Eye on Iran: Explosion at Key Military Base in Iran Raises Questions About Sabotage

Join UANI           Top Stories NYT: "A spectacular explosion on Sunday night outside Tehran took place deep inside the Parchin military base, where Iran produces crucial elements of its missiles and other munitions, raising new questions about whether the blast was an accident or sabotage. The explosion and resulting fire, which Iranian news organizations have described in only the most general terms, could be seen from apartments in Tehran and appeared to have destroyed several buildings. But it was distant from a part of the base to which the International Atomic Energy Agency has been seeking access for years, to investigate reports of experiments on high explosives that could have been used in nuclear weapons. The agency's evidence about that activity dates back more than a decade, and that part of the base has been so bulldozed and reconfigured in recent years that inspectors concede it is doubtful there is much left to see or test if they ever get access." http://t.uani.com/1uQqa8s Al-Monitor: "In an interview with Reformist Etemaad newspaper, analyst Ebrahim Asgharzadeh, one of the organizers of the 1979 takeover of the US Embassy, an act for which he offered an apology, talked about the current state and past failures of Reformist movements and complaints of the President Hassan Rouhani administration. The former member of parliament and chairman of the Tehran City Council believes the administration doesn't yet know what its own strategy is, and said the Iranian public is beginning to ask questions... On the issue of Rouhani's interview with CNN's Christian Amanpour in September about detained Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, Asgharzadeh said, 'When we see his response to a simple question from a foreign reporter about the existence of an imprisoned journalist, we see and understand how much of a distance there is between him and those who voted for him.' Rouhani told Amanpour in the interview that he didn't believe a journalist would be imprisoned for doing his work and there must be other issues involved." http://t.uani.com/1uQwpJs Bloomberg: "Iran will sell its oil to Asia in November at the biggest discount in almost six years, matching cuts by Saudi Arabia as global crude benchmarks slide deeper into a bear market. State-run National Iranian Oil Co. cut official selling prices of its crude to buyers in Asia for November, two people with knowledge of the pricing decision said yesterday. The decrease came a week after Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, reduced the price of Arab Light crude for Asia to the lowest since December 2008. Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell to the lowest in almost four years today. 'The timing of Iran's price cuts makes the price war more and more probable,' Eugen Weinberg, head of commodities research at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt, said by phone yesterday." http://t.uani.com/1rl6Zxp     Sanctions Relief Fars (Iran): "The PSA, Peugeot Citroen, a French multinational manufacturer of automobiles and motorcycles, plans to return to Iran's lucrative market, a spokesperson for the PSA announced. In a meeting in Paris, PSA Peugeot Citroen Chief Executive Officer Carlos Tavares and high-ranking Iranian industry officials discussed possible return of the French car-maker to Iran, the Iranian students' news agency reported. The PSA ended cooperation with Iran after the West imposed further sanctions on Tehran in February 2012. Tavares and PSA's operations Director for Africa and Middle East Jean - Christophe Quemard met with Iranian Deputy Minister of Industries Mohsen Salehinia and Iran's largest car-maker (IKCO) CEO Hashem Yekkeh Zareh on the sidelines of international auto expo in Paris." http://t.uani.com/1waR5d9 Foreign Affairs NYT: "Sunni insurgents in Pakistan increased attacks on Iranian border posts in the southeast of the country this week, employing methods similar to those used by Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq. In one instance, a car bomber struck a fortified base near the city of Saravan, killing a senior officer and prompting Iranian commanders and politicians Thursday to call upon Pakistan to control its borders. On Tuesday, three police officers were killed in an ambush after responding to a distress call. These were only the latest in a series of attacks. Last month, insurgents rammed a vehicle laden with more than 1,000 pounds of explosives into one of the outer walls of a central base before launching a surprise attack with a convoy of pickup trucks carrying 70 insurgents, a senior military official told the Fars news agency this week." http://t.uani.com/1vWOmWV  Opinion & Analysis Ronen Bergman in YnetNews: "The Parchin facility is a military camp located about 15 kilometers (9.5 miles) east of Tehran, where research is conducted on the production of explosives and missile warheads, as well as activities of the 'nuclear weapon group.' The latter serves as one of the components of the military nuclear program whose goal is to create the explosion mechanisms and the nuclear detonator facility itself - an experimental facility for an aerial bomb or a missile warhead test. The magnitude of the explosion which left two people dead and several wounded, according to Iranian reports, the flash and the huge blast felt many kilometers away leave no room for doubt that this is a facility related to the nuclear program. The Parchin area is under constant supervision of optic and electromagnetic visual spy satellites - including Israeli supervision. The Americans also have ways to collect air samples from the explosion area through nitrogenous and unmanned aerial vehicles, so the West will know within several days what caused the explosion and if any radioactive materials were used. In any event, the explosion puts Iran in a very uncomfortable position in the negotiations it is holding with the West, which are scheduled to end on November 24. If indeed it turns out that this was a military nuclear experiment, it will cause the West to toughen its stand and help Israel demand that the sanctions against Iran will be stepped up... The question of what caused the explosion remains open. Was it a 'work accident,' as the Iranian ministry of defense claims, or was it an act of sabotage initiated by someone interested in thwarting the plan. In Israel, as always, those who should know are keeping quiet. So it is uncertain what caused the explosion and whether it has to do with Israel's efforts to thwart the Iranian nuclear program. If it was indeed an act of sabotage, it's reasonable to assume that it was the result of cooperation between Western countries and may have even been based on cyber warfare. We have already seen such precedents in the past in a similar context." http://t.uani.com/1uQx2mn     Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Eye on Iran is not intended as a comprehensive media clips summary but rather a selection of media elements with discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. For more information please email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons.  UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.