Thread: Iran News
View Single Post
  #9  
Old Sunday, January 08, 2006
sibgakhan sibgakhan is offline
SIBGA-TUL-JANAT
Medal of Appreciation: Awarded to appreciate member's contribution on forum. (Academic and professional achievements do not make you eligible for this medal) - Issue reason: Appreciation
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 1,221
Thanks: 349
Thanked 428 Times in 261 Posts
sibgakhan is a jewel in the roughsibgakhan is a jewel in the roughsibgakhan is a jewel in the roughsibgakhan is a jewel in the rough
Default

US May Use Proxy To Attack Iran, Says Dr Mahathir

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 16 (Bernama) -- Former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has predicted that the United States may use a proxy to launch an attack against Iran over the nuclear issue.

He believed the US would urge Israel to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities just like what the Tel Aviv regime did to Iraq initially before Washington launched the full-scale war in Iraq.

"US seems to want other people to fight for them," he told reporters here in response to questions on the development of the Iran-North Korea nuclear issues.

The US, he said, would attack Iran because it thought that the latter had no weapon of mass destructions although such allegation were made against Tehran.

"They attacked Iraq because they know Iraq has no weapon of mass destruction," he told reporters here Wednesday.

However, Dr Mahathir strongly believed that the US was unlikely to attack North Korea although Pyongyang had openly declared that it possessed nuclear weapons.

"North Korea, the agenda is different. It is not just weapons of mass destruction, there is also this element of hatred against Muslim. There is a religious element in this thing. If it is non-Muslim, the US will not attack," he said.

Furthermore, he said the US would exercise a little bit more careful in handling the North Korean nuclear issue because the country could do a lot of things with its weapons of mass destructions.

The US, he said, believed that it could do anything it liked to the Muslim countries for several reasons.

Firstly because Muslim countries were divided, secondly there were some Muslim countries which supported the US against other Muslim countries and finally because Muslim countries were incapable of retaliation, he said.

He said the only retaliation the US might face was from non-governmental bodies such as Al-Qaeda which resorted to acts of terror.

Dr Mahathir reiterated that the solution to the war against terrorism which was made by him since 1983 was to look at the root causes of all these acts of violence following the decision to take Palestine and give it to the Jews and expel the Palestinians from their own country without any compensation.

However, he felt that powerful countries would not act in settling the root causes of terrorism because they wanted to uphold Israel at any cost even if the whole world were threatened with terrorism.

This was due to the Israelis having a strong hold on the most powerful nations, he said.

Muslim countries on the other hand would continue to fight and sabotage against each other, contributing to a worsening of the situation.

"The Muslim world should go back to Islam. The teaching of Islam. The fundamental teaching of Islam that all Muslims are brothers and Muslims should not kill another Muslim," he said.

Dr Mahathir doubted that the Palestine-Israel ceasefire agreement would work because he had his doubts over Israel's commitment.

Iran warns of swift response to any attack; calls for united Islamic front

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran warned that any strike on its nuclear facilities would draw a swift and crushing response and called Thursday for an expansion of its newly emerging strategic alliance with Syria to create a powerful united Islamic front that could confront Washington and Israel.
Such an expansion appears unlikely to go far, because many key Arab countries - Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia - are Washington allies and have long been suspicious of Iran's Shiite Muslim clerical regime.

Still, the statements were another sign of the tense situation, coming a day after Syria and Iran declared they would form a united front against any threats, and a mysterious explosion near a nuclear facility in southwestern Iran that initially was reported as a missile strike but later was attributed to construction work on a dam.

Iran's overtures to other Muslim countries in the Mideast reflect its concern about U.S. pressure to drop all its nuclear ambitions. With Syria under similarly strong American scrutiny - in its case for its role in Lebanon and as an alleged sponsor of terrorism - the two countries are trying to diminish Washington's efforts to isolate them.

The U.S. administration has so far applied only diplomatic pressure, but has talked tough. U.S. President George W. Bush has labelled Iran part of an "axis of evil" with North Korea and pre-war Iraq.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Feb. 4 that a military strike against Iran was "not on the agenda at this point," but Bush has said he would not rule out any option.

Bush said Thursday the United States would support Israel "if her security is threatened."
------------------------

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,147778,00.html


WASHINGTON — It's only a matter of time before Al Qaeda (search) or other terrorist groups try to launch an attack on the United States with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, CIA Director Porter Goss (search) told a Senate panel on Wednesday.

Al Qaeda is trying very hard to circumvent U.S. security and launch an attack on U.S. soil, he said, adding that they are getting their training on the urban battlefields in Iraq.

"Islamic extremists are exploiting the Iraqi conflict to recruit new anti-U.S. jihadists," Goss told the Senate Intelligence Committee. "Those jihadists (search) who survive will leave Iraq experienced in and focused on acts of urban terrorism. They represent a potential pool of contacts to build transnational terrorist cells, groups and networks in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other countries."

Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld (search) told the House Armed Services Committee that he believes terrorists are regrouping for another strike. In defending his $419 billion 2006 fiscal year budget request, Rumsfeld said the United States is preparing to deal with any threat.

"The extremists continue to plot to attack again. They are at this moment recalibrating and reorganizing. And so are we," the Pentagon chief said
-----------------


Iran building nuclear-related tunnel

WASHINGTON: The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a nuclear watchdog think tank, has said that Iran is building a tunnel with two entrances but it appears to be too long for storage of uranium.

The ISIS announcement stops short of saying for what purpose the tunnel is being built. ISIS said on Thursday, “Just north of the Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF) at Esfahan, Iran is constructing a tunnel facility. The tunnel is fairly long, and has two entrances, separated by less than half a kilometre. Construction on the tunnel began in September or October 2004, and Iran is working very hard to finish the project. Iran has declared that the tunnel facility is for storage and other activities that are part of the UCF. It appears too big to be only for storage. It might be intended to house production facilities for some uranium conversion processes. It does not appear large enough to be a complete duplicate of the UCF.”

According to ISIS, Iran already has about 500 tonnes of uranium concentrate, a few tens of tonnes of uranium tetrafluoride and a couple of tonnes of uranium hexafluoride.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said that Iran should have declared the facility to it prior to the start of construction. The IAEA visited the site in November 2004, at which time there was no equipment in the tunnel. The Vienna-based agency will continue to visit the facility.

--------------------
__________________
Aalam-e-soz o saz main, wasl se barh ker hai firaaq
Hijr me lazt-e-talb, wasl main marg-e-arzoo...!!!
Reply With Quote