Iran seems determined to put herself in Harm’s Way!
February 21, 2007
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
The weapons and training provided to Iraqi terrorists by Iran is causing the number of U.S. Choppers shot down to increase dramatically in Iraq.
This, coupled with Iranian war games performed in the Persian Gulf, has placed their military forces in close proximity
with ours, and this could trigger a war-producing incident. The three articles which follow describe this precarious situation.
Begin D EB
KAfile Report Number 1
DEBKAfile Reports: US troops may attack nuclear and military targets in neighboring Iran when a high-casualty attack is traced directly to Tehran
February 20, 2007, 11:59 AM (GMT+02:00)
This new presidential directive extends the license President George W. Bush issued last month to US troops to capture or kill Iranian agents supporting Iraqi insurgency and al Qaeda attacks on American forces.
It is causing great concern in Tehran’s ruling circles – especially as the new license may well be applied when the downing of a large US helicopter ends in a heavy US death toll.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that American commanders in Iraq are studying the innovative methods for shooting down US aircraft which Iranian Revolutionary Guards instructors are imparting to Iraqi insurgents.
Maj. Gen James E. Simmons, deputy commander of US forces in Iraq, describes multiple weapons systems fired at the same time as having brought down 7 American helicopters in the last month.
This, says Simmons, is the sign of “a thinking enemy” – although sometimes the insurgents appear to have got lucky and hit helicopters with automatic weapons fire as they chanced by.
The New York Times reports these multiple systems may include shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades – RPGs and unguided rockets that can’t be diverted by American helicopters’ anti-heat-seeking flares.
Our military sources say this mix of weaponry is designed to ambush the aircraft at any altitude chosen to escape the ground fire.
Under the new presidential directive, the downing of a helicopter carrying a large number
of US troops could trigger a bombing campaign against Iran such as, for example, the dispatch of long-range B2 stealth bombers with bunker-busting bombs for dropping on the 25m deep Natanz site, where centrifuges are positioned for enriching uranium.
Begin DEBKAfile Report Number 2
The carrier USS John C. Stennis arrives in the region Monday at the same time as Iranian war games
February 20, 2007, 10:46 PM (GMT+02:00)
Backed by a strike group with more than 6,500 sailors and marines as well as additional minesweeping ships, the Stennis joins the carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in line with President Bush’s orders for the build-up as a show of strength to Iran.
Top US Navy commander in the Middle East Vice Adm.
Patrick Walsh said Iran had brought its war games over the past year into the busy shipping lanes in the Straits of Hormuz, through which two-fifths of the world’ s oil
supplies pass. The moves have alarmed US officials about possible accidental confrontations that could boil over into war.
During maneuvers, Iranian sailors have loaded mines onto small mine-laying boats and test-fired a Shahab-3 missile into international waters, said the US vice admiral, very close to the straits,
Begin Excerpt from Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs Daily Alert
Iran Launches Large-Scale War Games
Ali Akbar Dareini
(AP/Washington Post)
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards began three days of ground maneuvers with an estimated 60,000 troops participating, state-run media reported Monday.
“All weapons possessed by the Guards’ ground force…including new weapons will be tested during the war games,” said Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi, commander of the Guards’ ground force.
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