Its quiet...TOO quiet...

[MOlivo]

We went from hearing about Iran no-stop every day...Then the VT shooting happens...Nobody hears anything about Iran now...While this in and of itself seems odd, the conspiracy can go to ways...was the shooting an attraction to draw attention from a pending American or Joint-force attack? Or possibly to detour the American people from dwelling on Iran, because some kind of secret peace treaty has been established...


Or Im just bored and giving you food for thought. I just thought it was unusual Iran (And N Korea for that matter) have all but fallen off the radar.
:scratch:

[Uncle Screwtape]

Something to chew on....www.debka.com About half way down the page.......

A large, high-ranking Syrian delegation of 40 generals on secret mission to Tehran

April 23, 2007, 1:27 PM (GMT+02:00)





Led by Maj. Gen. Yahya L. Solayman, War Planning chief at the Syrian armed forces General Staff, the delegation represents all branches of the Syrian armed forces. On their arrival on April 18, the Syrian officers went straight into conference with Iranian defense minister Brig. Gen. Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar, Revolutionary Commanders chief Maj. Gen. Yahya Rahim-Safavi and dep. chief of staff Maj. Gen. Hassani Sa’di, who is Iran’s chief of military war preparations. The Syrian visitors were taken around RG and armed forces training installations and given a display of the latest Iranian weapons systems, including stealth missiles, electronic warfare appliances and undersea missiles and torpedoes. They also visited the big Imam Ali training base in N. Tehran, where hundreds of Lebanese Hizballah and Palestinian Hamas and Jihad Islami terrorists are taking courses.

In Washington and Jerusalem, there is little doubt that the two allies timed the Syrian delegation’s mission to Tehran as a rejoinder to US defense secretary Robert Gates’ Middle East tour last week.

Israel sees four causes for concern:

1. The unusually large size of the Syrian delegation and the presence of operations officers from the various army corps.

2. The elevated positions of the Iranian officials hosting the Syrians: the top men with responsibility for preparing the RGs and armed forces for armed conflict.

US and Israeli intelligence experts agreed in their talks during Gates’ two-day visit to Israel last week on the object of the Syrian mission: to tighten operational coordination at the highest level between the Syria military and Iran’s armed forces and Revolutionary Guards.

3. The installations and weapons shown the Syrian officers. The intelligence estimate is that they saw the weapons systems soon to be consigned by Iran to the Syrian army and Hizballah, as well as the types of assistance pledged for Syria in the event of a military showdown with the United States or Israel. Syrian-Iranian consultations must also be presumed to have cleared the routes by which these weapons would reach Syria and Hizballah in a military contingency.

During the 2006 Hizballah-Israel war, Iran ran an airlift to Damascus through Turkish airspace and over the Mediterranean.

4. The unusual length of the visit. Monday, April 23 the Syrian officers were still busy in Tehran after six days and showed no sign of leaving.

OK, maybe it's not THAT secret of a meeting, but it is interesting, if true.

[chicom]

DUM......DUM.......DUM......

The plot thickens.


It is kinda quiet. Kinda Bigfoot is near your tent type of quiet.

[site59]

Everyone is adjusting thier fire.
Iran should have a responce ready soon, unless thier not scared of the EU ;)

EU Ministers Agree Sanctions Against Iran

By Forbes.com
Apr 23, 2007, 05:46


Printer friendly page



LUXEMBOURG - EU foreign ministers formally agreed to introduce sanctions against Iran over its nuclear ambitions in line with a UN Security Council resolution, a European Union spokeswoman said.

European Union foreign ministers at a meeting here agreed on a blacklist of people and organisations linked to Iran's nuclear industry, based on UN Security Council sanctions passed in December.

However, the EU's sanctions go further than UN resolution 1737, adopted by the UN Security Council on December 23.

'The EU goes a little bit tougher than the UN sanctions,' said Cristina Gallach, spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, without giving details. 'We include more names,' she added.

The full list of the Iranian persona non grata subject to a travel ban and assets freeze will be published in the official EU gazette on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Foreign ministers also agreed in principle to apply a second UN resolution against Iran, which was passed last month and introduces fresh sanctions against Tehran if it fails to suspend its uranium enrichment activities within 60 days.

The latter resolution, whose details EU ministers will outline at a later date, involves notably restriction on arms sales.

Endorsement of the first set of sanctions was delayed by an argument between London and Madrid over how to word the measures regarding the contested territory of Gibraltar.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana confirmed here earlier today that he would meet this week with Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani in Turkey.

Iran on Sunday rejected Western calls for a suspension of its sensitive nuclear activities.

The United States, which accuses Iran of seeking to make nuclear weapons, has never ruled out the option of military action to bring Tehran to heel. Iran insists its nuclear drive is solely for generating energy.

Iran has shown no sign of yielding in the stand-off, saying that its uranium enrichment operations have reached an industrial level and announcing it wishes to install over 50,000 uranium enriching centrifuges at a plant in Natanz.

[yugoshooter]

Here is a little noise for ya! http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18286081/ :freedom:

[freehunter]

Maybe this time Israel will finish the job. Blow them all back to where they belong.

[yugoshooter]

Maybe this time Israel will finish the job. Blow them all back to where they belong. I'm not sticking up for any side but the last time they tried they had a very hard time at it. It will be hard to beat back the Hamas because they have the resolve to fight for there country and Iran to back them. Look at Afghanistan The commys were there for like six years using state of the art weapons against people hiding in caves and the cave dwellers repelled them.(with a little help from the USA). I think it would be the same here in the US if some force tried to change our way of life, We the people would fight until we won(and we would) or until we all died! :soldier: :freedom:

[Troy R]

Kenneth R. Timmerman
Wednesday, April 25, 2007


The Iranian intelligence service is believed to have abducted a former FBI agent, Robert Levinson, while he was meeting an Iranian contact at the Persian Gulf resort on Kish island.

The reason? Iran wants to force a trade with the United States for a former top Iranian military official, Brig. Gen. Alireza Asghari, whom the Iranians think may have applied for asylum in the United States, according to refugee documents made available to NewsMax.

Asghari left Iran on an officially-sanctioned trip to Damascus, Syria, then went missing during a stop-over in Istanbul on Feb. 7. His whereabouts remains unknown.

His disappearance created a panic in Tehran because he had access to highly classified intelligence information on Iran's nuclear weapons programs, and had personally run several ballistic missile development programs, as Newsmax reported last month.

"Might he know something of interest to the United States? Yes, given his background," a U.S. official said.

Speculation that he defected to a foreign intelligence service began when it was announced that his family had also fled Iran.

When asked about the Iranian's whereabouts last month, German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung replied cryptically, "I cannot say anything on this subject," giving rise to speculation that the former Iranian official was being questioned by German intelligence.

Where Is Levinson?

Meanwhile, the State Department has launched several inquiries about Levinson's whereabouts through the Swiss Embassy in Tehran and through other foreign governments, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said on Tuesday.

While not calling Levinson a "hostage," McCormack said that he could not rule out the possibility that he was in custody of the Iranian authorities. "I can't rule it out. We don't know where he is. As we have said before, we suspect that he is in Iran," he said.

A copy of Gen. Asghari's refugee status document, which was dated Jan. 25, 2007, was provided to NewsMax by Pooya Dayanim, an Iranian-American activist in California.

"I received these documents from generally reliable sources in a European country. They wanted to lay to rest this notion that Asghari was in U.S. custody, so the Iranian regime could demand some kind of exchange," he said
"In the one case, you have an American who has been kidnapped," he added. "In the other, you've got an Iranian who left Iran of his own free will."



Not Here



U.S. government officials in a position to know about Asghari rejected the notion of a "swap" with the Iranian regime for Levinson.

"We can't swap him because we don't have him, period," one official said. "We don't know anything about where he might be. To say that he defected to the United States is just flat-out wrong."

Another official said he doubted that Asghari had applied for refugee status, because he would have to demonstrate to the U.N. High Commission on Refugees that he had been persecuted before leaving Iran.

While acknowledging that a number of Iranian human rights activists were seeking asylum in the United States, he said that Asghari was not among them.

In Iranian news accounts that have appeared so far, Asghari is said to be 63 years old, but so far Iranian papers have not published his photograph.


CIA? FBI? MIA


The picture on the refugee documents provided to NewsMax by Dayanim shows a man who looks appears to be in his 40s.

The Iranian regime has floated wild rumors about both missing men, in an effort to spark U.S. government interest.

The Entekhab daily newspaper on Tuesday quoted an "informed source" in Tehran who claimed that Levinson had been spying on Iran's behalf for several years, adding that the CIA had indicated it wanted to exchange Levinson with Asghari.

A source with access to top officials within Revolutionary Guards intelligence said they concluded that Levinson was a "big fish who can be used to create maximum damage to CIA operations against Iran."

Levinson has never worked for the CIA but was a career FBI agent, so it's unclear why the Revolutionary Guards came to such a conclusion.


The same source reported that Levinson is being held in a safe house in the Tajrish area of Tehran that is "operated jointly" by the Ministry of Information and Security and the Revolutionary Guards intelligence department.

The Financial Times newspaper reported last month that Levinson had traveled from Dubai to Kish Island, less than an hour's flight away, to meet with David Belfield, an American who fled to Iran in 1980 after assassinating an Iranian diplomat from the shah's regime in Bethesda, Maryland.

Belfield has acknowledged that he met with Levinson on Kish Island. "Some people know exactly where he is," Belfield said. "He came only to see me."

Belfield, who has admitted to the 1980 murder of Ali Akbar Tabatabai, told the Financial Times that Levinson had come to Kish "to find a channel to introduce him to authorities in Tehran to help him find out about networks involved in smuggling of cigarettes, because his contractor company has been losing a lot of money."

Levinon has worked for a private investigative firm since retiring from the FBI 10 years ago, and is a specialist in Russian organized crime, not the Middle East.

So far, the Iranian authorities have told the State Department that they have no information about Levinson, McCormack said. "I find that hard to believe," he added.

© NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved.

[Troy R]

White House warns North Korea
Adviser delivers urgent disarmament message, saying U.S. patience limited

BREAKING NEWS
Updated: 1 hour, 2 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - A top White House adviser has personally delivered a pointed message to North Korean officials in New York, urging them to act on a nuclear disarmament pledge and telling them that U.S. patience is limited, a U.S. official said.

Victor Cha, President Bush's top adviser on North Korea, and a State Department official told the North Koreans on Tuesday that frustration is rising 10 days after the North missed a deadline to shut down its main nuclear reactor, according to a senior U.S. official with knowledge of the meeting.

"Everyone's waiting on North Korea to act," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. "We don't have all the time in the world. We have patience, but patience is limited."

The North Koreans said they would convey the message to officials in Pyongyang, the U.S. official said.

Cha is a deputy negotiator at nuclear talks with North Korea that include Japan, China, Russia, the United States and South Korea.

The State Department occasionally sends messages to Pyongyang through North Korean officials at the United Nations in New York, but it is unusual for a White House official to personally make the trip and indicates the importance the Bush administration attaches to making progress on the issue.

Snagged over $25 million
North Korea pledged in February to begin abandoning its nuclear program in return for energy aid and political concessions, but it missed an April 14 deadline to shut down its nuclear reactor. The North has refused to act until it receives $25 million in cash frozen after a Macau bank, Banco Delta Asia, was blacklisted by the United States for allegedly helping the North with money laundering and counterfeiting.

The funds have been freed for withdrawal, but for unknown reasons the North has not yet acted to recover the money.

The meeting comes on the heels of a visit to Washington by South Korea's envoy at international nuclear talks, Chun Yung-woo. He also expressed frustration with the North.

On Thursday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit Washington for talks with Bush. The North Korean issue is sure to be a topic of discussion.

"People are starting to ask the questions: What's going on? Does this agreement still have legs?" the U.S. official said. "There's no ultimatum," the official said of the Cha meeting. "But there is a degree of frustration among all parties."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18299387/

[Troy R]

Korea making nukes, will test again, general says

By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
April 25, 2007

North Korea is continuing to develop nuclear weapons and will conduct additional underground blasts aimed at regional "intimidation," the commander of U.S. forces in South Korea said yesterday.
"Unless the six-party talks process prevails, we expect North Korea to continue nuclear weapons research and development to perpetuate its strategy of intimidation," Army Gen. Burwell B. Bell told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
North Korea is continuing to produce plutonium from a reactor at Yongbyon and now has produced up to 110 pounds of the radioactive material, enough for several weapons, Gen. Bell said.
Its plutonium and uranium production "places it on track to become a moderate nuclear power, potentially by the end of the decade," he said.
By developing a small nuclear warhead, North Korea "could eventually field missiles capable of striking targets within the United States homeland with nuclear weapons," Gen. Bell said.
He also warned that North Korea's record of selling missiles and arms could lead the regime to "proliferate nuclear weapons technology, expertise or material to anti-American countries, rogue regimes or non-state actors."
Both Gen. Bell and Adm. Timothy J. Keating, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, told committee members they have doubts North Korea will follow through on its pledge to give up nuclear weapons.
"[North Korean leader] Kim Jong-il has a history of manipulating the international community in an attempt to shape the political and military environment to meet his objectives," Gen. Bell said.
Adm. Keating said the Pacific region remains peaceful, but the United States is closely watching China's military expansion and global outreach.
Asked by Sen. James H. Webb Jr., Virginia Democrat, about China's global expansion of bases and alliances, Adm. Keating said, "It is a concern of ours at Pacific Command."
U.S. alliances and bases in Asia are designed to "provide an increasingly effective hedge against what may be actual Chinese expansionist policies or, more specifically, Chinese military intentions to move beyond, as you say, just the Taiwan Straits into a blue-water capacity," Adm. Keating said.
Adm. Keating said China's test of an anti-satellite missile in January likely was intended to show that it has arms that "could be used in a time of conflict to disable some military systems that would be important to us and others."
He also said the encounter in October between a Chinese Song-class submarine and the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier in the western Pacific showed "we must work to maintain our operational advantage in the face of fast-paced [Chinese navy] modernization and ever-expanding area of operations."

http://www.washingtontimes.com/natio...4648-6053r.htm

[Troy R]

Hamas Military Wing Fires Rockets at Israel

By ISABEL KERSHNER
Published: April 24, 2007
JERUSALEM, April 24 — The military wing of Hamas fired a barrage of rockets and mortar shells from Gaza into Israel today for the first time since the Palestinian faction committed to a cease-fire in November.

A spokesman for the military wing in Gaza, who identified himself only as Abu Obeideh, declared the truce over.

But more moderate political figures from Hamas who participate in the Palestinian unity government, including Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, said they were making efforts to preserve the cease-fire. And a spokesman for the Hamas movement in Gaza, Ismail Radwan, stopped short of calling off the cease-fire, saying today’s attacks were “a natural response to Israeli aggression and violations of the truce in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.”

Over the weekend, Israeli forces killed up to nine Palestinians, mostly militants in the West Bank, in the course of military operations and confrontations. The November cease-fire agreement pertained only to Gaza. Palestinian leaders have asked to extend it to the West Bank, but Israeli officials have said that it must be implemented properly in Gaza first.

Smaller Palestinian factions like Islamic Jihad, which rejected the cease-fire, have continued firing rockets at Israel on an almost daily basis.

The rocket and mortar attacks today, which occurred on Israel’s 59th Independence Day, caused no injuries.

Miri Eisin, a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel, said, “We reserve our right to respond and to defend our citizens at any time.” But Israeli officials speaking on condition of anonymity suggested that any response to the attacks would be limited, and that Israel would continue with its five-month-old policy of restraint in Gaza until the position of Hamas as a whole becomes clearer.

Hamas leaders warned Israel today against launching a large-scale military operation in Gaza. Mr. Radwan said the rocket and mortar attacks were “a message to Israel” that an operation in Gaza “won’t be a picnic.”

Hamas’s military wing claimed to have fired 30 rockets and 70 mortar shells at Israel today. An Israeli Army spokesman said six rockets and eight mortars were launched over a period of about three hours in the early morning.

The army spokesman said that according to security assessments, Hamas had intended to carry out what he termed “a much larger terrorist attack” under the cover of the rocket fire, but was thwarted by the army’s quick response. Israeli forces fired from the air into open areas from where the rockets had been fired.

The Israeli news media reported that the Hamas military wing planned to seize another Israeli soldier. Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who was captured by Palestinian militants from Gaza in a cross-border raid last June, is still believed to be held in Gaza. Hamas and two other organizations claimed responsibility for capturing Corporal Shalit.

The army spokesman would not confirm or deny the reports of a new attempt to seize an Israeli soldier, but pointed to the statement made in the morning by the Hamas military wing spokesman, Abu Obeideh.

Abu Obeideh told the official Voice of Palestine radio: “The cease-fire has been over for a long time, and Israel is responsible for that. We are ready to kidnap more and more, and kill more and more of your soldiers.”

Hamas has demanded the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails in return for Corporal Shalit.

There have long been differences between the Hamas armed underground and some of the more moderate political leadership, although Mr. Radwan, the Hamas spokesman, said there are “no disputes between the military and political wings.” Still, he made a distinction between the Hamas movement and those who serve in the unity government, which has “its own program and positions.”

Israeli security officials have accused Hamas of using the relative calm of the cease-fire to build up its forces in Gaza.

Ms. Eisin, the Israeli prime minister’s spokeswoman, said Israel viewed the Hamas attack on Independence Day “very harshly,” but also appeared to leave the door open to diplomacy rather than large-scale military action for now.

Israel “continues to reach out to moderate Palestinians,.” she said. “We are willing to go a long way through dialogue, but we will protect our citizens against terrorism always.”

Taghreed El-Khodary contributed reporting from Gaza.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/24/world/middleeast/24cnd-mideast.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[Troy R]

That should perk you back up :soldier:

[MOlivo]

Thats better. Hopefully Israel will fire something back.
Matt

[Aaron Mann]

http://www.rys2sense.com/anti-neocons/v ... php?t=6437 (http://www.rys2sense.com/anti-neocons/viewtopic.php?t=6437)
i agree more with that, arabs aren't that dumb and they didn't even hit anyone with the rocket, smells like PR false-flag.