactics has surprised some other governments that expected bold action after the administration warned that it would not tolerate Iranian terrorist plots on American soil. Some diplomats said it may be difficult for U.S. officials to persuade other governments to scale back their business with Iran when the United States was being so reticent.
“The others are asking: ‘Why should we take on the Iranians, when the U.S. isn’t doing so much?’ ” one diplomat said.
Rather than pursue sanctions against central bank, U.S. officials now say they will seek to persuade some of Tehran’s key trading partners — including the Persian Gulf states, South Korea and Japan — to join the U.S. in enforcing existing sanctions. The U.S. will also add a few more narrowly focused sanctions, they said.
Federal officials three weeks ago said an Iranian American car dealer in Texas sought to enlist a man he believed to be a Mexican drug dealer to assassinate, the Saudi ambassador to the United States.
U.S. officials contend the plot was put in motion by the Quds Force, a special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and that they have evidence that money was transferred from Iran to pay for the assassination.
The administration’s decision to back off the toughest sanctions comes at a moment of growing Western concern about both Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons programs and the apparently increasing pace of its covert military activities, especially those of the Quds Force. Next week, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, is expected to release a report that will provide unprecedented detail about Iran’s alleged effort to gain nuclear weapons know-how.
The sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran would have aimed to isolate it from the world economy by barring any firm that does business with it from transactions with U.S. financial institutions. That would make it much tougher for Iran to sell crude oil, the top source of government revenue.
VIA LA Times
Iran’s parliament is set to summon President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for questioning over an economic scandal and his polices after the required number of lawmakers signed a petition Sunday, the latest anomaly in a outstretched struggle amongst the president and his rivals.
Ahmadinejad would be the first president to be hauled before the Iranian parliament, a Herculean blow to his position in a the discord involving the president, lawmakers and Iran’s powerful clerics.
At least 73 lawmakers signed the petition to question Ahmadinejad, just above one-quarter of the 290 members required by Iran’s constitution to call in a president.
Earlier the parliament found Ahmadinejad’s economics minister guilty in relation to a $2.6 billion fraud case, considered the largest in Iran’s history.
A outstretched assessment on parliament’s research evoke Hosseini, the economy minister, his deputies and managers of the Central Bank of Iran as well as managers of the banks involved in the fraud case guilty of failing to take action despite having acquaintance of the offenses.
Tehran, Oct 30 (IANS) Hamid Pourmohammadi, the deputy head of Iran’s central bank, has been arrested for his involvement in a $2. 6-billion embezzlement case, Xinhua reported Saturday.
Source: http://news.smashits.com/724320/Iran-central-bank-deputy-head-held-for-embezzlement.htm
Tehran – Iran said Saturday that the victory of Islamists in Tunisia proved an ‘Islamic awakening’ in the Arab world, the ISNA news agency reported. ‘The victory of Rachid Ghannouchi and his Ennahda party showed that the uprisings in the region …
Source:
TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran would like to have friendly relations with the United States one day, but not under current conditions, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on Saturday. Commenting on remarks by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton …
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iran-says-wants-relations-u-not-now-145341311.html
TEHRAN, Iran—In the ongoing political skirmishes among Iran’s leadership, it was the equivalent of bringing out the heavy ammunition: The country’s most powerful figure warning that the post of elected president could someday be scrapped.
Although no overhauls appear on the immediate horizon after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s comment—he spoke only vaguely about possibilities in the "distant future"—the mere mention of eliminating Iran’s highest elected office shows the severity and scope of the power struggle between Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
For months, the ruling theocracy has been piling pressure on Ahmadinejad and arresting his allies for attempts to challenge the near-absolute authority of the cleric-ruled system that has controlled Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The blunt words by Khamenei on Sunday suggest a twofold agenda: Further tightening the lid on Ahmadinejad and showing others in the wings that Iran’s rulers are ready to take drastic measures to protect what’s theirs.
"There is bad blood," said Mehrzad Boroujerdi, who follows Iranian affairs at Syracuse University. "Khamenei is trying to make it very clear that the system can only handle so much discord and that he holds the stronger cards."
It also marks one of the first clear hints of the ruling clerics’ hardball strategies for parliamentary elections in March. Khamenei and his allies are expected to use their many tools, including the ability to vet and block candidates, to try to steamroll Ahmadinejad’s backers and push the president—once Khamenei’s protege—farther into the political margins.
The ruling power structure in Iran, which includes not only hard-line clerics but also the hugely influential Revolutionary Guard, appears increasingly eager to snuff out the internal bickering. It’s seen as an unwelcome distraction as the country confronts critical issues such as whether to restart nuclear negotiations with the West, complaints about its human rights record and U.S. allegations that a special unit of the Guard was linked to a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington.
"This is not a time when Iran wants anything that will rock the boat," said Boroujerdi.
But it’s unlikely that the political friction will cool off soon.
Hardliners still want more punishment against Ahmadinejad for actions viewed as political hubris—including a startling 10-day boycott of Cabinet meetings this spring to protest Khamenei’s choice for intelligence minister.
Dozens of Ahmadinejad’s supporters have been arrested in the backlash. So far, the crackdown has spared Ahmadinejad’s chief of staff—and in-law relation—Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, who has been denounced as the head of a "deviant current" that is perceived as questioning the system of clerical rule. Some have even claimed Mashaei employed black magic "spells" to fog Ahmadinejad’s mind.
An Iranian lawmaker says Iran’s “soft power” can be witnessed in Wall Street uprising and growing protests against corporatism and capitalism in the US. The soft power of the Islamic revolution of Iran has relocated the war fronts between the West and Islam from Iran and the Islamic bloc to the European borders and the heart of capitalism, i.e. Wall Street, Fars News Agency quoted Samad Marashi as saying on Sunday.
The US has been witnessing protests since September 17, when a group of people began rallying in New York’s financial district to protest “corporate greed” and top-level corruption in the country.
The movement has now spread to other cities, including Seattle, Los Angeles, Dallas, and Boston, as well as hundreds of communities across the nation.
The anti-capitalism contagion spread to the other side of the Atlantic on Saturday where hundreds of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets in European cities to protest corporatism, top-level corruption, and state-sponsored austerity measures with violence erupting in some cities such as Rome and London.
“It’s regrettable to see that the Western Liberal democracy is not just ruthless towards other nations, but that it also shows no mercy towards its own people and has placed suppression, arrests, and police brutality on top of its agenda,” Marashi added.
- A Wikileaks update revealed a possible motive for the terror plot. (NPR News)
“In a cable from the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh to the State Department — dated April 20, 2008, and made public earlier this year — Jubeir, who is close to Saudi King Abdullah, made reference to the king’s frequent exhortations to the U.S. to attack Iran. Then Jubeir used a particularly evocative phrase, says Alterman. Ambassador Jubeir told American officials that the king of Saudi Arabia told you to ‘cut off the head of the snake.’ That refers to a potential attack in Iran," Alterman says.”
- Obama said the plot came directly from high-ranking members of the Islamic Republic of Iran specifically Iran’s Qud’s Force. (Reuters)
- Saudi Arabia has accused Iran of seeking international influence through "murder and mayhem," after the US revealed an alleged plot. (VOA)
- Saudi Arabia and US have said that the plot violatesInternational Law and vowed to bring it before the U.N. reported Int. Times.
- Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei told a crowd of supporters on state television that U.S. and Saudi accusations are ‘meaningless and absurd’ He made the comment in a speech broadcast on state television from the town of Gilangharb (Global IRS)
- Reuters reports that some US analysts are questioning the plot due to the amateur and low-level layout.
- Reuters reported that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was not aware of this plot but Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei likely gave approval, but Reuters gives little credit to its theory.
- Gulf news daily reported that one of the Iranian operatives met with a jailed Bahraini opposition leader last year. Gholam Shakuri, an Al Quds Force officer who helped organize protests in Bahrain earlier this year, was among the Iranians who met Hasan Mushaima during a stopover in Beirut last February, when Mushaima was on his way back to Bahrain, The Washington Post reported quoting a senior Saudi security official. The article also accused Iran of being behind an assassination plot in Pakistan.
- US Senators are proposing stiff economic sanctions against Iran, however, few countries will back the aforementioned.
- Officials from Saudi Arabia have warned of a stiff response to Iran’s alleged terror plot.
- An official at Iran’s UN mission denied on Friday that Tehran had been in direct contact with the United States over allegations it was behind a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador on US soil, the semi-official Mehr news agency.
- Barack Obama has vowed to push for what he called the ”toughest sanctions” to punish Iranian officials reported the White House.
- US Vice-President Joe Biden says "nothing has been taken off the table" in retaliating against Iran for its alleged involvement in an assassination plot in Washington reported the White House.
- America’s allies said Thursday that US evidence of an Iranian plot to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador in Washington is convincing, but Russia and China reacted cautiously.
- "Multiple" sources have corroborated the report about an alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States, a scheme the administration is alleging is tied to Iran’s military, a US official said. (CNN)
- Saudi officials advised Argentina four months ago of an alleged Iran-backed plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington and possibly attack the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Buenos Aires. (Reuters)
- An Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States, thwarted earlier this week, also involved an attack the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Buenos Aires reports the JTA.
- The United States is considering sanctions against Iran’s Central Bank reports Reuters.
- The US Department of Treasury on Wednesday imposed sanctions on an Iranian commercial airline for its alleged support for Iran’s elite force and the Hezbollah militant group reports China Daily.
- The informant at the center of an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador marks the latest example of how the US government’s war on drugs has expanded into the war on terrorism reports the Wall Street Journal.
Saudi Arabia has asked UN chief Ban Ki-moon to inform the Security Council of the “heinous conspiracy” to kill its envoy to Washington, in an alleged Iranian plot, SPA state news agency said on Saturday.
“The Saudi permanent mission to the United Nations in New York has …formally requested the UN secretary general to inform the Security Council of the heinous conspiracy to assassinate the Saudi ambassador,” it said.
“All those involved in this odious attempt should face justice,” it added, quoting a statement by the mission.
The United States on Wednesday sought UN Security Council support for action to hold Iran “accountable” for the alleged plot, with Britain and France already strongly on board, according to diplomats.
US ambassador Susan Rice, joined by the Saudi envoy to the UN, Abdallah al-Mouallimi, held separate meetings with envoys on the 15-nation council, US officials and diplomats said.
The US Justice Department on Tuesday charged two men with conspiring with Iranian officials to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir.
Iran, which faces four rounds of Security Council sanctions over its nuclear programme, called the US allegations part of an “evil plot” against the Islamic Republic.
In a letter of protest to the Security Council, it accused Washington of “warmongering.”
Tehran hardened its denials on Saturday, with the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissing the accusations as “meaningless and absurd”.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal has said his country “will find a suitable response” against Iran for the alleged plot.
But Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said: “We hope the Saudis will deal with this issue with caution.”
He accused the United States of trying to create divisions in the Middle East but said the Saudis were “too wise to get involved in this political game.”
VIA Khaleej Times
American authorities reportedly disrupted an Iranian government plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States. committed to holding Iran accountable."
Washington says Iran ordered an assassination attempt on the Saudi ambassador on American soil, but Iran has hit back with charges that the US has fabricated a plot with Tehran in the role of villain in an attempt to score political points.
The US is calling for more sanctions against Tehran following the foiling of an alleged plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington, but analyst Ivan Eland says the plan was so poorly conceived that Iran is unlikely to be behind it.
President Obama has promised tougher sanctions against Iran after fingering Tehran in a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington.
But the more pressure the US imposes, the more Tehran will push back, warned Iranian professor Marandi. Speaking at the news conference on Thursday, Obama said that the United States would not take “any options off the table in dealing with Iran. he said, making clear that Washington is accusing elements of the Iranian regime of being behind the alleged plot to murder Saudi ambassador Adel Al-Jubeir.
And the more sanctions Washington imposes, the harder the pushback it will face from Iran. “At the end of the day, the Iranians will deal with any new pressure,” he told RT. “The sanctions so far that have been imposed on Iran have not had the sort of effect the United States was looking for.
The measures are aimed at isolating it from the world economic system by barring any firm that deals with it from doing business with US financial institutions. s activities. “Iranians have many means to put pressure on the United States,” Marandi said. “Look at how the situation in the region is unfolding already.
Marandi believes that the accusations against Iran are “nonsense,” saying that “Iran gains nothing from such an operation. “The only people who do gain is the United States, by distracting attention away from its problems at home,” he said. “If Iran did hypothetically want to carry out this operation, they could have done it in the Middle East, in the area where there are more high-profile figures and where it could be carried out much easier.
On Tuesday American authorities reported that they disrupted an Iranian government plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States and also to blow up the Israeli embassy in Washington.
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