Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Means Business!

Straight from Fox News: “A doctor who exposed the torture of jailed protesters in Iran died of poisoning from an overdose of a blood pressure drug in a salad, prosecutors say. The findings fueled opposition fears that he was killed because of what he knew.

Investigators are still trying to determine whether his death was a suicide or murder, Tehran’s public prosecutor Abbas Dowlatabadi said, according to the state news agency IRNA.

The 26-year-old doctor, Ramin Pourandarjani, died on Nov. 10 in mysterious circumstances — with authorities initially saying he was in a car accident, had a heart attack or committed suicide.

Pourandarjani was a doctor at Kahrizak, a prison on Tehran’s outskirts where hundreds of opposition protesters were taken after being arrested in the crackdown following June’s disputed presidential elections. The facility became so notorious that it was ordered shut down by Iran’s supreme leader as reports of abuse and torture became an embarassment to the clerical rulers and security forces.

Pourandarjani later testified to a parliamentary committee and reportedly told them that one young protester he treated died from heavy torture.

The young physician died from an overdose of propranolol in a delivery salad, Dowlatabadi said Tuesday. Propranolol is used to treat high blood pressure, rapid heart rate and tremors, and can be lethal in high doses.

Investigators questioned the restaurant delivery man but he is not under arrest, Dowlatabadi said. The delivery man said he gave the salad directly to Pourandarjani, describing how the doctor took it from him at the door of his room, then closed the door behind him. The report did not say where the doctor was at the time.

Forensic tests showed that the doctor died of “poisoning by drugs” that matched the propranolol found in the salad, Dowlatabadi said. “A large number of these pills must be used for a person to pass away from them,” he said.

Last week, Iran’s top police commander, Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam, insisted the death was a suicide, saying the doctor faced charges over failure to fulfil his duties to treat the detainees and killed himself in despair in a lounge at the courthouse. The police chief said a note was found with the body.

Moghaddam’s comments, more than a week after the death, were the first public word that Pourandarjani faced any charges — or of where he died.

One pro-reform lawmaker dismissed the claims and suggested a link to the torture at the prison.

“It is impossible to accuse him of suicide,” said Masood Pezeshkian, the pro-opposition Web site Roozonline reported Wednesday. “The idea of suicide by someone who had no problems and no serious disease — and was present during the events at Kahrizak — seems questionable to us.”

The doctor’s father, Reza-Qoli Pourandarjani, told The Associated Press last month that he didn’t believe any of the causes given so far by the government in his son’s death. But he didn’t go as far as accusing anyone of killing him.

“Just the night before his death, my child talked to me on the phone, it was around 8 or 9 p.m. He sounded great, very dignified, displaying no sign of someone about to commit suicide,” he said in a telephone interview from his home in Tabriz in northwestern Iran.

“He was even full of hope,” and making plans with friends, the father said.

The next day, the elder Pourandarjani received a call from the commander of Tehran’s security forces informing him that his son was in a car accident with a broken leg and needed his consent to have surgery. When he traveled to Tehran, “we found out that that wasn’t the case,” the father said.

Several opposition Web sites raised concerns that Pourandarjani was killed because he knew the conditions of a number of torture victims at Kahrizak, including 24-year-old Mohsen Rouhalamini, the son of a prominent conservative figure. Rouhalamini’s death in late July was the main factor raising anger among government supporters over the abuse.

Hundreds of protesters and opposition activists were arrested in the crackdown that suppressed protests following the disputed June 12 presidential election. The opposition says at least 69 people were killed while the government has confirmed around 30 deaths.

More than 100 protesters, activists and pro-reform opposition have been on trial, accused of fueling the protests and being part of a plot to overthrow the government.”

Ahmadinejad Taunts

Straight from the Debka File: “Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday, Dec. 2, that Iran will enrich uranium to 20 percent. His latest show of defiance, focusing on the US and Israel, follows Tehran’s announcement of plans to build another 10 enrichment plants capable of producing 300 tons of enriched uranium a year in response to the UN nuclear watchdog’s censure of its second enrichment plant near Qom.

The building of two new plants will begin in two months.

Deliberately taunting Israel, he said in a speech from Isfahan broadcast live by state television: “The Zionist regime is nothing. Even its masters cannot do a damn thing.” For Tehran the nuclear issue is “over.” The Islamic republic will “not back down from its rights.”

On his visit to Isfahan, site of a nuclear fuel plant, Ahmadinejad said: “The Iranian nation will by itself make the 20 percent (nuclear) fuel (enriched uranium) and whatever it needs,” after threatening: “Any finger which is about to pull the trigger will be cut off.”

The western powers would not be able to isolate Iran, he said, and dismissed the possibility of a military attack.

Tehran has turned down the international offer for Russia to convert 70 percent of Iran’s low-grade enriched uranium into fuel for medical research; France was to have neutralized its possible conversion into weapons-grade material. Now, Ahmadinejad accused the Western powers and Israel of using against Tehran what he called an Iranian proposal to trade its low-enriched uranium in return for 20 percent enriched material.

Tension between Tehran and the world powers has heightened over this controversy.

DEBKAfile adds: The centrifuge technology that increases the concentration of U-235 isotopes up to the 5-20 percent level can also be used to increase it to nuclear-weapons grade. It is a question of intent.”

Straight from the Debka File: “Tehran may well break off cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency-IAEA and withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty after the IAEA’s 35-nation board of governors Friday, Nov. 27 approved a resolution voicing serious concern about its failure to comply with international obligations and referring the issue to the UN Security Council. The resolution carried by 25:3 called on Iran to halt the construction of its second enrichment site at Fordo near Qom and declare its other covert nuclear sites. All five UN Security Council permanent members supported the censure, including Russia and China.

The White House commented that time is running out for Iran. A US official spoke of a “package of consequences” if Iran’s non-compliance continues.

Capping his 12-year tenure, the retiring IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei was forced to admit Thursday, Nov. 26 that his efforts to work with Iran had reached “a dead end.” He told the agency’s board of governors: “There has been no movement on remaining issues of concern which need to be clarified for the agency to verify the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program.”

Therefore, DEBKAfile’s sources report, by entering into negotiations with the big powers this summer – which led nowhere, then signaling its acceptance in principle of his proposal to send 70 pc of its enriched uranium overseas to be reprocessed for medical research – then backing off, Iran gained most of 2009 for developing its nuclear weapon program in peace and quiet.

Tehran will most likely make its response typically ambivalent. But by quitting the NPT, Iran would free itself of international obligations with regard to its nuclear activities. Our sources note that this will not change much. Anyway, while holding talks on its program with six world powers and throwing an occasional bone to IAEA inspectors, Tehran does as it pleases and conceals most of its nuclear activities heedless of world censure.

In his parting words to the IAEA governors, ElBaradei said that in his view, “the proposed agreement (for overseas enrichment) presented a unique opportunity after many years of animosity and hostility to… create a space for negotiation. This opportunity should be seized,” he said in a last appeal to Tehran, “and it would be highly regrettable if it was missed.”

This was his final admission that the agency had failed in all its efforts to open up the Iranian program to controls and inspection, just as it failed to prevent North Korea from building its nuclear arsenal. Nonetheless, the United States and most other world powers connived with Dr. ElBaradei to blind the world to the true state of Iran’s rogue program. They even gave up clamoring for a halt in uranium enrichment as a precondition for negotiations.

For weeks now, they played along with director’s obfuscation tactics and insisted Iran had accepted the enrichment proposal, the sole outcome of the latest rounds of talks with Iran in Geneva and Vienna – even after Tehran deliberately missed the Oct. 23 deadline for its acceptance.

The IAEA director’s “dead end” statement applies equally to the six powers’ bid to engage Iran in negotiations on its nuclear program and the wholesale concealment of its activities. Israeli leaders, including president Shimon Peres, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, defense minister Ehud Barak, presented an equally false face when they reiterated that Iran’s nuclear aspirations are the business of the international community rather than Israel. They knew all the time that world powers were spending more time fabricating a false picture of Iran’s nuclear attainments the facts than dealing with them. The IAEA director has finally come clean for them all.”

"My miss-iles will be diss big!"

Straight from the BBC News: “Iran’s government has approved plans to build 10 new uranium enrichment plants, according to state media.

The government told the Iranian nuclear agency to begin work on five sites, with five more to be located over the next two months.

It comes days after the UN nuclear watchdog rebuked Iran for covering up a uranium enrichment plant.

The White House said the move was “yet another serious violation of Iran’s clear obligations”.

Meanwhile, Britain described the news as “a matter of serious concern” and potentially a “deliberate breach” of UN resolutions.

Western powers say Iran is trying to develop nuclear arms. Iran says its nuclear programme is peaceful.

ANALYSIS
Jon Leyne, BBC Tehran correspondent Iran says the purpose is to produce peaceful nuclear power. But the country’s first nuclear power station at Bushehr is still under construction and others remain on the drawing board. Under this plan, Iran would increase its production of enriched uranium from just under one metric tonne last year, to up to 300 metric tonnes a year. It’s hard to see how this quantity of enriched uranium would be needed any time soon, especially as the fuel for the Bushehr reactor is supplied by Russia. President Ahmadinejad is also calling for his cabinet to approve a move to increase the enrichment to 20%, up from 5%. The aim, presumably, would be to supply the Tehran research reactor, following the breakdown of an international deal to provide fuel for it. But some Western analysts say Iran does not possess the technical know-how to fabricate fuel rods for the reactor.

The country insists it is only doing what is allowed under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

But a UK Foreign Office spokesman said: “Reports that Iran is considering building more enrichment facilities are clearly a matter of serious concern.

“It would be a deliberate breach of five UN security council resolutions. We will need to consider our response.”

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement: “If true, this would be yet another serious violation of Iran’s clear obligations under multiple UN Security Council resolutions and another example of Iran choosing to isolate itself.

“Time is running out for Iran to address the international community’s growing concerns about its nuclear programme.”

‘Hard line’

BBC Tehran correspondent Jon Leyne says Iran’s move is a massive act of defiance that is likely to bring forward a direct confrontation over Iran’s nuclear programme.

The West will fear this move will speed up Iran’s ability to make a nuclear bomb, our correspondent adds.

President Ahmadinejad’s immediate purpose may be to up the stakes in the diplomatic standoff, and use the issue to try to consolidate his position at home.

By taking such a hard line, the president could outmanoeuvre critics trying to use the nuclear issue against him, our correspondent adds.

Iran says the new plants would be of a similar size to its main existing one at Natanz.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told his cabinet that parliament had ordered that Iran should produce 20,000 megawatts of nuclear energy by 2020.

It therefore needed to make 250-300 tonnes of nuclear fuel a year, he said, which would require 500,000 centrifuges for enriching uranium.

Natanz has nearly 5,000 working centrifuges, with plans to build 54,000 in all.

Under the plan Mr Ahmadinejad presented to the cabinet, the level of enrichment would also be increased.

On Friday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) passed a resolution that was heavily critical of Iran for covering up a uranium enrichment plant near the town of Qom.

Earlier on Sunday it was reported that the Iranian parliament had urged President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government to reduce co-operation with the IAEA.”

Ahmadinejad is full of love

Straight from the Debka File: “Reduced Iranian cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency is the least of the troubles Tehran has in store for the West. The Iranians are incandescent over the nuclear watchdog’s rebuke Friday, Nov. 27 for its cover-up of the uranium enrichment plant at Fordo and demand to halt its construction.

Its latest gesture of defiance was the approval late Sunday, Nov. 29 of 10 new uranium enrichment installations, with construction on five starting immediately.

DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources report that earlier Sunday, Tehran moved toward a military confrontation with the United Sates and Britain when its parliament earmarked $20 million to support “progressive currents which resist US and UK illegal activities.” The motion also ordered an investigation of alleged “US and British plots against the Islamic Republic.”

Our Iranian and counter-terror sources report that Tehran is acting to broaden its support of terrorist movements by bringing additional armed Islamist and insurgent groups into its support cycle as a means of forcing Washington and London to ease the pressure on its uranium enrichment projects and nuclear bomb program. Tehran classifies the groups combating the West in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia as “progressive.” The West may therefore be faced with newly-empowered armed groups in those places including possibly Taliban and al Qaeda allies.

The US and UK are specifically targeted by the new measure, which is separate from Iran’s sponsorship of Hizballah and the Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad Islam and their armed confrontation against Israel.

Until now, Washington acted on the assumption that Iran would resort to military action only in reprisal for an attack on its nuclear installations. The main argument against an Israeli strike centered on it exposing US interests to the danger of Iranian retaliation.

The Iranian parliamentary motion is therefore an eye-opener because it means that Tehran is not waiting idly to be attacked but is already on the move to pre-empt international pressure on its nuclear activities by setting in motion covert and subversion operations against its foremost adversaries.

The new law authorizes clandestine Iranian agents to funnel funds directly to “progressive” armed groups willing to directly confront the US and Britain.

The bill also taps funds to “confront plots and unjust restrictions” by the Washington and London against Tehran and to disclose “human rights abuses by the two countries.”

DEBKAfile’s sources quote Iranian sources as claiming they have evidence that the American CIA and British MI6 are secretly backing the subversive operations carried out against the regime in Tehran by Iranian opposition and ethnic movements, including the Baluchistani Gundallah, the Arabic Khuzestan Liberation movement and the Iranian Kurdish PAJK separatists.

The new legislation and allocations are therefore a signal from Tehran to Washington and London that as long as they conduct covert subversive operations against the Islamic Republic, Iran will retaliate in kind in their arenas.

Our intelligence sources report that the Revolutionary Guards terrorist arm, the al Qods Brigades, is well prepared for this covert campaign having in the past year established Arab, Baluchi, Kurdish, Turkmen and Azeri fighting units for infiltrating those arenas and joining forces with indigenous anti-West militias.”

Iran President Ahmadinejad

Straight from Fox News: “Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday that the threat of a U.S. or Israeli military strike against Iran was no longer an issue because “they don’t have the courage” to attack Iran.

“The age of military attacks is over, now we’ve reached the time for dialogue and understanding. Weapons and threats are a thing of the past,” the Iranian president said at a joint press conference with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, closing his one-day visit.

Iran’s leader got a welcoming bear hug from the Brazilian president, who urged Western nations to drop threats of punishment over the Iranian nuclear program and instead negotiate a fair solution.

Fielding a question on whether he feared an attack from Israel or the U.S., Ahmadinejad said a military strike was no longer a possibility.

That’s clear “even for mentally challenged people,” he said with a smile, AFP reported.

Besides, he added, “those you mention [Israel and the U.S.] don’t have the courage to attack Iran. They’re not even thinking about it.”

The Iranian and Brazilian presidents didn’t say whether they discussed Iranian military exercises that started Sunday, adding to Mideast tensions and driving oil prices higher as an Iranian air force commander boasted Iran could deter any military strike by Israel.

Ahmadinejad didn’t utter the word Israel during his comments, but said Iran wants a Middle East with “prosperity, progress and security for all nations.” In the past, he has called for the destruction of Israel, which has voiced concern about Iran’s push in Latin America.

Silva, who also called for diplomacy to push for peace in the Middle East and ease tensions between Iran, the U.S. and other nations, again defended Iran’s right to have a peaceful nuclear program.

Commenting after talking privately for three hours Monday with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — the first Iranian leader to visit Brazil since pro-U.S. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi came in 1965 — Silva also said Iran should negotiate with the West to find a “just and balanced” solution to concerns over its nuclear program.

Ahmadinejad made no promises and defiantly said Iran would try to improve its uranium-enrichment technology if it can’t buy enriched uranium abroad.

“If the people ask us to produce ourselves, we should do it, and the opportunity we tried to create for the other side will be lost,” said Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly denied allegations by Washington and its European allies that Iran is trying to build atomic weapons. Iran insists its program is aimed only at generating electricity with nuclear reactors.

Last week, Iran said it would not send its enriched uranium for further processing in other nations, effectively rejecting a proposal by U.N. officials to allay worries the Iranians are developing atomic weapons. The fuel rods that would have been produced abroad under the plan can power reactors, but cannot be readily turned into weapons-grade material.

Ahmadinejad’s visit with Silva was condemned by U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel, a New York Democrat who is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. He said Silva made a “serious error” in meeting with the Iranian leader.

The session was significant because Silva is a center-leftist viewed by Washington as a counterweight to more strident leftists in South America, such as the leaders of Bolivia and Venezuela who have been firm supporters of Iran.

Ahmadinejad planned to head to Bolivia on Tuesday. In addition to having a private lunch with Bolivian President Evo Morales, he was scheduled to inaugurate a hospital and, via video conference, open two milk-processing plants that Iran donated to the poor country.

Iran has also donated equipment for a state-run TV station, sold Bolivia 700 tractors made in Venezuela and provided financing for two state-run cement plants. In addition, Iran approved a $280 million low-interest loan for Bolivia that Morales can use as he sees fit, Iran’s diplomatic representative, Masoud Edrisi, told The Associated Press in July.

Commenting on the fate of three American hikers detained in Iran, Ahmadinejad said it is up to the judicial system to determine whether they will be released or punished, although he said he hoped any punishment would not be severe.

The Americans were detained after they crossed an unmarked border into Iran while hiking in northern Iraq in July. The U.S. says the three were innocent tourists on an adventure hike and accidentally crossed into Iran.

“We are not happy with them making this big mistake. They are now in the hands of our judiciary,” Ahmadinejad told reporters. “A judge will decide about their situation. We hope the sanction will not be too heavy.”

Relatives of the hikers appealed to Iranian authorities to show compassion.

“We don’t understand why this case remains unresolved with no sign of progress,” said the statement from the families of Josh Fattal, Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd. “We very much hope the authorities will show compassion, as the president said, and release our loved ones. It’s been too long.”"

Russian S-300 Missile System - Not yours Iran!

Straight from the Debka File: “Iran launches its huge Modafean-e (Defenders) Aseman-e-Velayat air defense exercise Sunday, Nov. 22, to protect its nuclear sites, after failing to persuade Russia to deliver the linchpin of its air defenses, S-300 missiles. For two weeks, high-ranking Iranian politicians and generals bombarded Moscow to make good on its contract to supply the key weapon, to no avail. Saturday, Nov. 21, Iran’s air force commander Brig. Gen. Ahmad Mighani spoke at length about the highly sophisticated S-300, without which, DEBKAfile’s military sources say, Iran has no real defense against US and Israeli aerial or missile strikes against its nuclear installations.

Iran will hold its war games in the western and southern regions, which Iran estimates will be selected by the Americans and Israelis for attack, and cover an area of 600,000 sq. km. Iranian warplanes will simulate enemy jets zooming in to strike.

Our sources report that, aside from the Russian-made Tor-M 1 short-range interceptor, Iran’s air defense systems are outdated and pretty useless against US stealth bombers or the Israeli air force’s electronic jamming instruments. Syria likewise lacked the weapons for stopping Israel attack its North-Korean-made nuclear reactor two years ago. The Iranian air force has nowhere near the capacity to take on US or Israeli air might.

Lacking the crucial S-300, a senior Revolutionary Guards officer was reduced to threatening: “If Israel attacks Iran, Iranian missiles will explode in the heart of Tel Aviv!”

Iranian strategists are trying to make do with four devices:

1. As many nuclear installations as possible are being moved to secret subterranean sites – among them most of the research laboratories working on the development of nuclear weapons and missiles.

2. Bogus installations have been planted not far from genuine plants to mislead assailants.

3. Tehran’s most powerful defense is the deterrent strength of its ballistic missiles and the missiles distributed to its Middle East allies, Syria, the Lebanese Hizballah and the Palestinian Hamas. Therefore, Iran’s first response to attack will not be to attack Israeli population centers as the Revolutionary Guards officer threatened, but to strike the home bases of its air force, missile and radar as well as the Israel-based US military facilities, so that Israeli warplanes will have no facilities to come back to and its missiles are knocked off their launch pads.

4. Iran’s means its air defense war game as a rejoinder for the joint US-Israel Juniper Cobra 10 anti-ballistic exercise which took place for two weeks earlier this month. Iran’s leaders had to make good on their vow not to leave any American or Israeli military step in the region unanswered, although the anti-air exercise will expose the big hole in their defenses. Even if every last anti-air measure and device they possess is deployed, Iran’s nuclear facilities will still be susceptible to attack, be they the uranium enrichment center at Natanz, the Isfahan fuel plants in Isfahan, the facilities in northern Tehran, or the reactors going up in Arak opposite the Straits of Hormuz.”

The Iranian Air Force

Straight from the Debka File: “From the word go on Sunday, Nov. 22, Iran’s five-day drill demonstrated that its air force and air defense units were unequal to their mission of keeping the skies over its nuclear sites clear of incoming strike aircraft, DEBKAfile’s military and Iranian sources report.

This was quickly borne in on Gen. Ahmad Mighani, air force chief and commander of five-day air defense exercise and the officers at the Khatam ol-Anbia air force base, headquarters of the exercise in the southern province of Khuzestan.

The first stage of the three-part war game Sunday and Monday was devoted to preventing hostile bombers from reaching nuclear installations. Iranian Mirage F-1 fighters acted as strike craft while F-5 fighters – old American models and local products – were assigned defensive roles. However, the Mirages broke through Iranian radar systems, overwhelmed the defending craft in dogfights and seized command of the air space over the nuclear sites. In conditions of real war, therefore, Iran’s atomic installations would be destroyed in the first hours of an attack.

To raise the morale of the Iranian units who witnessed the debacle, Gen. Moghani gave them a pep talk before Monday’s drills began. He assured them that even if enemy aircraft were able to knock out the installations, while they were bombing Iran, their own bases would be destroyed.

His words confirmed DEBKAfile’s report Saturday, Nov. 20, that in the early stages of a war Tehran would focus on destroying Israeli air force, missile and radar facilities at home as well as the US military bases in Israel, rather than its cities.”

Straight from the Debka File: “DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the UN inspectors’ October visit to Iran turned up dual-track progress in support of its nuclear weapons program: Feverish activity was registered in the production of plutonium at Isfahan as an alternative to the Fordo enriched uranium plant near Qom which starts up in 2011.

The IAEA experts discovered 30 metric tons-IS of heavy water hidden in 600 tanks, each holding 13 gallons, according to the report they handed in last week to agency headquarters in Vienna.

From the shape of the tanks and other indications, the experts concluded that this stock had not come from the heavy water plant at Arak but was imported.

Metric tons-IS measure the amount of energy a given quantity can release. The force and types of nuclear bombs are gauged in kilotons or megatons. The American nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in World War II was equal to 20 kilotons of TNT. By this standard, the amount of heavy water discovered at Isfahan would be enough to make at least one plutonium bomb when the plutonium reactor under construction near the Arak heavy water facility is finished.

Other than its civilian uses, heavy water may be used to produce tritium, which intensifies the explosive force of nuclear warheads. The discovery of quantities of heavy water at Isfahan confirms the suspicions surrounding Iran’s nuclear program in three respects.

1. The long concealment of the Fordo site suggested to the UN inspectors that Iran has more hole-in the-corner nuclear facilities in the country. The discovery of a stock of heavy water further confirmed that Tehran is working hard to attain a nuclear weapon capacity on more than one track and at additional covert sites.

2. The IAEA wants to know who is selling Iran heavy water in violation of Security Council resolutions banning the sale or export of nuclear materials to Iran.

The very fact that some government or outside entity is willing to flout UN resolutions demonstrates that any further international sanctions would be ineffective for halting Iran’s nuclear drive, even assuming that President Barack Obama gained Russian and Chinese backing for such penalties. This backing has so far been withheld.

DEBKAfile’s sources report from Vienna that on November 10, IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei sent a request to the Iranian Nuclear Energy Committee asking it to confirm the presence of the heavy water and document its origin with a full explanation. Tehran has yet to reply.

3. The presence of the heavy water tanks at Isfahan is additional proof that the reactor at Arak is designed for military purposes, not a peaceful installation as Tehran claims.”

Straight from the Debka File: “Tuesday, Nov. 18, Egypt’s special forces and engineering units suddenly shut down operation against the smuggling tunnels to Gaza without warning to Washington or Jerusalem, DEBKAfile’s military sources report. US and Israeli requests for clarifications from Cairo, which must have ordered the stoppage, were not answered. So the Obama administration signaled Egypt that if it continues to violate the international accords governing the status of the Egyptian-Gazan border, there will be consequences.

Washington is put out particularly because Cairo did not bother to notify the American engineering corps officers and men working with Egyptian troops in Sinai since early 2009 in a concerted effort to eradicate the tunnels that their mission was cut short.

DEBKAfile’s Washington sources report that the congressional subcommittees responsible for approving US economic and military aid appropriations to Egypt have been informed of the Egyptian violation.

Our military sources report that the stoppage is pretty comprehensive:

1. Egyptian forces have been pulled out of northern Sinai and Rafah, the town split down the middle between Egyptian Sinai and the Gaza Strip and under which most of the smuggling tunnels run. The trucks carrying heavy weapons for the Palestinians in Gaza can now unload directly into the tunnel openings without interference.

2. The network of sensors and security cameras installed with the help of American military engineers in northern Sinai and along the Philadelphi border corridor were all deactivated as of last Tuesday.

3. The Egyptians discontinued a major project for driving huge iron beams 16 meters deep into the tunnels as an obstruction to traffic. Some of the shafts caved in.

4. Those beams were effective for disabling the 200-250 tunnels used to smuggle mostly civilian merchandise into the Gaza Strip because they are no more than 10-15 meters deep.

However, the roughly 50-60 “strategic tunnels” for the transportation of military hardware including heavy guns and missiles run 50-60 meters underground and are outside the range of the iron beams. They are moreover strong structures with reinforced concrete walls and ceilings, electric wiring, ventilation and safety hatches. Since the Egyptian troops’ unexplained pullback from their border positions, hardware has been passing through those conduits freely and straight into the hands of Palestinian terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip.”