'New Iranian missile could extend Iran's strike capability to Europe and beyond' - http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/New-Iranian-missile-could-extend-Irans-strike-capability-to-Europe-and-beyond-393377
A new Iranian long-range missile could extend Iran's strike capability to a wide swatch of Europe and potentially far beyond, an Israeli analyst said this week.
Tal Inbar, the head of space research at the Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies in Herzliya, said that with their 2,500 kilometer range, the Soumar missile unveiled by the Islamic Republic on Sunday "entails a 25% increase in the range of Iran's missiles and if we consider the future possibility that the missiles would be deployed on ships and submarines, we see the ability to project their power worldwide."
In an email sent out on Sunday, Inbar said that revealing the missiles - which could potentially hit cities in Eastern Europe and southern Europe and cover a large portion of north Africa, - represents a strategic change on the part of Iran which previously had portrayed their long-range missiles as defensive, and meant to protect their interests in the region.
The missile is believed to be a reverse -engineered version of the Ukrainian KH-55 missile. The cruise missile flies at a subsonic speed but because it travels at low altitude it is much harder to detect.
In his message, Inbar also wrote that the missiles could potentially have an impact on the issue of missile defense systems in Europe, in that Russia has traditionally been opposed to such a program and has argued that Iranian missiles would not be able to reach Europe or the United States.
"This is why the Iranian step [to reveal the missiles] is very interesting - if the Russians were not aware of this move."
The missile was revealed by Iran's Defense Ministry on Sunday, the first time they have done so publicly. Inbar said that the timing of the reveal is significant, being that it comes amid international negotiations aimed at curbing Iran's nuclear program, during which Iran has stated that their missile capabilities will not be subject to the negotiations.
US and Israeli intelligence at sharp odds on Iran's breakout time to a bomb - http://www.debka.com/article/24447/US-and-Israeli-intelligence-at-sharp-odds-on-Iran's-breakout-time-to-a-bomb
US and Israeli intelligence experts are in sharp disagreement over the time Iran needs for breakout to a bomb. The Americans say that Iran would need one year between a decision to go from nuclear threshold to nuclear bomb - enough time for preventive action - while the Israelis say the time is much shorter - six months at most. President Barack Obama and US Secretary of State John Kerry, who leads the negotiations with Tehran, insist that America intelligence would detect an Iranian decision to go forward in time to step in and pre-empt it.
European co-negotiators are "on the same page," lined up behind the same "strategy and goal" for trying to achieve a nuclear deal with Iran, Kerry said after meeting with French, German and British foreign ministers in Paris Saturday, March 7.
However, Saudi Arabia and fellow Gulf states are no more convinced than Israel or Egypt that a year is a realistic timeline for diplomacy, sanctions or force of arms to go into effect and cut short Iran's progress towards assembling its first nuke - despite Kerry's attempt to reassure them last week in Riyadh.
Israel's military, intelligence and political leaders are strongly skeptical of Washington's time calculus for three reasons:
1. There is no guarantee that either American or Israeli intelligence agencies will be able to detect a decision byTehran to cross the agreed nuclear threshold into manufacture. Iran might well be months into the production of a nuclear bomb, or even at its finishing stages, before the wake-up alert reaches Washington.
The two agencies are agreed on one point, that if Tehran does decide to go ahead and build a nuclear bomb, it will produce an arsenal of three to five devices at the outset.
2. Israel has found grounds for suspicion that US and Iranian negotiations have in fact cut down the one-year period substantially to six months at most, from the moment Iran goes into production of a nuclear bomb and it becomes operational.
3. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his advisers believe that Obama and Kerry are aware of this, but are keeping it dark because it would undercut their argument that the final nuclear deal with Iran would take into account Israeli and Gulf security concerns. Six months would obviously not be long enough for preventive action by the United States, least of all Europe.
4. The collision between US and Israeli intelligence in their evaluations of Iran's timeline for a bomb is far more critical and potentially harmful to the relations between the two governments than the public feuding between the White House and Israeli Prime Minister.
Netanyahu cautioned against the buried timeline bombshell in one sentence of his speech to the US Congress last Tuesday, March 3. He said, "Because Iran's nuclear program would be left largely intact, Iran's breakout time would be very short - about a year by US assessment, even shorter by Israel's."
In the heat of electioneering - ten days to go for the Israeli vote on March 17 - the prime minister's rivals are avoiding lining up with him on the grave ramifications of this diversity of assessment. They prefer to hammer away at his inadequacies in domestic policy.
Iranian Al Qods chief on landmark visit to Amman as guest of Jordan's national intelligence director - http://www.debka.com/article/24449/Iranian-Al-Qods-chief-on-landmark-visit-to-Amman-as-guest-of-Jordan's-national-intelligence-director
debkafile's military and intelligence sources reveal exclusively that Gen. Qassem Soleiman, commander of the Revolutionary Guards elite Al Qods Brigades, paid a groundbreaking visit last Thursday, March 5, to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan as guest of Gen. Faisal Al-Shoulbaki, director of General Intelligence and a close adviser to King Abdullah II.
The visit, encouraged by Obama administration policy, showed one of America's oldest Sunni Arab allies, recognizing the direction of the trending regional reality to jump the lines over to Tehran. Iran's grab for Middle East influence is now reaching from four capitals, Baghdad, Damascus, Sanaa, Beirut to a fifth, Amman.
Our sources report that Royal Jordanian Air Force fighter jets escorted the Iranian general's armored motorcade as it drove from Baghdad to Amman through the main highway connecting the two Arab capitals.
It is not known whether the king gave Soleimani an audience, but the possibility is not ruled out.
His talks with Jordan's intelligence and military heads ranged widely over the battles in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant-ISIS. This suggests that Jordan has shown willingness to take the first step towards coordinating its policies and military operations with Tehran - not just with Washington as hitherto.
Some 12,000 American soldiers are posted to Jordan, most of them members of elite US combat units. Their primary task is to safeguard the throne against threats from Syria and Al Qaeda and its affiliates.
Interestingly, Soleimani's landmark trip to Amman was carefully timed to take place just a day before Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint US Chiefs of Staff, arrived in Baghdad, so that by the time he landed, the Iranian general, who commands his coutry's expanding military input in the war on ISIS, had returned to the Iraqi capital from his visit to Amman.
Our sources also report that the Jordanian king lately shows a different face in private conversations to his public aspect as steadfast friend of the Obama administration. In private, Abdullah is highly critical of current US policies in the region. In meetings with US lawmakers on visits to Amman, Abdullah has voiced bitter disappointment in President Barack Obama's tepid response to the burning alive by ISIS of the Jordanian pilot Lt. Moath al-Kasasbeh.
He was on a visit to the White House when the horrific video was released on Feb. 3.
The Jordanian king has been heard to remark that Obama's military partnership with Iran, which has the effect of providing the Assad regime with an extra shield, cannot survive long, because the Sunni Arab world finds it intolerable and won't accept it.
Iran's New Missile Puts Israel 'in Range' - Yaakov Levi - http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/192293#.VPxsAZvcl9B
The Iranian military on Sunday announced that it had developed a new long-range cruise missile with a range of some 2,000 kilometers.
As the US and its allies continue to discuss limiting Iran's nuclear program with Tehran, the Iranian military on Sunday announced that it had developed a new long-range cruise missile with a range of some 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) - putting Israel well within its reach, Israeli sources said. The missile, called the "Soumar," features "different characteristics in terms of range and pinpoint accuracy in comparison with the previous products," Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehqan said at the unveiling of the missile Sunday.
The missile, Dehqan said, was developed based on the needs of the Iranian Armed Forces, and is "a crucial step towards increasing the country's defense and deterrence might."
On Saturday, an Iranian military official said that the country would be unveiling yet another missile system will be unveiled on April 18, when the country marks National Army Day. That system, called the Talaash-3, is based on the Russian S-200 missile system, the official said.
In his speech in Washington last week, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said that while the world is capitulating to Iranian demands to allow it to continue with its nuclear development program, the issue of its delivery systems - the advanced missiles it is developing - has not even been placed on the agenda yet, because Iran refuses to discuss it at all. Commenting Sunday, Iran's Aerospace Division head Amirali Hajizadeh said that Tehran "will never negotiated the country's defense capabilities, including the development of its ballistic missiles."
In a statement, Iran's state-controlled Press TV quoted government sources as saying that "Iran has repeatedly assured other countries that its military might poses no threat to other states, insisting that the country's defense doctrine is entirely based on deterrence"
The new Soumar missile is named for a city on the Iraqi border whose inhabitants were nearly all wiped out by an Iraqi chemical attack during the Iran-Iraq war.
BE SURE TO CHECK OUT MY ALL NEW PROPHECY AND CREATION DESIGN WEBSITES. THERE IS A LOT TO SEE AND DO..........
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.