ONE STEP CLOSER TO WAR!
September 2, 2007
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
The two changes made in the two articles, one from DEBKAfile and the other from the Jerusalem Post, do indeed seem to be changes in Iran and the Middle East which are drawing the area closer to War.
Begin Article 1 – DEBKAfile Exclusive
DEBKAfile Exclusive: Major shakeup in elite Revolutionary Guards executed by supreme ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Sept 1 takes Iran a step closer to war
September 1, 2007, 11:32 PM (GMT+02:00)
In a special decree, Khamenei suddenly sacked Gen.
Rahim Safavi and appointed Gen. Mohammad-Ali (Aziz) Jaafari, commander of missile forces, in his place as Revolutionary Guards chief.
Safavi was kicked upstairs as special security adviser to supreme ruler.
DEBKAfile’s Iranian sources disclose: Two years ago, Khamenei entrusted Jaafari, then commander of the corps’ ground forces, with charting a war strategy for the IRGC, the bulwark of the regime,
to meet a foreign attack on Iran. His formal task was to set up the corps’ “center for strategy,” which would be given “unlimited national resources in case of a foreign military confrontation.
The new center was mandated to “draw up the new strategy and the necessary changes to ensure rapid an efficient transformation of the country’s civilian infrastructure and resources to military footing under the control of the IRGC.”
Our sources that Khamenei has now assigned his most trusted adviser in the elite corps with taking supreme command of the IRGC and carrying out the strategy he developed.
This appointment takes Iran a step closer to armed conflict.
DEBKAfile’s sources note that the Revolutionary Guards bear responsibility for Iran’s national nuclear and missile programs. Last month, Washington indicated its intention to designate the IRGC as a global terrorist organization.
Begin Article Number 2 – The Jerusalem post
Iran claims reaching 3,000 centrifuges benchmark
AP andJPost.com Staff, THE JERUSALEM POST
September 2, 2007
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced Sunday that the Islamic Republic has attained its long sought after goal of running 3,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium for its controversial nuclear program, state media reported.
The UN Security Council had threatened to impose a third round of sanctions against the country if it didn’t freeze its uranium enrichment program which Iran maintains is for peaceful energy purposes, but the US says
is to hide a weapons program.
“The West thought the Iranian nation would give in after just a resolution, but now we have taken another step in the nuclear progress and launched more than 3,000 centrifuge machines, installing a new cascade every week,” the state television Web site
quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.
Meanwhile, the US has drawn up plans to destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities in three days by carrying out large-scale air strikes against over a thousand targets, a national security expert told the Sunday Times.
According to the report, Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, told the Times that the Pentagon plans to “take out the entire Iranian military” and was not interested in conducting “pinprick strikes” against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The US military, said Debat, arrived at the conclusion that “whether you go for pinprick strikes or all-out military action, the reaction from the Iranians will be the same… very legitimate strategic calculus.”
In related news, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei named a new head for the elite Revolutionary Guard, an organization Washington is looking to list as a terrorist group, state media announced.
No reason was given for the change Saturday and it was not clear if the reshuffle would affect the possible US move to pressure businesses the corps is thought to control, from construction to oil sectors. The United States accuses the Guard of responsibility for terrorist acts abroad and especially violence against American forces in Iraq.
Khamenei appointed Mohammed Ali Jafari, described only as a senior figure in the hardline force with “valuable experience and shining record,” to replace General Yahya Rahim Safavi, who has led the Guards for the last decade.
The decision comes two weeks after Safavi told the local press that the Guards would retaliate against Washington’s attempts to register it as terrorist.
“America will receive a heavier punch from the guards in the future,” he was quoted as saying on August 16 by t
he conservative daily Kayhan. “We will never remain silent in the face of US pressure and we will use our leverage against them.”
Safavi, meanwhile, was appointed in a separate decree as the supreme leader’ s top advi
ser.
Reshuffles of top military commanders take place with relative frequency among the other branches of the service but the Revolutionary Guards appeared to be the exception with Safavi’s decade-long tenure.
The estimated 200,000-strong Revolutionary Guards answers directly to Khamenei and is seen as a defender of the clerical establishment brought to power by
the 1979 Islamic revolution that swept away a pro-US regime.
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