Blast Kills 17 at Iranian Revolutionary Guards Arms Depot

The hits just keep on coming for Iran.

Iranian state media is reporting that at least 17 people, including a commander pivotal to Iran's missile development, were killed in an explosion at an arms depot some 30 miles northwest of Tehran. The blast took place in a facility belonging to Iran's Revolutionary Guards near the city of Keraj.

Windows in nearby buildings were shattered and the blast was heard in central Tehran, 40 km away.

Two hours after the explosion a fire still raged and there were traffic jams on nearby roads, a local reporter said.

The death toll was revised down from an earlier figure released by the Revolutionary Guards of 27.

Revolutionary Guards spokesman Ramezan Sharif did not say what had caused the "accident" in the village of Bidganeh, near the city of Karaj.

"Some of the casualties are reported to be in a critical condition," he said.

An emergency worker said that 12 people had been taken to hospital.

Karaj resident Kaveer told the BBC's Newshour programme that the sound was "deafening".

"We were kind of shocked. I just ran out of the house and looked around," he said.

General Hasan Moghaddam was among the 17 Revolutionary Guardsmen killed in this weekend's blast. Moghaddam was described as being one of the architechts of Iran's long-range missile program and was buried with full state honors at a funeral attended by Ayatollah Ali Khameni this week.

Although state-controlled media outlets report that the blast was an accident, reports suggest the Ayatollah Khameni's inner circle believe it was an act of sabotage carried out by Israel's Mossad intelligence agency.

The blast came just days before another computer virus targeting Iranian military computer networks was discovered. The virus is called Duqu by computer security experts and shares similar charachterisitics with the earlier Stuxtnet worm that disabled the centrifuges Iran was using to enrich uranium.

"We are in the initial phase of fighting the Duqu virus," said Gholamreza Jalali, the head of Iran's civil defence program. "The final report which says which organisations the virus has spread to and what its impacts are has not been completed yet. All the organisations and centres that could be susceptible to being contaminated are being controlled."

The Stuxnet virus altered the speed at which the enrichment centrifuges spun until they were out of control. It was so sophisticated that experts said it must have been the work of an advanced, probably national, sabotage program. Duqu operates differently, though using some of the same code to infiltrate computers, sending back information to its handlers rather than breaking down systems. The virus was spread through an infected Microsoft Word document.

Symantec, the computer security firm, which has led investigations into Stuxnet and Duqu, said the new virus seemed to be intended to gain remote access to computer systems.

Happening almost concurrently with the Keraj explosion, the son of former Revolutionary Guard commander was found dead in his Dubai hotel room.

Numerous Iranian media on Sunday reported the death of Ahmad Rezaie inside Hotel Gloria, a four-star hotel in the coastal United Arab Emirates city.

Khalil Ebrahim Al Mansouri, head of the Dubai police's criminal investigations department, said there is no criminal suspicion surrounding the man's death. Al Mansouri, quoting the dead man's brother, added that Ahmad suffered from epilepsy.

Yet Tabnak, a website owned by the dead man's father, Mohsen Rezaie, claimed that Ahmad "was killed under suspicious circumstances."

The same site noted that the death was "concurrent with the martyrdom of Mohsen Rezaie's comrades in arms" on Saturday, referring to an explosion at a military base near Tehran.

The Tabnak report did not elaborate on what connection, if any, existed between Ahmad Rezaie's death and the deadly explosion.

Shahram Gilabadi -- a spokesman for Iran's Expediency Council, of which Mohsen Rezaie is secretary -- told Tabnak, "The death is currently being investigated."

The semi-official Mehrs News Agency reported that Ahmad Rezaie died from an electric shock.

Mohsen Rezaie served for years as head of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards operates independently from other branches of the Iranian military, answering to the ruling clerics, commanding the 90,000 strong Basiij militia and controlling a financial portfolio thought to be worth US$8 billion of both military, civilian and black market assets.

All That Glitters: ATM in UAE Hotel Distributes Gold Bars

I. So. Freakin'. Want. This. [Actually I could've really used something like this when gold was running between $200 and $400 an ounce- NANESB!]

A luxury hotel in the United Arab Emirates has made available to its guests an ATM Machine that dispenses gold bars and customized gold coins. The machine, designed by German businessman Thomas Geissler, contains an internal computer that updates gold prices every 10 minutes while the exterior actually has a thin plating of gold. Geissler had decided to debut the machine in the United Arab Emirates because of the increasing demand for gold in the region.

Customers and guests at Abu Dhabi's Emirates Palace hotel can purchase coins or 10g bars (some with the Hotel's logo etched on them) by inserting drachma- the local currency- into the machine and choosing from a number of items on a touchscreen menu.

Geissler said that his Gold to Go company is close to completing a machine that would be able to accept credit cards as well. After debuting the golden ATM in the Emirates, Gold to Go installed at least a half dozen more machines in Germany as well as one each in Italy and Spain.

There are also plans to install gold ATMs in the USA at locations in Las Vegas and Florida, although Geissler hasn't disclosed the exact location yet.

Mail Bomb Sweep Halts Air Frieght Shipments From Yemen

Reports are circulating that authorities in the Arabian peninsula were tipped off to last week's parcel/airfreight bomb plot by a former Guantanamo Bay detainee and Al Qaeda member who wanted safe passage home from Yemen.

Both explosive devices, one discovered in Dubai and the other in the UK, were concealed in printer cartridges and contained the plastic explosive PETN- the same materiel the Christmas Day 'underwear bomber' attempted to unsuccessfully detonate on board a Northwest Airlines flight over Detroit late last year. The devices were wired to cell phones, timers and power supplies and were likely powerful enough to bring down the airliners carrying them and were in boxes addressed to Chicago, IL-area synagogues. It was unclear if the bombs were supposed to be detonated on board the aircraft or when they arrived on their destination.

Authorities in Yemen detained and released a 22 year old college student suspected of mailing the bombs when they concluded her identity was used by another individual on invoices recovered at the San'a Fed Ex office. They are also looking into two language schools in San'a that the suspected masterminds might have been associated with.

An official with Qatar Airways said that at least one of the explovisve-laden parcels arrived from the Yemeni capital to the airline's Doha, Qatar hub on a passenger flight before it was discovered in the United Arab Emirates.



Investigators in the UAE are also trying to trace the serial numbers on the phone and printer cartridges. The airflight plot was discovered nearly two months after the crash of a UPS cargo plane on approach to Dubai International Airport that killed the plane's two crew members. Officials from the UAE's General Civil Authority concluded that a fire in the cargo hold filled the cockpit with smoke that likely caused the September crash, although they don't belive it was a bomb that downed the cargo plane. The ill-fated UPS flight was carrying a large quantity of Lithium batteries, which may not have started the fire, but could explode if the fire had spread to them.

Meanwhile, Canada, the UK and Germany have halted airfrieght shipments from Yemen.

Explosives Bound for USA Discovered on Cargo Flights

Suspicious parcels discovered in airfreight shipments by authorities in the UK and United Arab Emirates prompted a terror alert in which UPS planes were grounded in Newark and Philadelphia.

Federal investigators were inspecting the contents of the grounded planes at Newark's Liberty airport and Philadelphia International based on concerns over a terrorist threat originating from Yemen.

The Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is suspected, and investigators are looking into whether the packages were part of a dry run for a future mail-bomb plot. A UAE official told the Associated Press late Friday that an "explosive device" in Dubai was found in a courier company's regional hub.

FedEx reported earlier that a suspicious package was found at its Dubai facility.

Another package, found on a UPS plane at East Midlands Airport in central England, contained what looked like a toner cartridge with white powder and wires coming out of it.

The Thursday night discoveries prompted U.S. authorities on Friday to sweep a UPS plane in Newark, N.J., two UPS planes in Philadelphia and two UPS trucks in New York City.

The planes in Philadelphia are still being investigated. The Newark flight and New York trucks have been cleared [snip].

Given the origin of the packages, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula "is at the top of the list" of suspects, a U.S. official told Fox News.

"Since two of the suspicious packages that were intercepted were addressed to religious institutions in Chicago, all churches, synagogues and mosques in the Chicago area should be vigilant for any unsolicited or unexpected packages, especially those originating from overseas locations," Chicago FBI spokesman Ross Rice said.

Federal law enforcement officials said the suspicious device that resembled a toner cartridge was removed from the a flight in a distribution center at East Midlands Airport in the U.K.

A crew member aboard a UPS plane arriving to Philadelphia from Paris later notified authorities on approach about a suspicious package. The crew member described a possible radiological component to the package, the incident report said. The two occupants safely exited the aircraft after landing in a remote area of the airport.

A second UPS plane was isolated near the UPS terminal at the Philadelphia airport before take off, the report said.

A third UPS plane, which arrived at Newark Liberty Airport from East Midlands in the U.K., was investigated, but UPS says it was cleared and proceeded on to Louisville, KY.

Two UPS trucks in Brooklyn and Queens, N.Y., were also investigated and cleared, officials said.

Law enforcement officials also are investigating a suspicious packages in Portland, Maine. No word on whether that package has any links to UPS or Yemen.

"As an additional safety measure, FedEx embargoed all shipments originating from Yemen," Maury Lane, spokesman for FedEx told Reuters.

Hamas Operative Slain in UAE; Priceline Negotiator Sought For Questioning

"You are an enemy of the State of Israel and must die! Also...you paid too much for this hotel room"

Apparently Hamas is finding out the hard way what happens when their leadership books their travel arrangements online.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — A Hamas leader assassinated during a visit to Dubai last month exposed himself to attack when he breached security protocol by talking about his trip over the phone and making hotel reservations on the Internet, the militant Islamic group said Saturday.

The methodical stalking and killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a luxury hotel room — widely been blamed on Israel's Mossad spy agency — has put Hamas on the defensive over purported security lapses..

[Oh no! And here I am with my world's smallest violin in the shop- NANESB!]

So if Hamas has members of their leadership whacked while travelling abroad after booking travel arrangements online, does that Orbitz guy in the hovercraft come by and cut them a check or something?

I actually have my doubts about Al-Mabhouh's killers working for the Mossad. It just seems a little too convenient, not to mention a little too sloppy for their agents to get caught on multiple surveillance systems. It could be a matter of infighting within the Palestinian Authority or Hamas' benefactors not being satisfied with the precipitous decline of dead Israeli civilians attributed to Hamas. Apparently Al-Mabhouh's killers also travelled on EU or United Kingdom-issued passports, which might be a little too complex to have originated from Gaza and brings us back to the possibility of a nation-state sponsored killing of Al-Mabhouh. Again, Israel seems like an obvious choice, but this could also be a matter of Hamas' nation-state sponsors choosing sides in an internal power struggle and helping Hamas leadership 'clean house'.

But with that in mind, has anybody seen William Shatner lately? I'm just sayin.....

[Hat tip: Jammie Wearing Fool]