Free Republic

An aide to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said that if the Islamic republic is attacked, it will retaliate against the Israeli metropolis of Tel Aviv, official media reported on Sunday. "If the enemy attacks Iran, our missiles will strike Tel Aviv," the official IRNA news agency quoted Khamenei's representative in the elite Revolutionary Guards, Mojhtaba Zolnoor, as saying late on Saturday. His comments came as Iranian air defence forces were set to carry out five days of manoeuvres involving simulated attacks on the country's nuclear facilities.

Representatives from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia are scheduled to meet today in Brussels to discuss future steps to dissuade Iran from developing the capacity to build nuclear weapons. Our message to the world leaders: If you want peace, prepare for war.

Saudi Arabia said on Friday that it had launched air strikes against Yemeni rebels to "neutralise" infiltrators who had crossed the frontier and killed a Saudi border guard. The air strikes from southern Jizan province were to "neutralise the firing by intruders" and to clear areas where they had encroached on Saudi territory, the government said in a statement on the official SPA news agency. Earlier, a government advisor said Saudi F-15 and Tornado jets had begun bombing the positions of the Zaidi rebels inside Yemeni territory on Wednesday in response to a rebel attack on a border post a...

The Pentagon has acknowledged that it is speeding up plans to deploy a massive bomb capable of knocking out deeply buried enemy facilities. The giant "bunker buster" is believed to add fighting power to the U.S. arsenal against Iran's nuclear program, defense experts argue. U.S. officials, however, have refused to confirm the connection. The 30,000-pound massive ordnance penetrator is capable of penetrating up to 60 meters of earth, or a thick layer of concrete, before exploding. It weighs more than 13 metric tons, allowing just one such bunker buster to be carried by U.S. bomber aircraft. "It is under development...

Is the U.S. stepping up preparations for a possible attack on Iran's nuclear facilities? The Pentagon is always making plans, but based on a little-noticed funding request recently sent to Congress, the answer to that question appears to be yes. First, some background: Back in October 2007, ABC News reported that the Pentagon had asked Congress for $88 million in the emergency Iraq/Afghanistan war funding request to develop a gargantuan bunker-busting bomb called the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP). It's a 30,000-pound bomb designed to hit targets buried 200 feet below ground. Back then, the Pentagon cited an "urgent operational need"...

A majority of American Jews support military action against Iran to prevent the Teheran regime from obtaining nuclear weapons, a new study claims. Asked if they would support American military action, 56% of American Jews said they would, while just 36% opposed it, according to the American Jewish Committee's 2009 Annual Survey of American Jewish Opinion. An even greater number support Israeli military action against the Iranian nuclear program, with 66% in favor and just 28% against. The survey, which polled 800 representative American Jews and was conducted by Synovate between August 30 and September 17, also dealt with US-Israeli...

American and Israeli military planners have been examining options for an attack on Iran for almost three decades. There is no shortage of possible targets: Iran has dozens of nuclear-related sites that are known to western officials. Yet military experts in Washington and Tel Aviv acknowledge that a surprise airstrike would be likely to succeed only in delaying Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. It would also present daunting logistical and political challenges with no guarantee that even a sustained assault on known facilities would eradicate Tehran’s nuclear threat. With President Barack Obama committed to diplomatic pressure, the most likely military...

Intelligence chief Sir John Scarlett has been told that Saudi Arabia is ready to allow Israel to bomb Iran's new nuclear site. The head of MI6 discussed the issue in London with Mossad chief Meir Dagan and Saudi officials after British intelligence officers helped to uncover the plant, in the side of a mountain near the ancient city of Qom. The site is seen as a major threat by Tel Aviv and Riyadh. Details of the talks emerged after John Bolton, America's former UN ambassador, told a meeting of intelligence analysts that "Riyadh certainly approves" of Israel's use of Saudi...

Few in the know doubt the fact that Iran has acquired the knowledge to produce an atomic bomb. Israeli intelligence is far more concerned with Iran's pace of advancement towards making the bomb than American or European intelligence sources are. The question in Israel is no longer if Israel should eliminate the Iranian threat, but rather when.

In a little noticed interview with the Daily Beast (presumably little noticed because serious people don't read the Daily Beast), Zbigniew Brzezinski suggests that Barack Obama do more than just refuse to support an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear sites -- the American president must give the order to shoot down Israeli aircraft as they cross Iraqi airspace: DB: How aggressive can Obama be in insisting to the Israelis that a military strike might be in America’s worst interest? Brzezinski: We are not exactly impotent little babies. They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going...

US president Barack Obama Saturday, Sept. 26, threatened Iran with confrontation over the secrecy surrounding its nuclear capabilities. He did not rule out military options although he preferred diplomacy. The Iranian president’s own boss made him a liar. After Ahmadinejad claimed Friday the new uranium enrichment plant would start operations in 18 months and Tehran had therefore not broken the nuclear watchdog’s rules for notification, Ali Khamenei’s aide announced Saturday it would become operational “soon” and “make the enemies blind.” Tehran is clearly confident enough of America’s ability to hold Israel back from striking its nuclear sites to stay defiant...

JERUSALEM – Both the Israeli government and the military here refused to respond to comments by Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser during the administration of President Jimmy Carter, who said the U.S. should confront Israeli jets if that nation chooses to take military action against Iran's nuclear installations. "We will not dignify Brzezinski with a response," a source in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office told WND. Netanyahu's spokesmen and the Israel Defense Forces refused to provide an official reply. Discussing the possibility of an Israeli airstrike against Iran, Brzezinski declared in an interview with the Daily Beast website, "We...

President Dmitry Medvedev said Israel had given Russia assurances it plans no strike on Iran and reserved Moscow's right to sell Tehran arms, in an interview released by the Kremlin on Sunday. Medvedev described an Israeli attack as "the worst thing that could be imagined" but said President Shimon Peres had ruled out such fears when the two leaders met in the Russian resort of Sochi in August. "When Israeli President Peres was visiting me in Sochi recently, he said something very important for all of us: 'Israel does not plan any strikes on Iran, we are a peaceful country...

Former National Security Adviser to Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski who was a foreign policy adviser to President Obama during the campaign, has suggested that the United States should shoot down any IDF Plane on the way to attack Iranian nuclear facilities. Brzezinski was interviewed by the Daily Beast:

Last year Zbigniew Brzezinski, adviser to former US president Jimmy Carter, described the Bush administration's policy of maintaining the option of military action against Iran as "counterproductive." Now Brzezinski, who advises Obama on foreign policy, is calling for the US to shoot down Israeli jets. Brzezinski is known to be anti-Israel. The Weekly Standard Blog reported: In a little noticed interview with the Daily Beast (presumably little noticed because serious people don't read the Daily Beast), Zbigniew Brzezinski suggests that Barack Obama do more than just refuse to support an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear sites -- the American president...

In a little noticed interview with the Daily Beast (presumably little noticed because serious people don't read the Daily Beast), Zbigniew Brzezinski suggests that Barack Obama do more than just refuse to support an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear sites -- the American president must give the order to shoot down Israeli aircraft as they cross Iraqi airspace: DB: How aggressive can Obama be in insisting to the Israelis that a military strike might be in America’s worst interest? Brzezinski: We are not exactly impotent little babies. They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going...

JERUSALEM -- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Lebanon on Sunday that Israel "will not hold back" when attacked and holds the Lebanese government responsible for any assault on his country. Netanyahu delivered the warning after two rockets fired from Lebanon struck northern Israel on Friday. Israel responded immediately with artillery fire, and the exchange ratcheted up persisting tensions between the two countries. "We view this very gravely," Netanyahu told his Cabinet. "We will not hold back when Israeli territory comes under fire, and will not reconcile ourselves to missile fire or any other form of terror directed at Israeli citizens."...

The head of the French military says military intervention is not a viable option to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear capability.

More than 70 people reportedly died in the strike on hijacked fuel tankers, despite the new U.S. commander's emphasis on avoiding civilian casualties. Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Istanbul, Turkey -- In an incident that could seriously undermine the central U.S. aim in Afghanistan, dozens of civilians were killed or injured early Friday in a NATO airstrike, Afghan authorities said. The predawn strike on a pair of hijacked fuel tankers in a remote part of northern Kunduz province killed more than 70 people, most of them civilians, according to Afghan police, provincial officials and doctors. Dozens of villagers suffered serious...

(IsraelNN.com) While the United States is talking up tough sanctions against Iran, it is training United Arab Emirates pilots on F-16 planes in the U.S. for the first time ever, to help the Arab nations prepare for war with Iran. The American military previously has trained UAE pilots on their own planes for eight years and more recently on U.S. fighter planes other than the F-16. The pilots, from seven oil-rich UAE kingdoms, are participating in an exercise at an American Air Force base in Nevada after having spent two weeks training at an Arizona base.

WASHINGTON -- Former Vice President Dick Cheney hinted that, in the waning days of the Bush administration, he had pushed for a military strike to destroy Iran's nuclear-weapons program. In an interview on Fox News Sunday, Mr. Cheney described himself as being isolated among advisers to then-President George W. Bush, who ultimately decided against direct military action. "I was probably a bigger advocate of military action than any of my colleagues," Mr. Cheney said in response to questions about whether the Bush administration should have launched a pre-emptive attack prior to handing over the White House to Barack Obama. "I...

Austria – Iran, whose nuclear facilities are under threat of possible Israeli military strikes, proposed Wednesday that a 150-nation conference convening in the fall ban such attacks.

If the death of Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban who is thought to have been killed during the Aug. 5 airstrike in South Waziristan, is confirmed, his name will top of the list of senior al Qaeda and Taliban leaders killed since the US began launching airstrikes into Pakistan's tribal areas in 2004. Baitullah would be the first tier one target (senior most al Qaeda and Taliban commanders) killed since the Jan. 1, 2009, airstrike that killed Osama al Kini and Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan. Al Kini was al Qaeda's operations chief in Pakistan, and Swedan was...

The Israel Air Force has purchased a new and advanced JDAM smart bomb with a laser-targeting system that will improve the IAF's ability to accurately hit fast-moving targets. According to an Israeli Defense Ministry official, the order was placed earlier this summer for over 100 LJDAM (Laser Joint Direct Attack Munition) kits

Israel Prepared to Take on Iran Israel this week reiterated its stance on dealing with the Iranian nuclear program, with Defense Minister Ehud Barak stating, "We clearly believe that no option should be removed from the table. This is our policy. We mean it." Barak's comments came as U.S. officials, including Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and National Security Advisor James Jones, traveled to Israel to discuss Iran. The Obama administration, for its part, continued to hold out for diplomacy, with Gates commenting, "The timetable the president laid out [for negotiating] still seems to be viable and does not significantly...

It’s Crunch Time for Israel on Iran After years of failed diplomacy no one will be able to call an attack precipitous. Legions of senior American officials have descended on Jerusalem recently, but the most important of them has been Defense Secretary Robert Gates. His central objective was to dissuade Israel from carrying out military strikes against Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities. Under the guise of counseling “patience,” Mr. Gates again conveyed President Barack Obama’s emphatic thumbs down on military force. The public outcome of Mr. Gates’s visit appeared polite but inconclusive. Yet Iran’s progress with nuclear weapons and air defenses...

There is an overwhelming body of evidence that after destabilizing Iran for the past few weeks, Israeli government is going to directly attack Iran from airstrips in Egypt with flights over Saudi Arabia and via nuclear powered submarines that are capable of carrying nuclear tipped missiles. In anticipation of an imminent attack, Turkey and the Gulf states have placed their armed forces on alert. British newspapers are reporting increased Israeli activity in the region. The chatter is growing. First there was a report in the Times. Now the London Daily News has investigated Israeli submarine movements.

Israel shouldn't attack Iran, because that could worsen turmoil in the Mideast and harm U.S. interests, a senior U.S. defense official tells The Jerusalem Post. U.S. officials have offered mixed views on that issue in recent months. It becomes more relevant as Defense Secretary Robert Gates visits Israel next week to discuss Iran's nuclear threat. Gates has called that threat the greatest existing to global security.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden says Israel is entitled to decide for itself how best to respond to Iran's growing nuclear capabilities. Mr. Biden also says America's willingness to engage in dialogue with Iran is unchanged, despite Tehran's violent crackdown on demonstrators following last month's disputed presidential vote. Vice President Biden says Israel has the right to deal with foreign threats as it sees fit. "Israel can determine for itself, as a sovereign nation, what is in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran or anyone else,' said Vice President Biden. "Any sovereign nation is entitled...

Mossad head Meir Dagan assured Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that Saudi Arabia would allow IAF jets to fly over the kingdom during any future raid on Iran's nuclear facilities, The Sunday Times reported. The British paper reported that Dagan held talks with Saudi officials earlier this year on the topic. However, the Prime Minister's Office issued an official denial on Sunday morning, saying the report was "completely false and baseless." The Israeli media has already carried unconfirmed reports that high-ranking officials, including former prime minister Ehud Olmert, held meetings with Saudi officials, but the kingdom has denied the reports. "The...

The leader of Taliban militants in Pakistan's Swat district has been critically wounded and is close to death, the BBC has learned. The information about Maulana Fazlullah confirms statements from senior government and security officials. A former village cleric, he founded the branch of the Taliban movement which eventually took over the Swat valley. After a recent offensive, Pakistan's army says it has almost defeated rebels in that sector of the north-west. It has been battling Taliban militants there for about two months and the government says it has regained control of the region. 'No medicine' The information about Maulana...

Israel has decided to go ahead. Taking into account political, geopolitical, military preparedness, and climatic conditions, there are two windows: between July 21 and 24 and between August 6 and 8. Advance teams comprised of Mossad agents and military personnel are already on the ground in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Iraq. A mock has been erected not far from Eilat (near the Red Sea, opposite Aqaba). A defunct airbase in Biq'at Ha'Yareach (Moon Vale) has been resurrected to accommodate Air Wing 10. In a country as small and intimate as Israel, it is amazing that this has been kept a...

US President Barack Obama strongly denied that the United States had given Israel an approval to strike Iran's nuclear facilities, in an interview given to CNN television on Tuesday. Asked by the network whether Washington had given Israel a green light to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, Obama answered: "Absolutely not." In the interview, which was broadcast from Russia, where Obama is on an official visit, he added: "We can't dictate to other countries what their security interests are. "What is also true is, it is the policy of the United States to try to resolve the issue of Iran's nuclear...

The Iranian Supreme Leader, assailed by some of his country’s most prominent clerics and detested by millions of his ordinary citizens, has received a boost from an unlikely quarter: Joe Biden. One day after the American Vice-President said that the US would not stop Israel bombing Iran’s nuclear plants , Ayatollah Khamenei launched a fierce attack on “meddling” Western leaders, designed to rally his fractured people. “We warn the leaders of those countries trying to take advantage of the situation: beware. The Iranian nation will react,” the Ayatollah declared in a televised speech yesterday. “The leaders of arrogant countries, the...

Weekend reports that Saudi Arabia will allow overfly rights to Israeli warplanes to strike nuclear facilities in Iran came as no surprise in these quarters. A growing Arab-Israeli detente is being driven by the shared sense of threat from Tehran. In March, a high-ranking Israeli source told us, "You'd be amazed at how we see eye-to-eye with the moderate Arab states."

Here's the simple explaination, Joe Biden, the gaffe master that he is, forgot that President of the United States was a radical who is absolutely no friend of Israel... this correction is Obama, not the State Dept.... Biden's words from yesterday here:

According to the Times of London, the Saudis have agreed to tacitly allow Israelis to transit their airspace to attack Iran and end its nuclear program. The Mossad has worked with the Saudis for several years as the Iranian threat in the region grew, and the Saudis — and other Arab states — would be privately relieved to have Tehran’s nuclear ambitions curtailed. But is now the right time, while the mullahs teeter in Iran? The head of Mossad, Israel’s overseas intelligence service, has assured Benjamin Netanyahu, its prime minister, that Saudi Arabia would turn a blind eye to Israeli...

In an interview with ABC's George Stephanoupolos taped Saturday, vice president Joseph Biden said in answer to a question: "Look, Israel can determine for itself — it's a sovereign nation — what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else." Whether we agree or not? The interviewer asked. "Whether we agree or not," said the vice president. This was the first time a senior Obama administration official left Israeli the military option against Iran's nuclear sites. DEBKAfile's Washington sources note that the vice president has the reputation for fast draws which are sometimes...

Israel, Fighter Jets, Submarines, Satellites and Iran By Joel Leyden Israel News Agency Jerusalem, Israel ---- July 5, 2009 ...... As Israel receives explicit consent from Saudi Arabia to use their airspace to two defend both nations from a nuclear Iran, Israel maintains several other options to defend herself from an Iran nuclear threat. The Sunday Times of London reported today that Israel Mossad director Meir Dagan has held secret talks with Saudi officials to discuss the possibility of using Saudi Arabia airspace for a air strike to take out Iran's nuclear weapon manufacturing facilities. "The Saudis have tacitly agreed...

Plunging squarely into one of the most sensitive issues in the Middle East, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. suggested on Sunday that the United States would not stand in the way of Israeli military action aimed at the Iranian nuclear program. The United States, Mr. Biden said in an interview broadcast on ABC’s “This Week,” “cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do.” "Israel can determine for itself — it’s a sovereign nation — what’s in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else," he said, in an interview...

Saudi Arabia would turn the other cheek and allow Israel to use its airspace to attack Iran, London’s Sunday Times reports. According to the report, Mossad chief Meir Dagan has told Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that Syria has hinted to the move. “The Saudis have tacitly agreed to the Israel air force flying through their airspace on a mission which is supposed to be in the common interests of both Israel and Saudi Arabia,” a diplomatic source stated.

Vice President Joe Biden says the U.S. will not stand in Israel's way if Israel believes military action is needed to eliminate Iran's nuclear threat. Biden says the U.S. "cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do."

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said on Sunday that the Obama administration would not stand in Israel's way should the latter chooses to take military action to eliminate Iran's nuclear threat. Israel has the right to determine its own course of action with regard to the Iranian nuclear threat regardless of what the Obama administration chooses to do, Biden told ABC reporter George Stephanopoulos. When asked whether the Obama administration would restrain Israeli military action against Iran, Biden responded: "Israel can determine for itself - it's a sovereign nation - what's in their interest and what they decide to do...

The head of Mossad, Israel’s overseas intelligence service, has assured Benjamin Netanyahu, its prime minister, that Saudi Arabia would turn a blind eye to Israeli jets flying over the kingdom during any future raid on Iran’s nuclear sites. Earlier this year Meir Dagan, Mossad’s director since 2002, held secret talks with Saudi officials to discuss the possibility. The Israeli press has already carried unconfirmed reports that high-ranking officials, including Ehud Olmert, the former prime minister, held meetings with Saudi colleagues. The reports were denied by Saudi officials.

The head of Mossad, Israel’s overseas intelligence service, has assured Benjamin Netanyahu, its prime minister, that Saudi Arabia would turn a blind eye to Israeli jets flying over the kingdom during any future raid on Iran’s nuclear sites. Earlier this year Meir Dagan, Mossad’s director since 2002, held secret talks with Saudi officials to discuss the possibility. The Israeli press has already carried unconfirmed reports that high-ranking officials, including Ehud Olmert, the former prime minister, held meetings with Saudi colleagues. The reports were denied by Saudi officials. “The Saudis have tacitly agreed to the Israeli air force flying through their...

With Iran's hard-line mullahs and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps unmistakably back in control, Israel's decision of whether to use military force against Tehran's nuclear weapons program is more urgent than ever. This Story Time for an Israeli Strike? End the Spat With Israel In Morocco, an Alternative to Iran Iran's nuclear threat was never in doubt during its presidential campaign, but the post-election resistance raised the possibility of some sort of regime change. That prospect seems lost for the near future or for at least as long as it will take Iran to finalize a deliverable nuclear weapons capability.

U.S. President Barack Obama's policies have left an Israeli attack on Iran the only option in preventing the Muslim country from obtaining a nuclear weapon, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton wrote in The Washington Post Thursday. In an article headlined "Time for an Israeli Strike?" Bolton answered his own question by stating, "Israel decision of whether to use military force against Tehran's nuclear weapons program is more urgent than ever ... Those who oppose Iran acquiring nuclear weapons are left in the near term with only the option of targeted military force against its weapons facilities."

Suddenly, there appears to be an Iranian people. Not just nuclear technology, extremist ayatollahs, the Holocaust-denying Ahmadinejad, and an axis of evil. All of a sudden, the ears need to be conditioned to hear other names: "'Mousawi' or 'Mousavi,' how is it pronounced exactly?"; Mehdi Karroubi; Khamenei ("It's not 'Khomeini'?"). Reports from Iranian bloggers fill the pages of the Hebrew press. Iranian commentators - in contrast to Iranian-affairs commentators - are now the leading pundits. The hot Internet connection with Radio Ran (the Persian-language radio station in Israel) is the latest gimmick. And most interesting and important is that the...

The US Air Force today revealed plans to acquire a small arsenal of a new 13,600kg (30,000lb) penetrator bomb to deploy on Northrop Grumman B-2As in three years. The USAF's public notice follows several years of testing the Boeing GBU57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), which is designed to destroy hardened bunkers buried deeply underground. The USAF plans to begin flight tests on the B-2A starting in June 2011 and reach operational status by June 2012, the USAF notice says. Integrating the MOP requires no changes to the B-2A's operational flight programme, avoiding a potentially costly and time-consuming recertification process. The...

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – A suspected U.S. missile strike killed at least five people Sunday in a tribal region where Pakistan's top Taliban commander is based, intelligence officials said, breaking a lull in such attacks and posing a test for growing anti-Taliban sentiment in the country. The strike came as violence raged elsewhere in the volatile northwest region bordering Afghanistan: a bombing at a market killed at least eight people, while officials said clashes between the Taliban and security forces killed at least 20 militants in a tribal region supposedly cleared of insurgents months ago. ... The U.S. rarely...