[SUDANTRIBUNE] In a briefing to the United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... Security Council on Monday afternoon, Volker Perthes, the head of the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS), placed the blame squarely on the leadership of both warring parties for the escalating conflict in Sudan.
Perthes further urged an immediate end to the fighting, emphasizing that the responsibility for the ongoing violence rests with those who have chosen the battlefield over peaceful negotiations.
Addressing the council, Perthes acknowledged the various opinions regarding the root causes of the conflict. Some criticize the international community for failing to recognize the warning signs, while others point fingers at flaws in the political process or the Framework Agreement itself. However, corruption finds a dozen alibis for its evil deeds... He stressed that it is the leaders of the opposing sides who bear the responsibility for the daily warfare and its devastating consequences.
"The responsibility for the fighting rests with those who are waging it daily: the leadership of the two sides who share accountability for choosing to settle their unresolved conflict on the battlefield rather than at the negotiating table," Perthes emphasized. He underscored that the decision to resort to violence has ravaged Sudan and that it is within the power of the warring parties to bring an end to the bloodshed.
The international diplomat told the Council that more than 700 people have been killed, including 190 children, with another 6,000 injured. Many are missing. Over a million have been displaced: more than 840,000 have sought shelter in rural areas and other states while another 250,000 have crossed Sudanese borders. Nearly 8,000 of the displaced population are pregnant women.
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I couldn't find the pic.
[KavkazUzel] The girl, who entered into a correspondence dispute with Muslims after her topless photo shoot in Dagestan, apologized for her rash words and announced her decision to convert to Islam, follows from a video published today.
The "Caucasian Knot has reported that a video with a naked girl posing against the backdrop of mountains was posted on social networks. The authors of the comments on the social network were outraged by her behavior. The girl, who previously posted pictures from a topless photo shoot in Dagestan on the Internet, deleted them from her pages on social networks after she received dozens of angry comments from residents of the republic.
On May 19, a video message from this girl to the residents of Dagestan was published on the Mash Gor telegram channel. She stated, in particular, that some residents of Dagestan themselves do not observe traditions.
"And I appeal to you, Muslims: do not live according to Sharia , I'm sure 90% of you who write to me" You dress like that, insult "- do you pray five times a day? You don't smoke, you don't drink? Do you there were no connections before the wedding? Well, you don’t need to teach other people how to live, how to dress and so on. Start with yourself, please," she said.
A new video with the participation of the girl was published today on the PE Kavkaz telegram channel, which has 93,900 subscribers. “A tourist who walked around Dagestan in a mini dress and took pictures without underwear against the backdrop of the mountains apologized,” the annotation to the video says.
In the video, a girl, dressed in a long black dress and headscarf, answers questions from a man off-screen. The video begins with the words of the man: "I'm listening to you."
"These words that were spoken by me were said thoughtlessly. I came to people to explain to me what they mean. And for myself, I made a decision to accept Islam, I will study this religion and I hope everything will work out. And no more such moments associated with these statements will be repeated," the girl says.
"Thank you very much. Did someone threaten you here or be rude, did you say something unpleasant here?" the man behind the scenes asks. "No," the girl replies with a smile.
The man asked if the girl knew the translation of the words that she used. "Well, partly," the girl replied. Neither the man nor the girl specified which words they were talking about.
Recall that earlier residents of Dagestan have repeatedly expressed claims to tourists for their behavior and appearance. In July 2021, the authorities of the republic prepared a memo for its guests, which, in particular, stated that tourists should not wear tight jeans and short skirts when visiting Dagestan, and men were advised not to wear shorts.
In 2020, two girls published on the Internet a topless photo taken near the Sulak Canyon. This caused indignation of the deputy head of the administration of the Untsukulsky district. He demanded that the publication be removed, threatening to complain to the security forces about insulting the feelings of believers. The Sulak canyon is not marked as a sacred place, one of the girls objected in response.
After that, a sign appeared on the observation deck of the Sulak Canyon in the Kazbekovsky District, urging visitors to follow the dress code. Some social media users then said that the dress code could scare away tourists, and this will affect the income of local residents. The Ministry of Tourism of Dagestan assured that the sign appeared on a private initiative. However, the muftiate of Dagestan, referring to the complaints of local residents, also called on the guests of the republic to honor local "traditions and principles . "
In 2018, “fighters for morality” attacked Dagestan. They achieved the cancellation of the anime festival, a number of concerts by musicians and the rental of films, the "Caucasian Knot" report says " Fighters for morality have come to the nightclubs of Dagestan ."
[IsraelTimes] Foreign Ministry said to have intervened ahead of Diaspora minister’s visit to Canada next week after Ottawa complained he was only meeting far-right representatives
Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli doubled down on his criticism of George Soros ...either Ernst Stavro Blofeld or Auric Goldfinger come true... on Monday, claiming that the Jewish billionaire had done immense damage to Israel, despite recent widespread criticism that using similar rhetoric was an antisemitic trope.
The comments come the same day as a report that the Foreign Ministry had to intervene ahead of Chikli’s trip to Canada next week after complaints from the hosts that he would only be meeting with representatives of the far-right.
Chikli, whose ministerial portfolio includes combating antisemitism abroad, on Monday tweeted a screen grab of an opinion piece by staunch Israel supporter Alan Dershowitz published in the Wall Street Journal titled "Elon Musk is right about George Soros and not anti-Semitic."
"’No single person has done more to damage Israel’s standing in the world, especially among so-called progressives, than George Soros. Thank you Professor Dershowitz for telling the simple truth," Chikli tweeted.
The row comes a week before Chikli is expected to visit Canada. The minister was invited by the Israel Allies Caucus, a Christian body represented in parliament by Conservative MP Leslyn Lewis. Lewis is seen as an extreme right figure in Canadian politics.
The Times of Israel’s Hebrew-language sister site Zman Yisrael reported on Monday that Canadian parliamentarians contacted Israeli diplomats to express displeasure about Chikli’s plans.
The parliamentarians complained the visit was not organized "according to protocol, without an official invitation from the relevant minister and in response to an event by a right-wing organization perceived in their eyes as extreme," read an internal document sent to David Rott, the deputy director general of the Foreign Ministry’s North America office.
After the intervention, Chikli changed his schedule and will now be meeting with mainstream Canadian representatives too.
Touching off the Soros controversy last week, Musk said that the Hungary-born billionaire "reminds me of Magneto," a comic book villain who features in Marvel’s X-Men series. The character, like Soros, is a Holocaust survivor.
In a follow-up comment, Musk said, "He wants to erode the very fabric of civilization. Soros hates humanity."
The ADL, other Jewish organizations, and Israel’s Foreign Ministry all said Musk’s comments stoked antisemitism, although Foreign Minister Eli Cohen later disavowed his ministry’s statements. "There will be no more tweets like that," Cohen told Channel 14, in a rare instance of a minister refuting a statement from their own ministry.
Chikli, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, then came to Musk’s defense, saying, "As Israel’s minister who’s entrusted on combating anti-Semitism, I would like to clarify that the Israeli government and the vast majority of Israeli citizens see Elon Musk as an amazing entrepreneur and a role model."
"Criticism of Soros — who finances the most hostile organizations to the Jewish people and the State of Israel — is anything but anti-Semitism, quite the opposite!" Chikli wrote on Twitter.
Soros, 92, has long been a target of conservatives for backing progressive causes and politicians in the United States and worldwide. In the last decade or so, some of the attacks have echoed antisemitic conspiracy theories, depicting Soros as satanic, accusing him of seeking world control and falsely accusing him of helping perpetrate the Holocaust rather than surviving it as a child.
US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt weighed in on the matter on Friday, tweeting that "irrespective of how one feels about George Soros’s politics or policies, it is entirely disingenuous to deny that many ad hominem attacks on him rely on classic antisemitic tropes and rhetoric."
"In bygone eras, the antisemites invoked the Rothschild family to advance their conspiracies about Jews. Today they use Soros to do so," she said.
[Jpost] As soon as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) fired rockets from Gaza about two and a half weeks ago towards Sderot, as a sign of solidarity with the death of security prisoner Khader Adnan, the IDF's OC Southern Command Col. Liron Batito was asked to pull out the secret attack plan: "Black Cloak" - a booklet of dozens of pages that included quality targets for the attack including photos on PIJ senior officials and terrorist infrastructures.
"About a hundred rockets in the middle of the day in Sderot? The sheer scope surprised us," said an IDF senior officer, adding that "with Hamas, we were quite upset with Islamic Jihad because they did not live up to their commitment. It was clear that Israel could not be complacent and that a different kind of response was required."
The Military Intelligence Directorate stated that not only did Hamas have no part in the rocket barrages, but that the senior Hamas leaders in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif, had no intention of taking part in the escalation if it erupted, and therefore the IDF had focused only on Islamic Jihad commanders.
OPERATION SHIELD AND ARROW: THE CRITICAL MOMENTS
Every operation has many critical moments, and one of them is the stage for choosing targets to attack. Around each of the goals, there is an in-depth discussion about what the consequences are and what the achievements are, especially when they do not want to drag Hamas into a direct confrontation with Israel.
After recommendations were drawn up at the Southern Command, they were examined by senior Shin Bet Intelligence Division officials.
Unlike Operation Breaking Dawn, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi decided to open with Israel severely damaging Islamic Jihad's weapons development, production and storage infrastructure to create a huge shock effect on an organization that receives full funding from Iran.
After Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's approval of the operation plan was received, a different kind of challenge presented itself, which was thwarting three different PIJ senior officials at a convenient time for a simultaneous attack.
The intelligence achievement was done thanks to one official who was responsible for cracking the most secret activities of Islamic Jihad and Hamas, as well as the source of their power - which in addition to weapons storage facilities, also included the smuggling routes to the Gaza Strip of weapons, production machines and materials from which explosive charges, rockets, mortar bombs and launchers are mainly produced from.
One minute after the three targeted attacks on Islamic Jihad officials, the IAF launched broad attacks in the entire Gaza Strip, bombing 12 PIJ targets that included a tunnel that contained the largest workshop for the production of rockets, laboratories for the production of explosives, launch pits and weapons depots.
By the end of the operation, the IDF had attacked 32 infrastructure targets. "From these sites, rockets would have been fired at Israeli citizens and the Iron Dome will have to deal with them in the best-case scenario," explained a senior IDF officer.
THE TARGETS THAT WERE ATTACKED
One of the high-quality reinforcement targets attacked during Operation Shield and Arrow includes a chemical material storage site that was very difficult to smuggle into the Gaza Strip and was built in a civilian environment.
"This is a target that we attacked in Operation Breaking Dawn. They restored the site and we located it again and attacked it. These precise actions create a sense of hostility in Islamic Jihad; they moved the site to another location," an IDF official told Walla.
Another location that was targeted was a tunnel where a factory for the production of rockets was built. Islamic Jihad reportedly built the site deep in the ground because it wanted to upgrade its level of survivability against attacks by the IAF. An IDF lieutenant who specializes in visual intelligence revealed that they used AI to locate production workshops and that "we have very skilled researchers with accumulated knowledge who know how to identify signs to locate production workshops."
A preliminary assessment by the IDF's research division, Islamic Jihad's ammunition sites were "completely wiped out" including the main rocket production areas. When asked about the possibility of Islamic Jihad possibly borrowing rockets from Hamas, an IDF official said that "they don't usually do that."
That official, who will finish his position in a few months and conclude his tenure, said that "we've struck at the heart at the sources of power for Islamic Jihad and Hamas all the time, even on a routine basis. We are also making things difficult for Hamas. There is no entrance from the sea. We also have 90% in the tunnels. My doubt is only in the crossings, specifically the Rafah Border Crossing which may be an entry point for things, it is important to understand that we are hitting the heart of Hamas' production all the time."
[An Nahar] State Prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat has scheduled a mid-week session for Central Bank chief Riad Salameh to take measures over the Interpol red notice issued against him, LBCI television reported on Monday.
The French judiciary meanwhile scheduled a May 31 session for the interrogation of Salameh’s brother Raja and a June 13 session for the interrogation of Salameh’s assistant Marianne Hoayek, LBCI added.
Leb ...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... received the Interpol notice for Salameh on Friday, after he failed to show up in Gay Paree earlier in the week for questioning in a key corruption case.
The Interior Ministry referred the arrest warrant to the judiciary and caretaker Interior Minister Bassam al-Mawlawi reportedly said he would enforce it if the Lebanese judiciary asked him to do so.
However, corruption finds a dozen alibis for its evil deeds... Lebanon is unlikely to comply with the Interpol notice and arrest and hand over Salameh to French authorities. Under the country's laws, Lebanon does not extradite its own citizens. In 2020, it received two Interpol red notices for tycoon Carlos Ghosn, who faced financial misconduct charges in Japan. Ghosn remains in Lebanon.
Judicial sources meanwhile told al-Akhbar newspaper that Oueidat would likely tell La Belle France that according to the Lebanese law, Lebanese citizens should be tried in Lebanon. He would not arrest Salameh but would ban him from traveling, the sources said.
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[An Nahar] Lebanese Forces A Christian political party founded by Bashir Gemayel, who was then bumped off when he was elected president of Leb... leader Samir Geagea ...Geagea was imprisoned by the Syrians and their puppets for 11 years in a dungeon in the third basement level of the Lebanese Ministry of Defense. He was released after the Cedar Revolution in 2005... on Monday said the military drill that Hezbollah carried out Sunday in the South is "totally rejected at a time that the Lebanese are struggling night and day and every moment to rebuild their state and regain Arab and international confidence in this state."
"Hezbollah addressed a clear message to all Lebanese and the Arab and international communities by saying that ’no matter how much you try and seek, we will not allow the rise of a real state in Leb ...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... ,’" Geagea said.
"Hezbollah is totally mistaken if it believes that this drill can boost the chances of its presidential candidate," he added.
"The drill is a reckless action that will only harm Lebanon ... and benefit Israel," the LF leader went on to say.
Kataeb Party chief Sami Gemayel for his part described the drill as "a provocation message against the Lebanese and the Arab Summit."
MP Nadim Gemayel meanwhile said the military exercise was "a message to the domestic arena more than being a message to Israel," threatening to "publicly carry arms and rebel against the state if officials do not take a stance over what happened."
"I might call on our supporters to carry visible weapons and not stop at checkpoints, because we’re supposed to be equal," he warned, in remarks to Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.
MP Ashraf Rifi for his part said "it was not a resistance movement that organized military parades, but rather a tool practicing hegemony."
"You won’t terrorize anyone with these bravadoes and we will be in your face," Rifi added.
"What you did contradicts with the spirit and text of the Taif Accord and remember that the ink of the resolutions of the Jeddah Arab Summit has not dried yet," Rifi went on to say.
Hezbollah put on a show of force on Sunday, extending a rare media invitation to one of its training sites in southern Lebanon, where its forces staged a simulated military exercise.
Masked fighters jumped through flaming hoops, fired from the backs of cycle of violences, and blew up Israeli flags posted in the hills above and a wall simulating the one at the border between Lebanon and Israel.
Senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine said in a speech Sunday that the exercise was meant to "confirm our complete readiness to confront any aggression" by Israel.
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05/23/2023 00:00 ||
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Iran is preparing to carry out the public hanging of two men who have been sentenced to death for their alleged involvement in a deadly attack on a Shia shrine in the city of Shiraz last year, a judiciary official said on Sunday. pic.twitter.com/spJMBRycDB
— Al-Estiklal English (@alestiklalen) May 22, 2023
According to reports, Sayed Kazem Musawi, the Chief Justice of Fars Province in Iran, has announced the confirmation of the death sentence ...the barbaric practice of sentencing a murderer to be punished for as long as his/her/its victim is dead... s for two Afghan suspects involved in the Shah-Charagh shrine incident.
On Monday, May 22, the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported that the execution orders for these individuals have been approved and will be carried out in public soon.
Meanwhile, ...back at the palazzo, Don Smilzo looked for an avenue of escape. The only window opened a hundred feet above the moat. The nearest of the hired assassins hold a bloody axe.
The window was looking better all the time.... sources from a human rights ...which often include carefully measured allowances of freedom at the convenience of the state... organization in Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... informed Hasht-e Subh that the two Afghan citizens sentenced to public execution were coerced into confessing.
The names of these Afghan citizens are Mohammad Ramiz Rashidi and Sayed Naiem Hashem Qattali.
On the other hand, the Chief Justice of Fars Province commented on the matter, stating, "Considering that the main suspect in this case was killed on the night of the incident, out of the remaining five defendants, the death sentences for two suspects have been confirmed and will be executed soon."
He added, "The Shah-Charagh shrine incident has two dimensions, one related to shortcomings in the security measures, which is being investigated by the military court of Fars Province."
According to Musawi, the court sessions for the accused, all of whom hold citizenship of Iran’s neighboring country, were held in the Revolutionary Courts of Shiraz and Tehran.
It is worth mentioning that last year, an armed assailant entered the Shah-Charagh shrine in Shiraz, Iran, with an AK-47 and fired upon more than 30 people, injuring them.
ISIS grabbed credit for this attack, and Iranian authorities promised retaliation.
The attacker was maimed by Iranian security forces during the shooting and later died in the hospital.
According to the Syrian Interim Government affiliated with the opposition, the SDF controls nearly 90% of the oil fields and 45% of the gas production in #Syria.https://t.co/Ei7LF9attr
— Al-Estiklal English (@alestiklalen) May 22, 2023
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[IsraelTimes] After graft allegations, Shamkhani came under scrutiny due to ties to British-Iranian hanged in Iran who was accused of handing intel to UK, which allegedly passed it on to Israel.
Iran’s president on Monday appointed a new official to take over the post of secretary of the country’s Supreme National Security Council, replacing the longtime powerful official Ali Shamkhani after he became implicated in a recent spy scandal. Shamkhani’s replacement will be Ali Akbar Ahmadian, the former chief of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard’s strategic center.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi issued a decree replacing Shamkhani, who has faced persistent corruption allegations — which he denied — as well as scrutiny because of close ties with a British-Iranian man hanged on spying charges earlier this year in Iran.
Continued on Page 49
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[IsraelTimes] Analysts say continued tunneling near Natanz facility, revealed by recent satellite images, complicates calculations for US and Israel.
Several images can be seen at the link.
Near a peak of the Zagros Mountains in central Iran, workers are building a nuclear facility so deep in the earth that it is likely beyond the range of a last-ditch US weapon designed to destroy such sites, according to experts and satellite imagery analyzed by The News Agency that Dare Not be Named. The photos and videos from Planet Labs PBC show Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... has been digging tunnels in the mountain near the Natanz nuclear site, which has come under repeated sabotage attacks amid Tehran’s standoff with the West over its atomic program.
With Iran now producing uranium close to weapons-grade levels after the collapse of its nuclear deal with world powers,
...a feat they were able to work up to while protected from interference by President Barack Obama’s deliberately crafted “deal”...
the installation complicates the West’s efforts to halt Tehran from potentially developing an atomic bomb as diplomacy over its nuclear program remains stalled.
Completion of such a facility "would be a nightmare scenario that risks igniting a new escalatory spiral," warned Kelsey Davenport, the director of nonproliferation policy at the Washington-based Arms Control Association. "Given how close Iran is to a bomb, it has very little room to ratchet up its program without tripping US and Israeli red lines. So at this point, any further escalation increases the risk of conflict."
The construction at the Natanz site comes five years after then-US president Donald Trump ...Perhaps no man has ever had as much fun being president of the US... unilaterally withdrew America from the nuclear accord. Trump argued the deal did not address Tehran’s ballistic missile program, nor its support of militias across the wider Middle East.
Nor even, with any sort of seriousness, the thing it claimed intended to do — prevent Iran from a developing a nuclear weapons.
But what it did do was strictly limit Iran’s enrichment of uranium to 3.67% purity, powerful enough only to power civilian power stations, and keep its stockpile to just some 300 kilograms (660 pounds).
At those sites the UN inspectors knew about. The warehouse Mossad emptied of Iran’s records of its nuclear bomb program showed there were other sites going for greater enrichment and larger stockpiles. But President Obama didn’t care and Iran denied the inspectors access — and now here we are.
Since the demise of the nuclear accord, Iran has said it is enriching uranium up to 60%, though inspectors recently discovered the country had produced uranium particles that were 83.7% pure. That is just a short step from reaching the 90% threshold of weapons-grade uranium.
As of February, international inspectors estimated Iran’s stockpile was over 10 times what it was under the Obama-era deal, with enough enriched uranium to allow Tehran to make "several" nuclear bombs, according to the head of the ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency.
US President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. Sleazy Dem mschine politician, paterfamilias of the Biden Crime Family... and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have said they won’t allow Iran to build a nuclear weapon. "We believe diplomacy is the best way to achieve that goal, but the president has also been clear that we have not removed any option from the table," the White House said in a statement to the AP.
The White House is currently full of idiots who believe seven impossible things before breakfast, and even more over the rest of the day.
The Islamic Theocratic Republic denies it is seeking nuclear weapons, though officials in Tehran now openly discuss their ability to pursue one.
“Awfully pretty country you have over there — it’d be a shame if something were to happen to it.”
Iran’s mission to the United Nations ...an organization conceived in the belief that we're just one big happy world, with the sort of results you'd expect from such nonsense... , in response to questions from the AP regarding the construction, said that "Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities are transparent and under the ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards."
Taqqiya.
However, a clean conscience makes a soft pillow... Iran has been limiting access to international inspectors for years.
That, too.
Iran says the new construction will replace an above-ground centrifuge manufacturing center at Natanz struck by a kaboom and fire in July 2020. Tehran blamed the incident on Israel, long suspected of running sabotage campaigns against its program.
Underground kabooms are even more interesting, from a physics standpoint, than aboveground ones....
Tehran has not acknowledged any other plans for the facility, though it would have to declare the site to the IAEA if it planned to introduce uranium into it.
Only if the Mad Mullahs were interested in having it properly inspected
. The Vienna-based IAEA did not respond to questions about the new underground facility.
The new project is being constructed next to Natanz, about 225 kilometers (140 miles) south of Tehran. Natanz has been a point of international concern since its existence became known two decades ago.
Protected by anti-aircraft batteries, fencing, and Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, the facility sprawls across 2.7 square kilometers (1 square mile) in the country’s arid Central Plateau.
Satellite photos taken in April by Planet Labs PBC and analyzed by the AP show Iran burrowing into the Kūh-e Kolang Gaz Lā, or "Pickaxe Mountain," which is just beyond Natanz’s southern fencing.
A different set of images analyzed by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies reveals that four entrances have been dug into the mountainside, two to the east and another two to the west. Each is 6 meters (20 feet) wide and 8 meters (26 feet) tall.
The scale of the work can be measured in large dirt mounds, two to the west and one to the east. Based on the size of the spoil piles and other satellite data, experts at the center told AP that Iran is likely building a facility at a depth of between 80 meters (260 feet) and 100 meters (328 feet). The center’s analysis, which it provided exclusively to AP, is the first to estimate the tunnel system’s depth based on satellite imagery.
The Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based nonprofit long focused on Iran’s nuclear program, suggested last year the tunnels could go even deeper.
Experts say the size of the construction project indicates Iran likely would be able to use the underground facility to enrich uranium as well — not just to build centrifuges. Those tube-shaped centrifuges, arranged in large cascades of dozens of machines, rapidly spin uranium gas to enrich it. Additional cascades spinning would allow Iran to quickly enrich uranium under the mountain’s protection.
"So the depth of the facility is a concern because it would be much harder for us. It would be much harder to destroy using conventional weapons, such as like a typical bunker buster bomb," said Steven De La Fuente, a research associate at the center who led the analysis of the tunnel work.
The new Natanz facility is likely to be even deeper underground than Iran’s Fordo facility, another enrichment site that was exposed in 2009 by US and other world leaders. That facility sparked fears in the West that Iran was hardening its program from Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s.
Such underground facilities led the US to create the GBU-57 bomb, which can plow through at least 60 meters (200 feet) of earth before detonating, according to the American military. US officials reportedly have discussed using two such bombs in succession to ensure a site is destroyed. It is not clear that such a one-two punch would damage a facility as deep as the one at Natanz.
With such bombs potentially off the table, the US and its allies are left with fewer options to target the site. If diplomacy fails, sabotage attacks may resume.
Already, Natanz has been targeted by the Stuxnet virus, believed to be an Israeli and American creation, which destroyed Iranian centrifuges. Israel also is believed to have killed scientists involved in the program, struck facilities with bomb-carrying drones, and launched other attacks. Israel’s government declined to comment.
Experts say such disruptive actions may push Tehran even closer to the bomb — and put its program even deeper into the mountain where airstrikes, further sabotage, and spies may not be able to reach it.
"Sabotage may roll back Iran’s nuclear program in the short-term, but it is not a viable, long-term strategy for guarding against a nuclear-armed Iran," said Davenport, the nonproliferation expert. "Driving Iran’s nuclear program further underground increases the proliferation risk."
[IsraelTimes] Bunker-busting ordnance is kept at base that is home to B-2 stealth bombers, the only aircraft that can deploy it.
The US Air Force on May 2 released rare images of the weapon, the GBU-57, known as the “Massive Ordnance Penetrator.” Then it took the photos down — apparently because the photographs revealed sensitive details about the weapon’s composition and punch.
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#1
I'm no civil engineer but it seems like it's not necessary to destroy these tunnels, just bury them under tons of rubble that's inevitable when blowing up a mountain, and when they do get cleared, just do it again and again.
[IsraelTimes] Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... is converting merchant ships to military vessels armed with drones, missile systems and advanced tools for intelligence gathering, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant reveals at the Herzliya Conference.
Gallant argues that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are trying to build "floating terror bases."
This is a "worrying, pirate-like policy," he says at a conference hosted by the Institute for Policy and Strategy of Reichman University in Herzliya.
"Iran is conducting itself like a collection of criminal organizations and not like a modern state," he adds. "The floating terror bases are an extension of Iran’s ongoing maritime terrorism, as seen in its actions in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. Iran aims to expand its reach to the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and even the shores of the Mediterranean.
"This is a structured plan designed to threaten trade and flight routes — both military and civilian — and to create a permanent threat in the maritime arena," Gallant charges.
"The way to confront Iranian terrorism in the air, at sea, and on land is through international cooperation and the creation of coalitions."
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/23/2023 00:00 ||
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#1
"Unrestricted submarine warfare" has a nice ring to it.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...either Ernst Stavro Blofeld or Auric Goldfinger come true...
[Jpost] As soon as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) fired rockets from Gaza about two and a half weeks ago towards Sderot, as a sign of solidarity with the death of security prisoner Khader Adnan, the IDF's OC Southern Command Col. Liron Batito was asked to pull out the secret attack plan: "Black Cloak" - a booklet of dozens of pages that included quality targets for the attack including photos on PIJ senior officials and terrorist infrastructures.
...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for 
...46th president of the U.S. Sleazy Dem mschine politician, paterfamilias of the Biden Crime Family...
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for 
