November 27, 2011
TEHRAN
A
massive blast at a missile base operated by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps
nearly two weeks ago was the latest in a series of mysterious incidents
involving explosions at natural gas transport facilities, oil refineries and
military bases ~ blasts that have caused dozens of deaths and damage to key
infrastructure in the past two years.
Iranian
officials said the Nov. 12 blast at the missile base was an “accident,” and
they ruled out any sabotage organized by the United States and its regional
allies. The explosion on the Shahid Modarres base near the city of Malard was
so powerful that it shook the capital, Tehran, about 30 miles to the east.
Despite
the official denial of foreign involvement in the latest blast, suspicions have
been raised in Iran by what industry experts say is a fivefold increase in
explosions at refineries and gas pipelines since 2010.
Explaining
the increased number of industrial incidents is proving to be a predicament for
Iranian leaders, who do not want to appear vulnerable at a time when Israeli
leaders have been debating military intervention against Iran over its
controversial nuclear program.
Officials
have blamed industrial accidents for most the blasts, saying they were caused
by such deficiencies as “bad welding” or “substandard manufacturing.” But media
restrictions and the lack of independent investigations have made it hard to
verify the claims.
One
oil expert said that increasingly strict sanctions prohibiting Western
companies from maintaining key installations in Iran could also be to blame.
“Now,
many projects are finished by Iranian companies without observing safety standards,”
said Reza Zandi, an Iranian journalist who specializes in energy issues.
“There
is clearly an increase in incidents in recent years,” said Mohammad Abumohsen,
an inspector of oil and gas pipelines.
At
least 17 gas pipeline explosions have been reported since last year, compared
with three in 2008 and 2009. At the same time, nearly a dozen major explosions
have damaged refineries since 2010, but experts say it is complicated to
determine the cause of such incidents.
In
the United States, Republican presidential contenders have called for President
Obama to start covert action against Iran because of its refusal to stop
its uranium-enrichment program. U.S. officials suspect the program is aimed at
producing fissile material for nuclear weapons. Iran insists that it wants only
to make its own fuel for nuclear power plants.
Suspicions
that covert action might already be underway were raised when four key gas
pipelines exploded simultaneously in different locations in Qom Province in
April. Lawmaker Parviz Sorouri told the semiofficial Mehr News Agency that the
blasts were the work of “terrorists” and were “organized by the enemies of the
Islamic Republic.”
Iran
in recent years has improved its ability to hunt spies, using reviews of travel
and expense records to round up Iranians suspected of selling information to
U.S., British and Israeli intelligence services, the Associated Press reported
Monday.
In
May, Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi announced the arrest of 30 “CIA
spies” who he said had been recruited to map out Iran’s energy infrastructure.
“One
of their main objectives was carrying out sabotage activities,” Moslehi said,
according to the semiofficial Fars News Agency.
Iran’s
parliament launched an investigation into the blast at the missile site but did
not issue any findings this week as promised. One lawmaker, Mohammad Kazem
Hejazi, said revealing such information might give away secrets to the “enemy,”
the Iranian Labor News Agency reported Tuesday.
“We
are not ruling out sabotage in the Malard missile base,” said one source close
to the Revolutionary Guards, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the
sensitivity of the subject. “It is not impossible to bribe a single person into
doing something bad.”
On
Wednesday, an explosion rocked a stronghold in southern Lebanon of Iran’s
regional ally, Hezbollah, which is widely believed to be supplied with Iranian
missiles capable of hitting major urban centers in Israel. Hezbollah did not
comment on the cause of the blast but denied that it occurred at one of the
group’s arms depots, Beirut’s Daily Star newspaper reported.
Iran
has accused the United States and Israel of organizing the assassinations of
three nuclear scientists in Tehran since 2010. The government has also blamed
both countries for a computer virus called “Stuxnet,” which President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad acknowledged had disabled centrifuges used to enrich uranium.
In
a sign that relations between Iran and the West are further deteriorating,
Iran’s parliament voted Wednesday to consider expelling the British ambassador
to Tehran. The preliminary vote came after Britain on Tuesday joined the United
States and Canada in adopting new financial sanctions against the Islamic
Republic. If carried out, an expulsion could prompt other European countries to
withdraw their ambassadors, diplomatic sources said.
Noor, for some time - 2008 to the present - it was the Russians who were getting hit (Gazprom) with pipeline and plant explosions and the Chechen rebels claimed responsibility for some of it.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if any of this is sabotage. Iran, Turkey and Russia are all affected.
What I find more telling about all of it is that in the early 1990s the U.S. Congress sabotaged a private sector plan in the United States to help develop natural gas facilities and transportation in the Russian and surrounding region so as to "punish" the Russians for the Cold War. That was one of the stupidest moves the Congress has ever made and that is saying a lot. It drove the Russians into a sheer militarist attitude in many ways at that time. The project envisioned could have helped infrastructure from China to Europe and in between. The real reason for the neo-con Congress doing that was to pave the way for the Bush crime cartel to use their buddy Saddam Hussein to further the Oded Yinon plan in the Middle East. At that time it intensified the conditions that lend themselves to famine in China. It wounded the Russians and hamstrung the middle Europeans.
It gets overwhelmingly apparent, decade after decade, that the U.S. is furthering the worst of the colonialist adventures in the current age, in the worst style of the Brits in the 18th and 19th centuries.