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Weapons Seizure In Yemen Shines Light On Iran’s Attempts To Destabilize Region (+video)

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Photo Credit: paffairs_sanfranciscoA recent shipment of weapons intercepted in Yemen, including surface-to-air missiles, shows Iran’s determination to further destabilize the region, according to the head of the House Intelligence Committee.

“This new chapter is, with the chaos that you see in Northern Africa, with what you see happening in Yemen, is to escalate arms flow,” Republican Rep. Mike Rogers told Fox News. “Why? They’re feeling the pressure of sanctions, they’re feeling the pressure of international isolation because of their pursuit of nuclear weapons.”

Video of the weapons shipment, posted to YouTube this week by the Yemen Embassy in Washington, D.C., for the first time revealed the scope and sophistication of the weapons intercepted in late January. A Yemeni military source tells Fox News the shipment included circuits, wires and nearly 200 explosive packages for improvised explosive devices, remote detonators, military binocular and what were described as Iranian man-portable, infrared-guided surface-to-air missiles. Known as “Manpads,” the missiles can bring down civilian aircraft.

The weapons — bound for a Shia insurgent group that has called for an end to the small U.S. military presence in Yemen — were hidden inside a metal tank on a fishing vessel that was intercepted as part of a joint U.S.-Yemen operation.

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Iran’s Supreme Leader Shuts Down Possibility Of Direct Nuclear Talks With US (+video)

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Photo Credit: APIran’s supreme leader today rejected the possibility of direct talks with the United States, nixing a proposal by Washington to ease the stalemate over Iran’s nuclear program.

Six world powers – including the US – are due to resume nuclear talks with Iran on Feb. 26 in Kazakhstan, after an eight-month hiatus. Few expect a breakthrough, not least because Iran is preparing for elections in June.

But the words of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – who has the final say on all strategic decisions in Iran, as official holder there of the title “God’s deputy on earth” – appear to have scuppered chances of an immediate direct dialogue with the US.

“You [Americans] are pointing the gun at Iran and say either negotiate or we will shoot. The Iranian nation will not be frightened by the threats,”Ayatollah Khamenei told Air Force commanders in a speech today.

“Some naive people like the idea of negotiating with America [but] negotiations will not solve the problems,” Khamenei said in the remarks, which were posted on his website. “If some people want American rule to be established again in Iran, the nation will rise up to face them.”

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Iran Releases Footage Allegedly Extracted From US Drone

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Photo Credit: APIran says it has broadcast footage on state TV allegedly extracted from a CIA drone captured in 2011 after it entered Iranian airspace near the Afghan-Iran border.

The video aired late Wednesday on Iranian shows an aerial view of an airport and a city, said to be a U.S. drone base and Kandahar, Afghanistan. The TV also showed images purported to be the Sentinel landing at a base in eastern Iran but it was unclear if that footage meant to depict the moment of the drone’s seizure.

The TV also showed images purported to be the Sentinel landing at a base in eastern Iran.

“”We aren’t able to confirm the authenticity of the video,” a spokesman from the Department of Defense told Fox News.

“As you know, we don’t provide details regarding matters of intelligence.”

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Iran’s Ahmadinejad Seeks Strategic Axis With Egypt

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Photo Credit: Reuters/Amr Abdallah Dalsh(Reuters) – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on the first visit to Cairo by an Iranian leader in more than three decades, called for a strategic alliance with Egypt and said he had offered the cash-strapped Arab state a loan, but drew a cool response.

Ahmadinejad said outside forces were trying to prevent a rapprochement between the Middle East’s two most populous nations, at odds since Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution and Egypt’s signing of a peace treaty with Israel in the same year.

“We must all understand that the only option is to set up this alliance because it is in the interests of the Egyptian and Iranian peoples and other nations of the region,” the official MENA news agency quoted him in remarks to Egyptian journalists published on Wednesday.

The two countries have not restored diplomatic ties since Egypt overthrew its long term leader Hosni Mubarak in 2011, but its first Islamist president, Mohamed Mursi, gave Ahmadinejad a red-carpet welcome on Tuesday to a summit of Islamic nations.

“There are those striving to prevent these two great countries from coming together despite the fact that the region’s problems require this meeting, especially the Palestinian question,” Ahmadinejad said.

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Israeli Strike Into Syria Said to Damage Research Site

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Photo Credit: Goran Tomasevic/ReutersWASHINGTON — The Israeli attack last week on a Syrian convoy of antiaircraft weapons appears to have damaged the country’s main research center for work on biological and chemical weapons, according to American officials who are sorting through intelligence reports.

While the main target of the attack on Wednesday seems to have been SA-17 missiles and their launchers — which the Israelis feared were about to be moved to Hezbollah forces in Lebanon — video shown on Syrian television backs up assertions that the research center north of Damascus also suffered moderate damage.

That complex, the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center, has been the target of American and Western sanctions for more than a decade because of intelligence suggesting that it was the training site for engineers who worked on chemical and biological weaponry.

A senior United States military official, asked about reports that the research center had been targeted, said that any damage was likely “due to the bombs which targeted the vehicles” carrying the antiaircraft weapons, and from “the secondary explosions from the missiles.”

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss intelligence reports, said that “the Israelis had a small strike package,” meaning that a relatively few fighter aircraft slipped past Syria’s air defenses and that targeting both the missiles and the research center “would risk doing just a little damage to either.”

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Ahmadinejad Wants To Be Iran’s First Astronaut

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TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday that he’s ready to take the risk of being the first Iranian astronaut sent into space as part of Iran’s goal of a manned space flight.

“I’m ready to be the first Iranian to sacrifice myself for our country’s scientists,” the official IRNA news agency quoted him as saying in an address to space scientists in Tehran.

Space tourist Anousheh Ansari was the first Iranian to make a journey into space aboard a Soyuz TMA-9 capsule from Baikonur, Kazakhastan, in September 2006. The 40-year-old telecommunications entrepreneur paid a reported $20 million for a space station visit. Her journey became an inspiration to women in male-dominated Iran.

Iran sent a monkey into space last Monday, describing the launch a successful step toward Tehran’s plan to send an astronaut into space within the next five to six years. The monkey named “Pishgam,” which means pioneer in Farsi, reportedly traveled 120 kilometers (72 miles) and safely returned to Earth.

In 2010, Iran said it launched an Explorer rocket into space carrying a mouse, a turtle and worms.

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The Ayatollah’s Goal

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Photo Credit: APIranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei believes his primary job “is to set Israel on fire,” according to Spain’s former national security adviser.

Khamenei made the controversial comments during a 2001 breakfast meeting with Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and Rafael Bardaji, Aznar’s former national security adviser.

Anzar, Bardaji, and several other Spanish officials pressed Khameini to explain his role in the Iranian government during the breakfast meeting.

“My job is to set Israel on fire,” Khamenei said.

Bardaji and his colleagues were shaken by the comments, which suggest that Khamenei’s anti-Israel bluster is more than just a rhetorical tactic.

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North Koreans Among 40 Dead At Iran Nuke Plant

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Photo Credit: WNDThe explosions at Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility Jan. 21 killed at least 40 people, including two North Koreans, WND learned Sunday.

Meanwhile, the Islamic regime is labeling WND a “mouthpiece of the CIA” for its exclusive reporting of the blasts.

The bodies of 11 of the technicians and scientists are beyond recognition, a member of the security forces at the facility told WND. According to this source, 60 others are in critical condition and have been transferred to the central base of the 27th Division of Mohammad Rassool Allah, which is equipped with a modern medical facility and is between Tehran and Qom.

At the time of the explosions, the source said, 203 Iranian scientists and technicians along with 16 North Koreans had been logged in at the site, though the initial report listed 240 people.

The day before the explosions, the North Koreans had brought in new equipment, described by the source as touch-screen monitors the size of TVs that were installed in the monitoring room and some new parts that were installed in the centrifuges before the start of the enrichment process.

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Biden Does Damage Control With European Leaders After Hagel’s Policy Flub

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Photo Credit: marcnVice President Joseph R. Biden assured European leaders Saturday that the U.S. is not pursuing a policy of “containment” toward Iran, two days after U.S. Defense secretary-nominee Chuck Hagel mistakenly characterized the Obama administration’s policy.

“As President Obama has made clear to Iranian leaders, our policy is not containment — it is not containment,” Mr. Biden said at the annual Munich Security Conference in Germany. “It is to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.”

During his confirmation hearing Thursday, Mr. Hagel told the Senate Armed Services committee that the administration had a policy of “containment” toward the Iranian regime. After an aide slipped him a note minutes later, Mr. Hagel corrected himself and said, “We don’t have a position on containment.

That comment prompted Chairman Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat, to remind Mr. Hagel that the U.S. does indeed have a position on containment — “we do not favor containment.”

Mr. Biden didn’t mention Mr. Hagel’s stumble to the Europeans, but he did try to set the record straight. Addressing international sanctions against Iran for its nuclear ambitions, Mr. Biden said the Obama administration has “also made clear that Iran’s leaders need not sentence their people to economic deprivation and international isolation.”

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Iran: President Ahmadinejad Unveils New Fighter Jet

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Iran unveiled what it said was a new, domestically built fighter jet on Saturday, local media reported.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said at a ceremony in Tehran that the Qaher 313 demonstrated Iran’s growing self-reliance in the field of military technology.

Iran’s functional air force has been limited to perhaps as few as a few dozen strike aircraft, either Russian or aging US models acquired before the 1979 Iranian revolution.

The Islamic Republic, under an international arms embargo, has long struggled to find spare parts and some military experts say the fleet is outdated.

“This advanced fighter jet with unique physical characteristics has a very low radar cross section and therefore is capable of operating at low altitudes,” Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said of the Qaher 313, according to Mehr news agency.

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