Spanning(en) rond Iran

[jurrien visser (JuVi op Twitter)]

Iran Inaugurates Production Line of New Anti-Armor Missile System

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi on Saturday inaugurated the production line of a new home-made anti-armor missile system named 'Dehlaviyeh'.

"The Dehlaviyeh missile is one of the most hi-tech anti-armor missiles designed for destroying different advanced tanks which are equipped with reactive armor," Vahidi said at the inauguration ceremony of the missile system.

He also reiterated that the missile has been equipped with a special guiding system (which is resistant to different types of enemy's electronic warfare), a warhead and a missile-launcher and a portable engine-propeller.

"The missile system has been designed in a way that it can hit both fix ground targets and mobile armored targets," Vahidi said.

Last August, the Iranian Defense Ministry started mass-production of 73-mm anti-armor rockets capable of piercing and destroying armored vehicles from a 1,300-meter distance.

"The weapon is mobile and due to its low weight, it can be carried by an individual trooper," Vahidi told reporters on the sidelines of a ceremony held to launch the production line of the rocket at the time.

Tehran launched an arms development program during the 1980-88 Iraqi imposed war on Iran to compensate for a US weapons embargo. Since 1992, Iran has produced its own tanks, armored personnel carriers, missiles and fighter planes.

Yet, Iranian officials have always stressed that the country's military and arms programs serve defensive purposes and should not be perceived as a threat to any other country.

The Iranian Army recently test-fired different types of newly-developed missiles and torpedoes and tested a large number of its home-made weapons, tools and equipments, including submarines, military ships, artillery, choppers, aircraft, UAVs and air defense and electronic systems, in a series of massive military drills.

Defense analysts and military observers say that Iran's wargames and its advancements in weapons production have proved as a deterrent factor, specially at a time of heightened threats by the US.

http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9103085396

[Jah]

De sancties beginnen nu echt pijn te doen in Iran.

Oil Backed Up, Iranians Put It on Idled Ships

BANDAR ABBAS, Iran — The hulking tanker Neptune was floating aimlessly this week in the warm waters of the Persian Gulf, a fresh coat of black paint barely concealing its true identity as an Iranian ship loaded with hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil that no one is willing to buy.

The ship's real name was Iran Astaneh, and it was part of a fleet of about 65 Iranian tankers serving as floating storage facilities for Iranian oil, each one given a nautical makeover to conceal its origin and make a buyer easier to find. The Neptune had been floating there for a month, and local fishermen said there were two even larger tankers anchored nearby.

Iran, faced with increasingly stringent economic sanctions imposed by the international community to force it to abandon any ambitions to develop nuclear weapons, has been reluctant to reduce its oil production, fearing that doing so could damage its wells. But Iran has insufficient space to store the crude it cannot sell. So while it furiously works to build storage capacity on shore, it has turned to mothballing at sea.
"We have never seen so many just waiting around," said Rostam, a fisherman and smuggler who regularly works these waters.

After years of defiance and insistence that sanctions were barely being felt at home, Iranians are acknowledging the latest round with growing alarm. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that they were "the strongest yet."

International oil experts say Iranian exports have already been cut by at least a quarter since the beginning of the year, costing Iran roughly $10 billion so far in forgone revenues. Many experts say the pain is only beginning, since oil prices have been falling and Iran's sales should drop even more with the European embargo that went into effect on Sunday.

"They are getting squeezed," said Sadad Al Husseini, former executive vice president for exploration and development of Saudi Aramco, the state oil company. "It's too much trouble to buy Iranian oil. Why alienate the United States and Europe? And the rest of OPEC is not very happy with Iran either."

On Wednesday, a Kenyan oil official told Reuters that the country was canceling an agreement to import up to 80,000 barrels of oil a day from Iran after Britain warned Kenya that it could run afoul of the sanctions. Meanwhile, South Korea said its imports of Iranian oil fell by nearly 50 percent in May, compared with April.

The drop in crude sales has hit Tehran with multiple challenges. Besides the financial impact, Iran has to figure out what to do with all the oil it continues to produce. Iran is pumping about 2.8 million barrels a day - already down about one million barrels daily since the start of the year. But it is exporting only an estimated 1.6 to 1.8 million barrels a day.

The unsold crude is being stored in what has been estimated to be two-thirds of the Iranian tanker fleet. Most of the ships are sailing in circles around the Persian Gulf as Iran tries to sell the mostly heavy crude at bargain-basement prices.

International oil experts estimate that Iran is now warehousing as much as 40 million barrels - roughly two weeks of production - on the tankers. An additional 10 million barrels are in storage on shore.

"We are now forced to sell our most valuable export product in secret," said Nader Karimi Joni, an Iranian journalist specializing in oil. "Iran had a great reputation; now we have to falsify bills of lading, hide the oil's origin and store oil on ships."

The subterfuge operates on several levels, but here, on the waters off Bandar Abbas, it is all about the tanker, Neptune. Beneath the fresh black paint, the ship's hulk bore the name in English and Persian of the tanker company, NITC.

The ship, one of Iran's smallest, was built in 2000 in South Korea. It carried no flag, and its home port - Bushehr - had first been changed to Valletta, Malta, which had also been painted over. It now said Funafuti, the capital of the Pacific Ocean island nation of Tuvalu.

To conceal their positions - and perhaps to hide just how many loaded ships are at sea - Iran's oil tankers also frequently turn off their GPS tracking devices, according to IHS Fairplay, a London-based ship tracking data company. It mapped out the last-known destinations of all NITC tankers, including the Iran Astaneh, and concluded that 21 were last seen in the Persian Gulf.

"I hear there are a lot more up north close to the oil terminals," said Rostam, the smuggler, as he pulled his small craft up alongside the tanker.

Smugglers regularly zip across the Strait of Hormuz in small speedboats to the northern tip of Oman, Rostam and others said, picking up boxes of all kinds of black-market goods. Along the way, Rostam said, he sees the physical evidence of growing tension in the narrow waterway where one-fifth of the world's oil must travel to get to market.

"We constantly run into United States Navy," Rostam said. "They only stop us when our boat is filled with people. Not when we are shipping merchandise."

Iran's Revolutionary Guards navy is also present in the waters and has its headquarters in this port city, he said. The Iranian Navy operates mainly speedboats with missile launchers mounted on top, intending to swarm much larger American Navy ships with dozens of such boats in case of a confrontation.

Such conflict has happened before, and a defeat prompted Iran to change its navy's military doctrine. During a one-day conflict in these waters in 1988 between Iran and the United States, one Iranian frigate was sunk, while Iranian forces claimed to have brought down an American helicopter. Some months later, an American Navy ship shot down an Iranian civilian airliner, killing 290 people, an event that Iran commemorated on Monday. The country maintains the plane was deliberately shot down, while the United States says it was an accident.

The prospect of a confrontation now could grow as the pressure builds on Iran while the sanctions, and dropping oil prices, cut deeper into Tehran's financial lifeline.

Oil prices have fallen by nearly 10 percent since the beginning of the year - and roughly 20 percent from their peak in March - because of weakening demand from Europe, the United States and parts of the developing world, as well as increased production from Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Libya. Oil experts estimate that Iran's oil export revenues are down about 35 percent compared with the beginning of the year.

Increasingly, Iran's officials are warning its citizens to prepare for tough times ahead. On Monday, Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's foreign minister, made comparisons to the eight-year war between Iran and Iraq when he discussed with reporters the mounting pressures on Iran.

Iran's vice president, Mohammad-Reza Rahimi, speaking during a religious conference on Sunday, said his country would never be stopped, and he asked for people's support, state television reported. "Today, we are facing the heaviest of sanctions, and we ask people to help officials in this battle," he said.

Aboard the Neptune, the crew knew what that meant: killing more time baby-sitting for crude at sea. On Sunday, members of the crew trudged out beneath a blazing sun and hauled up the anchor. They knew they were not going anywhere, but they took the opportunity to clean off the rust. Then they shouted to passengers in a skiff below, trying to make a joke.

"Wait five minutes," a sailor said. "When we drop anchor again, you'll get great pictures."

Bron: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/world/middleeast/oil-embargo-leads-iran-to-disguise-tankers.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

[jurrien visser (JuVi op Twitter)]

Het zou mij niets verbazen als Israel tegen de USA gezegd heeft dat ze gaan aanvallen, maar dat ze nog geen datum genoemd hebben.

Of inclusief datum.

[Enforcer]

US moves military to Gulf

Washington, July 03, 2012

The US has moved more warships and fighter aircraft to the Persian Gulf to keep the strategic Straits of Hormuz open and strike deep within Iran if the stand-off over its nuclear programme escalates.

Quoting senior American officials, The New York Times said the new deployment to bolster military presence in the gulf is aimed at reassuring Israel that Washington is serious about neutralising Iran's nuclear ambitions.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/Americas/US-moves-military-to-Gulf/Article1-882881.aspx

Het zou mij niets verbazen als Israel tegen de USA gezegd heeft dat ze gaan aanvallen, maar dat ze nog geen datum genoemd hebben.

[Lex]

Los van politieke redenen: wat is ook al weer "the window of opportunity"?

Vlak voor de Amerikaanse presidentsverkiezingen bijvoorbeeld....en dan zien hoe Obama reageert. Zou nog zo maar eens de Republikeinen de winst kunnen opleveren als Obama niet stevig optreedt...gezien de grote populariteit van Israel in de States (als ik het goed heb begrepen).

Jurriën stelt de vraag los van politieke redenen. M.i. is jouw antwoord gebaseerd op politieke redenen.

[Jah]

Of neemt Israel in de nabije toekomst de gok dat Uncle Sam wel zal komen helpen als Israel een aanval doet ?.

Het heeft inderdaad de steun van Amerika nodig, maar Israel weet ook dat de VS bij zal moeten springen mocht Israel tot eenzijdige actie overgaan. Daar bestaat geen twijfel over. Het zal wellicht een diplomatieke rel veroorzaken, maar 'In the heat of the moment' zal de VS Israel onvoorwaardelijk steunen. Je kan daarom stellen dat Israel de VS in een soort morele gijzeling heeft. Wat Mearsheimer en Walt ook wel als 'the tail wagging the dog' beschreven. Het is niet de hond die de staart beweegt, maar andersom.

[Elzenga]

Los van politieke redenen: wat is ook al weer "the window of opportunity"?

Vlak voor de Amerikaanse presidentsverkiezingen bijvoorbeeld....en dan zien hoe Obama reageert. Zou nog zo maar eens de Republikeinen de winst kunnen opleveren als Obama niet stevig optreedt...gezien de grote populariteit van Israel in de States (als ik het goed heb begrepen).

[jurrien visser (JuVi op Twitter)]

Of neemt Israel in de nabije toekomst de gok dat Uncle Sam wel zal komen helpen als Israel een aanval doet ?.

Daar zullen ze of vanuit gaan....of zal al de bedoeling zijn...of zal het gevolg worden van een eenzijdige Israelische aanval. In die zin heeft Israel de VS mijns inziens in de tang en moet de VS veel drukmiddelen gebruiken om Israel in toom te houden en tegemoet te komen. De grote vraag is wat men te winnen heeft bij zo'n aanval en de oorlog die daarop zal volgen. Ik zie voor met name rechts Israel de nodige voordelen (om wat problemen "op te lossen"). Maar misschien wacht men daar even af of Obama opnieuw president wordt of dat er een meer meewerkende Republikein aan de macht komt in de VS.

Los van politieke redenen: wat is ook al weer "the window of opportunity"?

[Elzenga]

Of neemt Israel in de nabije toekomst de gok dat Uncle Sam wel zal komen helpen als Israel een aanval doet ?.

Daar zullen ze of vanuit gaan....of zal al de bedoeling zijn...of zal het gevolg worden van een eenzijdige Israelische aanval. In die zin heeft Israel de VS mijns inziens in de tang en moet de VS veel drukmiddelen gebruiken om Israel in toom te houden en tegemoet te komen. De grote vraag is wat men te winnen heeft bij zo'n aanval en de oorlog die daarop zal volgen. Ik zie voor met name rechts Israel de nodige voordelen (om wat problemen "op te lossen"). Maar misschien wacht men daar even af of Obama opnieuw president wordt of dat er een meer meewerkende Republikein aan de macht komt in de VS.

[Ros]

Of neemt Israel in de nabije toekomst de gok dat Uncle Sam wel zal komen helpen als Israel een aanval doet ?.

[jurrien visser (JuVi op Twitter)]

Weinig verrassend nieuws....lijkt me een logische reactie. Omgekeerd zou men hetzelfde doen.

Idd weinig nieuws onder de zon. Wel blijven de Amerikanen op alle fronten versterkingen aanvoeren, voor wat het waard is (op dit moment)

[Elzenga]

Weinig verrassend nieuws....lijkt me een logische reactie. Omgekeerd zou men hetzelfde doen.

[Ros]

Iran dreigt met vergelding op Amerikaanse bases

TEHERAN - Als Iran door het Westen wordt aangevallen kan Teheran binnen enkele minuten vergeldingsaanvallen uitvoeren op Amerikaanse bases in de regio en op Israël.

Dat heeft het Iraanse persbureau Fars woensdag gemeld.

Generaal Ami Ali Hajizadeh van de Iraanse Republikeinse Garde zei tegen Fars dat de Amerikaanse bases en Israël, wat hij bezette gebieden noemt, binnen het bereik van Iraanse raketten liggen.

"We hebben stappen genomen zodat we al deze bases in de eerste minuten van een aanval kunnen uitschakelen", aldus Hajizadeh.

www.nu.nl

[jurrien visser (JuVi op Twitter)]

Russia threatens to sell deadly missiles to Iran

Bloomberg News

MOSCOW — Russia may scrap its ban on S-300 antiaircraft missile sales to Iran if Syrian President Bashar Assad is replaced, said Ruslan Pukhov, who heads a Russian defense think tank.

Then-President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree prohibiting the sale of Russian weapons, including S-300s, to Iran in 2010 after the United Nations imposed sanctions against the Islamic republic. Iran has sued Russia for breach of contract.

"The S-300 ban was a political decision and these systems are not actually subject to sanctions," Pukhov, director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies in Moscow, said in an interview Tuesday. "If the Syrian regime is changed by force or if Russia doesn't like the outcome" of a peaceful transition to a new government, "it most likely will respond by selling S-300s to Iran."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, along with his counterparts from the United States, Britain, France and China, endorsed a United Nations plan for political transition in Syria on Saturday. Lavrov said the road map doesn't imply Assad's ouster and Russia says it will continue to block efforts in the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions on Syria to force him out.

Assad's government is fighting a growing insurrection in which as many as 17,000 people have died in the last 16 months, according to non-governmental organizations. At least 114 people were killed in Syria Monday, the Local Coordination Committees in Syria said in an e-mail.

"The fall of the Syrian government would significantly increase the chances of a strike on Iran," said Pukhov, who also sits on a Defense Ministry advisory board. "Resuming S-300 shipments to Iran may be a very timely decision."

Western powers say the Persian Gulf nation is hiding a nuclear-weapons program, and the United States and Israel have declined to discount the possibility of military strikes against its atomic installations.

Due to the export ban on S-300 exports to Iran Russia lost about $1 billion dollars, according to Pukhov's think tank. Russia built Iran's $1 billion Bushehr atomic plant, the country's first, and the country has said it would like to order new Russian-made nuclear power stations.

After shipments of S-300 were stopped in 2009, Iran also canceled talks on buying 40 TU-204 passenger aircraft, which would have added about $3.5 billion of revenue, CAST says.

President Vladimir Putin may resume shipments to Iran in retaliation for the U.S. selling weapons to Georgia and at the same time to promote Russia as an arms exporter, Pukhov said.

"Russia needs to bolster its image as an exporter as a decline in weapons exports is inevitable" because the country "is fulfilling its contract obligations in arms trade quicker than it gets new contracts," he said.

Russia has signed export contracts worth $5.7 billion this year, up from $3.3 billion in the first half of 2011, Putin said. It shipped $6.5 billion of defense equipment overseas in the first half of 2012, up 14 percent from a year earlier.

Arms exports more than doubled to $13.7 billion in 2011 from $6 billion in 2005 and exceeded $44 billion over the last seven years, Putin said on July 2 in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Defense accounts for 2.5 percent of Russian exports.

Fifty-five countries including India, China, Venezuela, Syria and the U.S. buy Russian weapons. Sales of new-generation air defense system S-400s to China may begin as early as 2015, Pukhov said.

In Syria, Putin has focused on negotiations over sanctions or military intervention after Russia lost billions of dollars of arms and civilian contracts as a result of the Arab Spring uprisings that toppled autocratic regimes in the region.

Since 2006 Syria signed with Russia arms contracts for about $5.5 billion, according to CAST estimates. In 2012, Syria is due to receive Russian weapons for about $500 million, CAST estimates.

Russia has contracts with Syria to deliver fighter jets, antiaircraft systems and anti-tank systems, according to Pukhov's think tank. Vyacheslav Davidenko, a spokesman for Rosoboronexport, Russia's arms export monopoly, declined to comment

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20120703/NEWS02/120709973

[jurrien visser (JuVi op Twitter)]

US moves military to Gulf

Washington, July 03, 2012

The US has moved more warships and fighter aircraft to the Persian Gulf to keep the strategic Straits of Hormuz open and strike deep within Iran if the stand-off over its nuclear programme escalates.

Quoting senior American officials, The New York Times said the new deployment to bolster military presence in the gulf is aimed at reassuring Israel that Washington is serious about neutralising Iran's nuclear ambitions.

The reports of the US moving new forces to the region came as Tehran announced that it had test-fired a new range of ballistic missiles capable of striking Israel. Iranian news agency IRNA said Iran's revolutionary guards had fired missiles in the Kavir Desert in central Iran to show its ability to hit back, if attacked.

IRNA also said that along with the medium range Shahab-3, Iran had also test-fired 300-500 km strike distance Shahab-1 and Shahab-2 missiles.

The Times quoted senior US officials as saying that Washington was determined to keep the strategic waterway open at all costs. "The message to Iran is, 'Don't even think about it'," a defence department official said.

"Don't even think about closing the strait. We'll clear the mines. Don't even think about sending your fast boats out to harass our vessels or commercial shipping. We'll put them on the bottom of the gulf," the official said.

Times said since late spring, stealth F-22 and older F-15C warplanes had moved into two separate bases in the Persian Gulf to bolster the combat jets already in the region and the carrier strike groups that are on constant tours of the area.

These new deep penetration strike aircraft give the US military greater capability against coastal missile batteries that could threaten shipping, as well as the reach to strike other targets deeper inside Iran.

Iran has threatened to close the strategic Straits of Hormuz at the entrance to the oil-rich Gulf if its nuclear programme is targeted by air strikes. With an eye on the threat of Iran, the US administration is also seeking to expand military ties with the six nations in the Gulf Cooperation Council: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and Oman.

West dragging its feet at N-talks: Iran

Iran on Wednesday accused world powers of dragging their feet in negotiations over its nuclear activities, as both sides were about to hold a new, downgraded round of talks in Istanbul.

Foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told a weekly briefing that, if the powers ignored Iran's nuclear "rights" and failed to bargain on equal terms, the negotiations could lead to an "impasse".

"All that can reinforce the idea that there is a desire to drag out the negotiations or prevent their success," he said.

He also said to reporters after the briefing that "illogical, irresponsible" Western sanctions "amount to a hostile act against Iran and its national interests."

http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/Americas/US-moves-military-to-Gulf/Article1-882881.aspx