Report: Iran blast completely destroyed major missile-testing site
Israeli and U.S. intelligence officials tell New York Times recent explosion at military base near Tehran was major setback to Iran's long-range missile program.
By Haaretz Tags: Iran Iran nuclearA recent explosion at a military base near Tehran was a major setback for Iran's long-range missile program and completely destroyed the base, according to American and Israeli intelligence officials, the New York Times reported on Monday.
The officials said that surveillance photos showed that the Iranian base was a central testing center for advanced solid-fuel missiles, which are better equipped than older, liquid-fuel designs to carry warheads long distances.
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Iranian missile base after the explosion. |
| Photo by: AFP/DigitalGlobe |
According to the report, satellite photos taken after the blast show that the base was almost completely destroyed, which amounts to a serious setback to Tehran's missile development, intelligence officials said.
Earlier this month, Iran reiterated that the explosion at a military base near Tehran that killed 17 members of the Revolutionary Guards was an accident.
Last week, a top Israeli security official said that the explosion could delay or stop further Iranian surface-to-surface missile development, but warned that it was far from halting all of Iran's military options.
Iran has vehemently denied that the blast was carried out by Israel or the United States, and Western intelligence and defense officials say the consequences – the setback of Iran's military program - are more important than the cause.
“Anything that buys us time and delays the day when the Iranians might be able to mount a nuclear weapon on an accurate missile is a small victory,” one Western intelligence official told the New York Times. “At this point, we’ll take whatever we can get, however it happens.”
Read this article in Hebrew: בסיס ניסוי הטילים המרכזי של איראן נמחק לחלוטין
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We need more "accident" in Iran.
have you no shame?!
nobody cares.
Does this include the 9/11 attacks ?
I notice they're all about letting any state *hostile* to Israel say/do whatever it wants, even with the rest of their precious international community (you know, the one they call on every time they want to *condemn* Israel) actually on Israel's side (because even most Jew-haters know when the threat is wider than just to Jews!) - but let Israel fight back to protect itself, with a minimum of casualties - & here's the result. Good job, keep exposing yourselves for us!
Mr. Jonas sounds to me like an anti-Semite (in the meaning of hating Jews/Israelis). Why is that I wonder? I once heard at the Doha debates, where the public are Arab students, one of them ask the panel (Palestinians): "why do we not stop trying to outdo Israel and copy their success? See what they have built up in the short time they are a country. "And do not answer that it gets US money. that is purely for military purposes, but look at the development of science. That comes when there is freedom of thought. I realise that the Arab population in Israel (the word Palestinians is a recent invention) is second class and I think strongly that that should change, but I quote an Arab Israeli woman saying: I am glad I live in Israel, in freedom, where I got an excellent education and can live the life I want to live. Not one woman in Iran (the state you seem to be supporting) can say that. Be careful who you support. Every democracy has its faults, but it is a democracy and not a theocracy or dictatorship.
why wouldnt a palestinian want to live in israel? do you think they are dumb enough to move to the israeli occupied and blockad'ed Gaza?
The unmanned aerial vehicle the Iranian military claimed in a report on English language Press TV to have shot down Sunday over the eastern part of the country was described in Tehran's statement was an RQ-170. Iranian sources in Tehran report it was flying over the underground Fordo facility near Qom, where debkafile's military and intelligence sources uranium is being covertly enriched from 20 to 60 percent. In their first statement, the Iranians did not say when the incident happened. However, some confusion set in when NATO command in Afghanistan later said a US unarmed reconnaissance aircraft flying over western Afghanistan had been missing since late last week and a US official source said there was no proof of the Iranian claim. The US RQ-170 drone is an unarmed, unmanned stealth aircraft equipped with the most advanced reconnaissance instruments for detecting nuclear weapons systems. Our sources report that these spy planes operate over Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and Turkey as well as Iran and Afghanistan. The Iranian news agencies quoted senior Iranian officers as claiming the seized the drone which was downed with minimum damage. Their threat to retaliate outside Iran's borders for its alleged intrusion was not specific. It may well extend to embattled Syria to demonstrate that Iran keeps faith with its allies. Some Middle East military sources suggest that Iran might try to shoot down US drones over Turkey to warn Ankara to keep its hands off Syria. In the past week, Turkish leaders were again saying they had lost patience with Bashar Assad's brutality and intransigence and were close to sending troops across the border to establish a buffer zone in northern Syria for refugees and rebels. Iran might also use its Lebanese pawn, Hizballah, to shoot down Israeli spy planes over that country's air space. The foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast in Tehran said Sunday that as soon as the United State and the West propose imposing an embargo on Iranian oil exports, "the price of oil will soar above $250 a barrel. Therefore, any attempt to strangle the Iranian economy by choking off its oil exports will be met by retaliation in kind, the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz to Saudi and Gulf oil.
Fakes death of major architect taking away many of his assassination threats (they think he's dead). Gives false hope and feeling of achievement to those attacking Iran. LOL Hubris = your downfall
So is this attack on an Iranian military installation. Let's be clear: Iran's missile system was stated as a means of self-defense against US and Israeli aggression. Never has Iran stated they will pre-emptively strike (ie ATTACK/INVADE) anyone as US and Israel have. This destruction of Iran's national defense systems is a means to lower Iran's defenses for unjust invasion. So, who wants to claim credit for these explosions?
By your criteria there should be bombs exploding by the week in the US and Israel which, according to most people in the world, constitute our greatest threat to peace.
The difference is that its not women and children being bombed in restaurants, buses, pizza parlors, schools and malls.
I am sure there are Iranian underground facilities but not all facilities are underground. This was a huge explosion and it was real. Whether or not Iran is set behind makes no difference. Something happened there ...big time.
You should have stuck with a much safer civilian nuclear program development as you swear by instead of now swearing at those you think sabotaged your hyperventilating nuclear arms development!
This is just to give Israel an excuse to 'not attacking' so it does not look quite so ridiculous huffing and puffing about Iran. The truth is, and it has been frequently reported, Iran's nuclear facilities are a very, very, very long way underground and remain untouched. It suits Israel/US to believe these stories, or to put them out, because it gets them off the hook of looking like war-mongering idiots and suggests that well really, the 'superior' Israelis are just so clever they can bomb things in Iran without going to war - and the Iranians don't care about the propaganda because as an ancient and sophisticated culture they are very pragmatic and they know their nuclear facilities are safe and untouched and anything which quietens the yapping of the US and Israel is a good thing. So, all good really. Everyone is happy.
This "ancient and sophisticated" culture wouldn't be lying to us would they? I mean after all burying a "civilian" nuclear program deep underground with 20 meter thick reinforced high density concrete caps and ringing it with the latest Russian missile systems is not seen as slightly overspending by naive you? And you know zilch about Israel's capabilities. Keep thinking the worst about them by entertaining your ignorant conspiracy theories while they go about their serious business of successfully taking out their sworn enemies' nuclear developments aimed at them, first in Iraq, then in Syria, and now in Iran.
It's possible you know. Fact is, where this is bad for Israel is that as a world pariah everyone thinks the worst of them anyway and if they are instrumental in sabotage there will be no sympathy whatsoever if the same thing happens to Israel's nuclear facilities. And by the way, it is only Israel which has sworn Iran as an enemy - the Iranians are too sophisticated for such childishness and paranoia.
ofcourse it's good for israel to think like this after all just try keeping your spirits up ! and btw general mighaddam is nothing compared to the real guys who're in charge of the missile tech in iran ! you think they're gonna put them in high military ranks !? you're dead naive my friend but again keep the spirit up !
It certainly explains why they have made such a mess of things.
I suppose that's why the Israeli economy is doing so well. Even IQ 84 is better than the the IQ that has made the economic mess of you guys in America & Europe. Talk about a mess of things!!!
Sorry, my dear 17, you walked yourself right into that one! R.Jonas, that was hysterical come back!
I have lived in Iran and I have been educated in Iran. First and foremost, you know nothing about Iran or its culture and neither do you know when the hatred started. In Iran, they chant death to Israel on hourly basis in middle schools. It was Iran who called Israel a cancer that should be removed from the region. It was Iran who called for destruction of Israel by any means necessary. It is Iran who has paid billions of dollars to terrorist groups to kill Jews around the globe. Iran is being rulled by a group of mullahs who RAPED their own citizens in jail after 2009 election and you call them pragmatic? are you high? or simply too stupid?!
These days, news is made out of thin air...
Heck of an exchange, Iran loses a major facility and the US losses one of a hundred drones. Who confirmed that it was one of the most advanced drones? Iran?
well if it wasn't before, it is now. Thanks and well done Alan.
I'm coming to London, wanna grap a drink with me?
Who is to say that the Iranians didn't have another base for doing such weapons development and testing and deliberately destroyed that base for everyone to see so as to cause everyone to drop their guard?
and the Humanist becomes just another lousy Nationalistic Racist git.
they reject law and have 300 nukes pointed at us!
?
they're all pointed at YOU, and it isn't 300, it's now 31,043.
My hometown Tehran
“By the terms of draft resolution VI, on the implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, the Assembly would reaffirm, once again, that the existence of colonialism in any form or manifestation, including economic exploitation, was incompatible with the United Nations Charter, the Declaration on decolonization, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” 65th General Assembly In Favor: 149 Against: 3 (Israel, United States, United Kingdom)