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Developments continue apace in Israel and Iran, where the two bitter enemies will enter their fourth day of war. Earlier today, news reports had the Iranians asking erstwhile intermediaries to pressure Israel into cease-fire negotiations, albeit on the same terms as before -- with Iran maintaining its nuclear enrichment programs and with the usual "Death to Israel" and "Death to the Great Satan" messaging. That didn't work out so well, apparently, so the mullahs asked Vladimir Putin to intercede with Donald Trump. According to Israel Hayom -- and no one else so far -- Trump told Putin that he wasn't...

(Nov. 16, 2024 / JNS) The Israeli airstrikes on Iran last month destroyed a secret nuclear weapons research facility in Parchin, 19 miles southeast of Tehran, Axios reported on Friday. The clandestine site held sophisticated equipment used for testing explosives needed to detonate nuclear devices, the report read, citing three U.S. officials, one current Israeli official and one former Israeli official. The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security acquired high-resolution satellite imagery of the facility, which showed that it was completely destroyed in Israel’s Oct. 26 attack. Israeli and U.S. intelligence agencies began noticing activity in the Taleghan 2...

Israel's Oct. 26 retaliatory strike on Iran "destroyed an active top secret nuclear weapons research facility," according to an Axios report. The news outlet spoke to various U.S. and Israeli officials about the strikes, including one on Iran's Parchin Military Complex, a nuclear research facility that was "previously reported to be inactive." "One former Israeli official briefed on the strike said it destroyed sophisticated equipment used to design the plastic explosives that surround uranium in a nuclear device and are needed to detonate it." Iran claims to have brought its military nuclear program to a halt in 2003, and yet...

Commercial satellite imagery showed that Israeli airstrikes hit buildings during an attack on Saturday that Iran used for mixing solid fuel for ballistic missiles, according to separate assessments by two American researchers. The judgments were reached by David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector who heads the Institute for Science and International Security research group, and Decker Eveleth, an associate research analyst at CNA, a Washington think tank. They told Reuters separately that Israel struck Parchin, a massive military complex near Tehran. Israel also hit Khojir, according to Eveleth, a sprawling missile production site near Tehran. Reuters reported in July...

Ho-hum, another day in Tehran, another incident of careless explosive-tank handling. Or so the Iranians want everyone to think, for now. Officials claim that “careless handling” of oxygen tanks triggered an explosion south of Tehran that killed two people in Baghershahr late yesterday. “Human error,” the Iranian regime called it: Two men have been killed in yet another Iran explosion, as officials blamed ‘human error’ for the blast.The explosion rocked the Sepahan Boresh factory in the city of Baqershahr, south of Tehran, in the early hours of Tuesday morning, according to state media.It was caused by ‘workers being negligent...

An explosion deep within Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility has destroyed much of the installation, trapped about 240 personnel deep underground, according to a former intelligence officer of the Islamic regime, and reported by Reza Kahlili on Thursday. The previously secret nuclear site has become a center for Iran’s nuclear activity because of the 2,700 centrifuges enriching uranium to the 20-percent level. A further enrichment to weapons grade would take only weeks, experts say.“The level of enrichment has been a major concern to Israeli officials, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly has warned about the 20-percent enriched stockpile. The explosion occurred...

[Tehran] is in a difficult position because it labeled the explosion an accident, but it is now facing a deluge of foreign media reports seeking to conclude that the explosion was perpetrated by a state or group. This is what Iran's regime is reading: Major media from The New York Times to The Washington Post and local media such as Kuwait's Al-Jarida have all sought to assert that Israel was involved in the mysterious July 2 explosion at a warehouse in the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility... [t]hat could set back the program for months or a year. Iran, however, is...

Report: In Devastating Blow, Israel Sets Back Iran's Nuke Program Two YearsThe last couple of weeks have seen a string of apparent sabotage incidents in Iran. Questions about them abound. Possible answers are intriguing to say the least. Probably the most significant attack came early Thursday morning at Natanz, when, as the New York Times reported:...A Middle Eastern intelligence official…said the blast was caused by an explosive device planted inside the facility. The explosion, he said, destroyed much of the aboveground parts of the facility where new centrifuges…are balanced before they are put into operation…. ... ... Instead, Iran appears...

Iran is stewing over the potential loss of its most advanced centrifuge production plant after some kind of explosion and fire severely damaged it. Naturally, the Iranians are being pretty closemouthed about the incident. They haven’t said much about the fire and explosion at what was suspected to be a nuclear research facility in the mountains outside of Tehran, either. But it’s hard to hide what happened at Natanz — the nuclear facility with the highest-profile in the country. And Iran is hinting that the destruction of its advanced centrifuge plant might have been caused by some kind of variation...

Kuwait's Al-Jarida newspaper on Friday reported that Israel was responsible for a Thursday "accident" at an Iranian nuclear facility in Natanz. It is believed that the Natanz facility is used to enrich uranium. According to the Al-Jarida report, the explosion was caused by an "Israeli cyber attack" which targeted the computers which control the pressure gauges inside gas containers. Tehran has allegedly lost 80% of the uranium hexafluoride gas it needs in order to enrich uranium. The report also claimed that Israel is responsible for the Parchin blast which occurred last week. On Thursday, Iran's state news agency IRNA published...

Israel was responsible for two blasts at Iranian facilities — one related to uranium enrichment, the other for missile production — over the past week, a Kuwaiti newspaper reported Friday. The Al-Jareeda daily cited an unnamed senior source as saying that an Israeli cyberattack caused a fire and explosion at the largely underground Natanz nuclear enrichment facility in the predawn hours of Thursday morning. According to the source, this was expected to set back Iran’s nuclear enrichment program by approximately two months. The newspaper also reported that last Friday Israeli F-35 stealth fighter jets bombed a site located in the...

My, but Iran must have a lot of defective “industrial gas tanks” lying around. A week after Iranian officials tried to explain away a massive explosion at Parchin as a civilian-area accident, a large fire at Natanz might prove more difficult to dismiss. Natanz, like Parchin, is a site where the US alleges that Iran has performed work on their nuclear-weapons program, and experts believe that uranium-enriching centrifuge work might have been the target this time: Iran says there has been an “incident” at one of its nuclear facilities.Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi did not...

Iraqi security forces were on Friday (June 26) interrogating pro-Iran fighters detained for planning a rocket attack in the first such raid in a country caught in the tug-of-war between Teheran and Washington. Since October, nearly three dozen deadly rocket attacks have hit US military and diplomatic installations in Iraq, with the US blaming pro-Teheran faction Kataeb Hezbollah. Infuriated, Washington has demanded Iraq take tougher action to hold the perpetrators accountable and Thursday's unprecedented raid appeared to be a response to this call. Just before midnight Thursday, the elite Counter-Terrorism Service stormed a base in southern Baghdad used by Kataeb...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An explosion that rattled Iran’s capital came from an area in its eastern mountains that analysts believe hides an underground tunnel system and missile production sites, satellite photographs showed Saturday. What exploded in the incident early Friday that sent a massive fireball into the sky near Tehran remains unclear, as does the cause of the blast. The unusual response of the Iranian government in the aftermath of the explosion, however, underscores the sensitive nature of an area near where international inspectors believe the Islamic Republic conducted high-explosive tests two decades ago for nuclear weapon...

Live coverage and speculation about a military base, Iranian guards outpost or a large natural gas reservoir in the area Still night there

A large explosion was heard east of Tehran on Thursday night, with video from local sources showing a bright light lighting up the night sky.

Senator Markey has announced his support for the Iran deal that will let the terrorist regime inspect its own Parchin nuclear weapons research site, conduct uranium enrichment, build advanced centrifuges, buy ballistic missiles, fund terrorism and have a near zero breakout time to a nuclear bomb. There was no surprise there. Markey had topped the list of candidates supported by the Iran Lobby. And the Iranian American Political Action Committee (IAPAC) had maxed out its contributions to his campaign. After more fake suspense, Al Franken, another IAPAC backed politician who also benefited from Iran Lobby money, came out for the...

Unknown people have bricked up the entrance to a mosque in northeastern Germany and stuck racist flyers to their masonry work. Police in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania have opened an investigation after the 1 meter-high brickwork was found in the doorway of the mosque, which is currently under construction, on the morning of August 26th, a police report states. According to broadcaster NDR, police are investigating two charges — one of property damage, the other of incitement of hatred. …

The only Obama administration official to view confidential "side deals" between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) admitted Wednesday she and her team have only seen rough drafts. "I didn't see the final documents. I saw the provisional documents, as did my experts," said Wendy Sherman, a lead U.S. negotiator for the deal, at a Senate Banking Committee hearing. Sherman, undersecretary of State for political affairs, said she was only allowed to see the confidential deals "in the middle of the negotiation" when the IAEA "wanted to go over with some of our experts the technical details." She...

The chief of the U.N. nuclear agency insisted Monday that a probe of a suspected nuclear weapons research site in Iran does meet strict agency standards, while acknowledging that Iranian experts provided samples from the site for analysis. Such sampling is usually done by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s own experts. But IAEA chief Yukiya Amano told reporters that Iranians carried out that part of the probe at Parchin, where the agency suspects that explosive triggers for nuclear weapons might have been tested. The arrangement was first revealed in confidential draft agreement between the sides seen last month by The...