Friday, December 2, 2011
The Last Jews of Bagdad - by Alan Yentob---BBC
Iraqi Jews in 1905
All credit to the BBC's Yentob for a job well done
I have to admit - I was expecting to be disappointed by the BBC's Radio 4 programme by Alan Yentob, 'The Last Jews of Baghdad', but I was pleasantly surprised. Although the trailers seemed to suggest otherwise, the programme did not fall too far into the usual trap of BBC distortion and political-correctness.
Yentob brought his childhood memories into this programme - listening to music by Naim Basri, his father playing the tabla at parties, visiting parents' friends in their flats in Berkeley Court with their Persian rugs and family photos.
Having established the scene - Jews established for 2,600 years by the Rivers of Babylon, dominant under the British mandate in the civil service, finance and trade to the extent that the Baghdad bazaar closed on Saturdays - Yentob pulled no punches describing the rising influence of Nazism, the horrors of the 1941 Farhud pogrom, the graphic hangings of nine innocent Jews in Baghdad's main square in 1969. (The only clanger was Yentob saying that on the eve of the pogrom the pro-Jewish Mayor of Baghdad banished the pro-Nazi coup leader Rashid Ali al-Gaylani, when it was Gaylani's sidekick Yunis al-Sabawi.)
Now there were only seven forlorn Jews left of a 1947 community of 118,000. 'Vicar of Baghdad'and self-appointed protector of the Jews Canon Andrew White said that Jewish lives, now seen as the epitomy of evil, were at risk. The community would soon be no more.
In conclusion, I could not believe my ears when Yentob said there must be something we can learn from the flight of 850,000 Jews from Arab countries - surely a first on the BBC.
But instead of calling on the Arab world to recognised the wrongs it had committed against the Jews with a view to achieving reconciliation, the programme ended by harking back to a lost age of cooperation and harmony between Jews and Arabs.
Surely a missed opportunity. All in all, though, all credit to Alan Yentob for a job well done.
You can hear the 'Last Jews of Iraq' here for the next seven days. It is repeated on Sunday 4 December at 5pm GMT.
Register your comments on the BBC blog here.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
CALLING OUT THE ENEMEDIA -- KEEP IT GOING!
...and the Main Stream Media will print as the "truth"!
Thursday, December 01, 2011
Huge thanks to Big Fur Hat for starting what will be an interminably long list -- add what's missing. Keep it going, email it around. Send to the the irritatingly too polite GOP candidates and read THIS book!
Things About Obama That Didn’t Matter To the MSM BigFurHat - November 29, 2011,
Adapted from an un-attributed viral e-mail
WHEN he refused to disclose who donated money to his election campaign, as other candidates had done, it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN he received endorsements from people like Louis Farrakhan, Mummar Kadaffi and Hugo Chavez, it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN it was pointed out that he was a total newcomer and had absolutely no experience at anything except community organizing, it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN he chose friends and acquaintances such as Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn who were revolutionary radicals, it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN his voting record in the Illinois Senate and in the U.S. Senate indicated an absentee senator, it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN he refused to wear a flag lapel pin and did so only after a public outcry, it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN people started treating him as a Messiah and children in schools were taught to sing his praises, it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN he stood with his hands over his groin area for the playing of the National Anthem and Pledge of Allegiance, it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN he surrounded himself in the White House with advisors who were pro-gun control, pro-abortion, pro-homosexual marriage and wanting to curtail freedom of speech to silence the opposition, it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN his czars favored sex education in kindergarten, including homosexual indoctrination, it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN his personal background was either scrubbed or hidden and nothing could be found about him, it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN he had an association in Chicago with Tony Rezko–a man of questionable character and who is now in prison and had helped Obama to a sweet deal on the purchase of his home– it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN it became known that George Soros, a multi-billionaire Marxist, spent a ton of money to get him elected, it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN he stood before the the American people and said that his intentions were to “fundamentally transform this Nation” it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN it became known that he had trained ACORN workers in Chicago and served as an attorney for ACORN, it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN he appointed cabinet members and several advisors who were tax cheats it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN he appointed a Science Czar, John Holdren, who believes in forced abortions, mass sterilizations and seizing babies from teen mothers, it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN he appointed Cass Sunstein as Regulatory Czar who believes in “Explicit Consent,” harvesting human organs without family consent, and allowing animals to be represented in court, while banning all hunting, it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN he appointed Kevin Jennings, a homosexual and organizer of a group called Gay, Lesbian, Straight, Education Network as Safe School Czar and it became known that he had a history of bad advice to teenagers, it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN he appointed Mark Lloyd as Diversity Czar who believes in curtailing free speech, taking from one and giving to another to spread the wealth, who supports Hugo Chavez, it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN Valerie Jarrett, an avowed Socialist, was selected as Obama’s Senior White House Advisor, it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN Anita Dunn, White House Communications Director, said Mao Tse Tung was her favorite philosopher and the person she turned to most for inspiration, it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN he appointed Carol Browner, a well known socialist, as Global Warming Czar in charge of working on Cap and Trade it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN he appointed Van Jones, an ex-con and avowed Communist as Green Energy Czar it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN as President of the United States, he bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN he traveled around the world criticizing America it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN his actions support the Palestinians over Israel it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN he took American tax dollars to resettle thousands of Palestinians from Gaza to the United States, it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN he upset the Europeans by removing plans for a missile defense system it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN he played politics in Afghanistan by not sending troops early-on when the Field Commanders requested them, losing lives in the process, it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN he’s spent us into a generational debt that is insurmountable, it didn’t seem to matter.
WHEN he took a huge spending bill under the guise of stimulus and used it to pay off organizations, unions, and individuals that got him elected, it didn’t seem to matter.
There are more pressing issues, damning issues, egregious issues that trouble the MSM to the point of obsession -
-Did Sarah Palin wear a windbreaker with the name of her husband’s dog sled team on it?
- Was Newt callous when he divorced his wife?
- Did Rick Perry’s family attend a summer campsite that once had a racist word written on a rock?
- Did Michelle Bachmann “get sloppy” with some trivial historical dates?
- Did Donald Trump raise his voice and curse at a luncheon?
- Did Sarah Palin give birth to Trig?
- Does Herman Cain have a wandering eye?
- Is Michelle Bachmann’s husband a repressed homosexual?
- Did Herman Cain pause too long before answering a question about Libya?
- Does Mitt Romney wear Magic Underwear?
THESE ARE THE THINGS THAT MATTER TO A NATION!
Obama Administration Bans Knowledge of Islam
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2011
MIDDLE EAST AND TERRORISM
by Raymond Ibrahim
The Obama administration's censoring of photographs of the late Osama bin Laden, lest they offend Muslims, is one thing; but what about censoring words, especially those pivotal to U.S. security?
The Obama administration's censoring of photographs of the late Osama bin Laden, lest they offend Muslims, is one thing; but what about censoring words, especially those pivotal to U.S. security?
The Daily Caller reveals that "the Obama administration has been pulling back all training materials used for the law enforcement and national security communities, in order to eliminate all references to Islam that some Muslim groups have claimed are offensive."
The move comes after complaints from advocacy organizations including the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and others identified as Muslim Brotherhood front groups in the 2004 Holy Land Foundation terror fundraising trial. In a Wednesday Los Angeles Times op-ed, Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) president Salam al-Marayati threatened the FBI with a total cutoff of cooperation between American Muslims and law enforcement if the agency failed to revise its law enforcement training materials. Maintaining the training materials in their current state "will undermine the relationship between law enforcement and the Muslim American community," al-Marayati wrote. Multiple online sources detail MPAC's close alignment with CAIR. In his op-ed, Al-Marayati demanded that the Justice Department and the FBI "issue a clear and unequivocal apology to the Muslim American community" and "establish a thorough and transparent vetting process in selecting its trainers and materials."
Accordingly, after discussing the matter with Attorney General Eric Holder, Dwight C. Holton said "I want to be perfectly clear about this: training materials that portray Islam as a religion of violence or with a tendency towards violence are wrong, they are offensive, and they are contrary to everything that this president, this attorney general and Department of Justice stands for. They will not be tolerated."
Even before these Muslim complaints and threats, President Obama alluded to censoring words when he said soon after taking office: "Words matter … because one of the ways we're going to win this struggle ["war on terror"] is through the battle of [Muslims'] hearts and minds" (followed by things like commissioning NASA to make Muslims "feel good" about themselves).
As if there were not already a lamentable lack of study concerning Muslim law war doctrine in the curriculum of American military studies—including in the Pentagon and U.S. Army War College—the administration's more aggressive censorship program will only exacerbate matters. Last year's Quarterly Defense Report [QDR], a strategic document, does not mention anything remotely related to Islam—even as it stresses climate change, which it sees as an "accelerant of instability and conflict" around the world.
This attempt to whitewash Islam goes back to a 2008 government memo that not only warned against "offending," "insulting," or being "confrontational" to Muslims, but tried to justify such censorship as follows:
Never use the terms "jihadist" or "mujahideen" in conversation to describe the terrorists. A mujahed, a holy warrior, is a positive characterization in the context of a just war. In Arabic, jihad means "striving in the path of God" and is used in many contexts beyond warfare. Calling our enemies jihadis and their movement a global jihad unintentionallylegitimizes their actions [emphasis added].
Aside from the fact that the above definitions are highly misleading, the notion that the words we use can ever have an impact on what is and is not legitimate for Muslims is beyond incompetant: Muslims are not waiting around for Americans or their government—that is, the misguided, the deluded, in a word, the infidel—to define Islam for them. For Muslims, only Sharia law determines right and wrong: whatever falls inside Shra law is right; whatever falls outside Sharia law is wrong.
The U.S. government needs to worry less about which words appease Muslims and worry more about providing its intelligence community—not to mention its own citizenry—with accurate knowledge concerning the nature of the threat.
Without words related to Islam, how are analysts to make sense of the current conflict? What are the goals and motivations of the jihadists? What are their methods? Who might be "radicalizing" them? With whom are they affiliated? Who supports them? These and a host of other questions are unintelligible without free use of words related to Islam.
Knowledge is linked to language: the more precise the language, the more precise the knowledge. In the current conflict, to acquire accurate knowledge, which is essential to victory, we need to begin with accurate language.
This means U.S. intelligence analysts and policymakers need to be able to use, and fully appreciate the significance of, words related to Islam—starting with the word "Islam" itself: Submission—to a worldview based on Sharia law, a set of assumptions and imperatives thoroughly different from those in Western common law. Whatever falls inside Sharia law is right – including unequal justice under law; religious and gender inequality under law; criminalization of lifestyle choices as well as freedom of religion and speech – and whatever falls outside Sharia law is wrong.
It means the U.S. military needs to begin expounding and studying Islamic law and war doctrine—without fear of reprisal, such as when counter-terrorism strategist Stephen Coughlin was fired by the Pentagon for focusing on Islamic doctrine and therefore being politically incorrect. It means America's leadership needs to take that ancient dictum—"Know thy enemy"—seriously.
Raymond Ibrahim, a Middle East/Islam specialist and author of The Al Qaeda Reader, is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
FBI Criminal Informant Complicit in Brian Terry’s Death (PJM Exclusive)
PJ MEDIA
From multiple sources come shocking charges of deadly ineptitude and an FBI coverup in Fast and Furious.
In the growing Fast and Furious scandal, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s death in Peck Canyon, Arizona was previously described as a chance meeting that led to a firefight: an illegal alien “rip crew” working for the Sinaloa cartel was hoping to find other illegal aliens and to rob them at gunpoint. Instead, they stumbled across a Border Patrol unit and murdered Agent Terry.Last week, the Washington Times offered a new version of the encounter: they reported that the rip crew was not hunting illegals, but Border Patrol teams — with the intention of engaging them in combat.
Sources now tell PJ Media that neither version of events is accurate: the rip crew was not waiting for a chance encounter with other illegals, nor did the members intend to engage American law enforcement agents.
The rip crew was in Peck Canyon that evening with the intention of stealing money and drugs from a specific shipment of which they had prior knowledge.
Sources claim the Department of Justice has been trying for almost a year to hide the key information — how the rip crew knew the shipment was coming through that night.
Criminal informants (CIs) are a common tool of law enforcement agencies. When agencies apprehend criminals, agencies often reduce or drop charges in exchange for information leading to the arrests of higher-ranking criminals. Earlier this year, reports claimed that Operation Fast and Furious weapons smuggled over the border were actually chosen by an FBI informant, and paid for with money provided by the federal government.
The rip crew knew to be in Peck Canyon that December evening because a CI working for the FBI found out about a smuggling run — from the FBI.
It is not clear if the information was provided intentionally, but a possible motivation for the FBI to provide the information is known to exist: the CI had previously lost a shipment of drugs, and wanted to regain the trust of the cartel with an offering of drugs or money. The other possibility is that the FBI mistakenly allowed the CI to discover the information.
The CI used this information to organize an ambush of the drug convoy. A source tells PJM that the FBI knew from wiretaps that the CI was using their information to set up an ambush.
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) — through its own CIs and communications intercepts — was also aware of the planned assault.
Neither the DEA nor FBI warned Border Patrol about the expected criminal activity.
The federal government will still not reveal if one of the two WASR-10 AK-pattern semi-automatic rifles located near the scene — provided to the Sinaloa cartel via Operation Fast and Furious — was the weapon that put a bullet through Brian Terry’s heart. The existence of a third recovered gun, an SKS carbine, has been disputed by the FBI despite the fact it had been talked about openly in the beginning of the investigation among federal agents.
Multiple sources tell PJM that this third weapon “disappeared” because it was the weapon carried by the FBI CI who ran the rip crew. When it was recovered near the scene of the murder and subsequently traced by the ATF, it traced back to the FBI CI via the gun shop in Texas where it was purchased.
Deconfliction is a major element of high-risk undercover law enforcement work. Undercover agents and informants often cross jurisdictional paths, and deconfliction is the process whereby agencies warn off other agencies so that their assets don’t end up in conflict, putting investigations and lives at risk.
In this case, the FBI and DEA failed to deconflict. Neither agency bothered to warn Border Patrol to keep their BORTAC teams out of Peck Canyon that evening. As a direct result of this FBI and DEA failure — combined with Homeland Security forcing BORTAC units to carry less-lethal beanbag rounds in some of their primary weapons — Brian Terry’s under-armed four-man unit walked into an ambush against a heavily armed rip crew, at least five of whom were carrying rifles.
Brian Terry’s murder was entirely preventable. The incompetence of the DEA and FBI let his Border Patrol unit walk into an ambush. After the ambush, it appears the FBI tampered with evidence to cover up that one of their informants was involved with the murder of a federal agent.
The government has recently sealed the case against the only suspect the FBI chose to keep behind bars.
Flash: What, Me Pessimistic? Egyptian Election Outcome is Worse Than I Expected
November 30, 2011 - 7:54 pm
-------
Since last February I have predicted that the Muslim Brotherhood would win elections in Egypt. People have thought me very pessimistic. I have warned and warned that this is a disaster for Western interests, Israel, and ultimately the Egyptian people themselves. I have detailed why this was going to happen and how it was going to change the history of the Middle East.
Now the votes are starting to come in and…it’s much worse than I thought. But my prediction that the Brotherhood and the other Islamists would gain a slight majority seems to have been fulfilled and then some. According to most reports the Brotherhood is scoring at just below 40 percent all by itself.
Why worse? For two reasons:
First, the votes we now have come from the most urban areas of the country. If there are Facebook sophisticates they’re going to be in Cairo and Alexandria. If the moderates do that bad in the big cities, what’s going to happen in the villages up the Nile? If the fascist party came in first in some European countries Social Democratic districts you know you are in trouble.
The Brotherhood came in first in Cairo and Alexandria. Think about that. Of course there are millions of migrants from rural areas in those places but that’s also where the middle class, such as it is, lives.
Second, the moderate parties didn’t even come in second they came in third or close to it. The Salafists—that is people who are even more radical than the Muslim Brotherhood—came in second. That they did that well is a surprise. That they did that well without bumping the Brotherhood down a notch is really shocking.
Estimates for the Justice Party, the Facebook kids of January, are getting 5 to 10 percent. Even together with the other two main moderate parties, that means the liberals won’t be able to block anything. Already the Brotherhood is tasting blood and talking about pressing the army junta to accelerate the turnover of power.
It’s hard to see, though, that there can be any such transfer of power. The voting is far from finished and will be going on for about three months more, followed by a presidential election. And yes: the results so far suggest that the Islamists will also win the presidency.
That’s when the fun really starts. President Barack Obama is going to face a challenge he is incapable of meeting, since he doesn’t even understand what’s going on. He’s like a man who has been told that a ferocious lion is really a playful kitten and then tries to feed it by hand.
Or, to switch metaphors in the middle of a stream of thought, perhaps Dr. Frankenstein is a more apt image:
“When younger,” said he, “I believed myself destined for some great enterprise. … I could not rank myself with the herd of common projectors. But this thought, which supported me in the commencement of my career, now serves only to plunge me lower in the dust. All my speculations and hopes are as nothing; and, like the archangel who aspired to omnipotence, I am chained in an eternal hell.” — Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
For the purposes of this election, Egypt has been divided into three sections, and each section will have a second round. I predict the moderates will fail to work together, and that the Islamists will thus end up doing even better than it seems now.
The Wall Street Journal correspondent is saying that the Salafists will push the Brotherhood further to the “right,” and that’s a very sensible point. Why should the Brotherhood even pretend to be moderate when the people have spoken and they want Sharia with cherries on top?
So the Islamists won and the election was fair. Should we feel good that democracy has functioned and that the people are getting what they want?
Or should we feel bad that the people want a repressive dictatorship, the repression of women, the suppression of Christians, conflict with Israel, hatred of the West, and the freezing of Egyptian society into a straitjacket that can only lead to continue poverty and increasing suffering?
As the vote count becomes clearer, I’ll be refining my analysis, but now we know: this is what (Egyptian) democracy looks like.
—————
(Also read Michael Totten: “Watch Out.”)
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
My complaint about President Obama's vacations
Dear Readers,
You may be disappointed to hear that my concrete suggestions on how to condemn—without hesitation, without remorse—all those who pit race against race, religion against religion, and country against country are sprinkled throughout this letter like raisins in a pudding, not grouped together in a single block of text at the end. This was a conscious decision I made based on the observation that President Obama's vacations sometimes has trouble convincing people that bad things "just happen" (i.e., they're not caused by President Obama's vacations itself). When President Obama's vacations has such trouble, it usually trots out a few stingy, subversive know-it-alls to constate authoritatively that it can make all of our problems go away merely by sprinkling some sort of magic, pink, pixie dust over everything that it considers out-of-touch or incorrigible. Whether or not that trick of its works, it's still the case that the pen is a powerful tool. Why don't we use that tool to transform our culture of war and violence into a culture of peace and nonviolence?
So long as the devastating inequities that characterize our society persist, President Obama's vacations's trained seals will be unable to deny that the spectrum of views between hooliganism and interdenominationalism is not a line but a circle at which treasonous, longiloquent weirdos and the most brusque profiteers I've ever seen meet. To properly place President Obama's vacations somewhere in that spectrum one needs to realize that we must restore the traditions that President Obama's vacations has abandoned. If we don't, future generations will not know freedom. Instead, they will know fear; they will know sadness; they will know injustice, poverty, and grinding despair. Most of all, they will realize, albeit far too late, that President Obama's vacations once tried to convince a bunch of us that it is a refined organization with the soundest ethics and morals you can imagine. Fortunately, calmer heads prevailed and a number of people informed the rest of the gang that I wouldn't want to make my worst nightmares come true. I would, on the other hand, love to reveal the truth about President Obama's vacations's précis. But, hey, I'm already doing that with this letter.
If we let President Obama's vacations produce culturally degenerate films and tapes, who's going to protect us? The government? Our parents? Superman? Probably none of the above. That's why it's important to prescribe a course of action.To President Obama's vacations's mind, it can spoil the whole Zen Buddhist New Age mystical rock-worshipping aura of our body chakras and get away with it. So that means that the rigors that its victims have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement, right? No, not right. The truth is that difficult times lie ahead. Fortunately, we have the capacity to circumvent much of the impending misery by working together to cast a ray of light on President Obama's vacations's vengeful scare tactics. We can all have daydreams about Happy Fuzzy Purple Bunny Land, where everyone is caring, loving, and nice. Not only will those daydreams not come true, but President Obama's vacations is a psychologically defective organization. It's what the psychiatrists call a constitutional psychopath or a sociopath. There is one final irony to my story. I am quite certain that it ruffles my feathers that President Obama's vacations wants to destroy everything beautiful and good.
Scott Pakin's automatic complaint-letter generator
NOTE:
Governor Christie's comment the other day prompted me to use Pakin to generate this Letter of Complaint, when the Governor asked Obama:
"What the hell are we paying you for?"
Chris Christie to Obama: What the Hell Are We
paying you for?
The Obama Presidential Library
By Bernie on 29 Nov 2011
Planck's Constant
Planck's Constant
In this short Youtube video, Virginia S. Hinshaw, Chancellor of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, gives her reasons why Barack Obama's Presidential Library and Museum should be located in Honolulu. Actually she only gives two reasons: he is the only President to have been born in Hawaii (which of course is debatable) and he embodies the global multicultural perspective which is the hallmark of that state.
But what would such a library contain? Sodahead.com has a few ideas:
What will you find in the Obama Presidential Library?Considering all of his Accomplishments like:First President to spend more money on vacations than any other in History
First President to get a AA Rating in History
Highest Food Stamp percentage in History
Highest debt in history spending 4 Trillion in 3 years
Highest unemployment in 20 years
First President to hold a Beer Summit
First president to bow to the World
Cash for ClunkersThis is truly a Historical President....What would you put in his Presidential Library?Let me start it out....1. Cash for clunkers car
2. Presidential set of Golf Clubs
3. Moosechelle's Walmart Dresses
I have read that funds are already being raised to help build the Obama Library. But I believe very little monies will be needed, as explained by Dr. Jack Wheeler at his blog To The Point News:
Presidential Libraries contain all the pertinent information about the respective presidents. This is all of their history before their nominations, the campaign papers, memorabilia, all of the papers from their presidency, and so on; a wealth of information about the man and his life both private and public.What would Barack Hussein Obama Jr.'s presidential library look like and what would they archive in it? Just exactly what would the design parameters be?1.) It wouldn't need to be very big because there are no records to archive from before he was president and everything he does as president is either done in secret, no one will admit to it, or a lie.2.) It would have to be very mobile because by the time he is done as president, no city or state will acknowledge that he ever even visited let alone originally came from there. Plus if the general public ever caught up with it...3.) Construction material would need to be easily maintained by minimal staff. Preferably something that could be hosed out occasionally and left to air dry.4.) It would be a good idea if it was a dual use facility so that it could at least get some sort of appropriate use.Here, then, is the perfect answer to all of the above. Shouldn't cost much more than a trillion or so to build it.
Satelite Photos: Iran's nuclear site explosion
BEFORE EXPLOSION
AFTER EXPLOSION
‘Mysterious Explosion Damaged Iranian Nuclear Site’
A blast that Iran said was at a uranium enrichment site actually damaged a nuclear site. It was not accidental, The London Times reports.
By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
First Publish: 11/30/2011, 12:41 PM
Iranian nuclear site after explosion
Institute for Science and International Security
The explosion earlier this week that Iran said was at a uranium enrichment site actually damaged a nuclear plant and was far from accidental, The London Times reported Wednesday.
The newspaper quoted Israeli intelligence officials as saying that satellite photos revealed extensive damage from the explosion at Isfahan, near Tehran. The Israeli sources, so far unconfirmed, added that smoke was seen pouring out from a conversion plant and that it was clear that the blast was not accidental.
The government-controlled Fars News Agency had claimed that the explosion was caused by a military exercise, after having initially denied any incident took place.
Two week ago, an explosion at a military base that killed a top general and 16 others also resulted in extensive damage, according to published satellite images.
The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security told The New York Times, “It was pretty amazing to see that the entire facility was destroyed. There were only a few buildings left standing.”
The institute’s report author Paul Brannan added that his sources indicated the explosion occurred during work that was supposed to be “a major milestone in the development of a new missile.”
One of the casualties was Gen. Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, founder of Iran’s missile program, and the explosion appeared to take place at a missile base.
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