Russia's Rouble Collapsing as Oil Prices in Freefall

As the price of oil plummeted to below $60 a barrel on increased Saudi production, Russia's already sluggish economy took a significant hit when Russia's central bank announced they would increase the key interest rate from 10.5% to 17% in a drastic move announced earlier this week.

The move was done in part to halt the Russian Ruble's drastic slide against the Dollar and Euro- as of Wednesday afternoon, the Ruble was trading at just over 60 to the dollar [down from 68 prior to interest rate hikes- NANESB!] and just under 75 to the Euro.

Although Russia has been on the receiving end of lukewarm sanctions from the USA and European Union after Russia annexed the Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine, it's apparent that the recently plummeting energy prices have played a role in Russia's latest economic crisis.

This leaves Putin with the difficult choice of trying to prop up the mostly resource-based Russian economy or continue his costly military campaign against the Ukraine [I'm of two minds on this- while I'm glad Putin's finally reeling after attacking a neighboring country unprovoked, let's also keep in mind that no matter how dangerous and belligerent a Kremlin flush with petrodollars was the Eastern Europe, an unstable Russia that feels it has nothing left to lose may end up being more dangerous to the region. Also, who's to say the contagion would be confined exclusively to Russia?- NANESB!].

A financial joke devised to poke fun at Putin comes true http://t.co/WNRH5tkHFo pic.twitter.com/3DigQSw7Qt

— The Political Hat (@ThePoliticalHat) December 16, 2014

Over the last several weeks, the implied rationale behind Saudi Arabia's increase in production was that they were attempting to undermine the fracking boom in the US and Canada, temporarily saturating the global market with cheap oil and making the labor intensive practice unprofitable for North American companies. While this strategy would mean the Saudis would lose money in the short-term, they would (in theory) benefit in the long run from reduced competition from oil shale in west Texas and North Dakota.

However, others have theorized that Russia was the intended target of a clandestine Saudi economic attack all along. With President Obama ignoring his own self-declared 'Red Line' in Syria and seeking rapprochement with Iran- despite the Islamic Republic's stated desire to obtain nuclear weapons- the Arabian kingdom has decided to act unilaterally and go after Syria and Iran's benefactor in Russia economically. If that is the case, then undercutting Russia's state-run Gazprom by flooding the global marketplace with cheap oil has proven devastatingly effective so far- moreso than tepid the tepid sanctions levied on Russia after invading the eastern Ukraine.

Whether it's to undercut Russia or the fracking boom in the USA, the Saudi strategy is sure to cause problems among other OPEC members who are just as reliant on oil as Russia and may not be able to ride out low prices like the House of Saud. Even more problematic for some OPEC nations such as Iran and Venezuela is that Russia is their primary benefactor.

The move by Russia's Central Bank comes a little over a month after Russia and China agreed to a lucrative $300B energy deal which would give China's quasi-state run China National Petroleum Corp a partial stake in west Siberian oil and gas fields. In October, China and Russia had signed an agreement to swap nearly $100B of currency, so China may be on the hook as well if the Ruble continues its collapse.

The rate increase has also triggered bickering amid Putin's inner circle and prompted many Russians swarming markets to buy goods before the prices went up.

Islamists Seize Control Of Northern Iraq, Move to Within 100km of Baghdad

Disturbing reports out of Iraq this week as fighters from the Islamic group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) swept through multiple cities in northern Iraq as security forces fled, in many cases leaving behind weapons, uniforms and vehicles for the battle-hardened terrorist group to use when further pressing their attack.

Iraqi forces were reportedly engaging ISIS fighters in Samarra while thousands of men in Baghdad turned up to volunteer to join the Army and halt the ISIS advance on the capital on Thursday. Cities captured in the ISIS offensive so far include Saddam Hussein's hometown of Fallujah, Ramadi, Tikrit and Iraq's second largest city- Mosul. According to Al Aan TV reporter Jenan Moussa, ISIS released statements through their twitter feed outlining strict new laws for the occupied cities that were to go into effect immediately- no alcohol, no tobacco, no firearms, women must cover up and only go outside 'when necessary'. The group has also promised to destroy shrines, monuments and graveyards and told Iraqi police and soldiers in the occupies territories to 'repent or die'. The International Business Times reports that ISIS may now be the wealthiest jihad group in the world after looting more than 500 Billion in Iraqi dinars (the equivalent of US$429 million) from Mosul's central bank.

Iran, which has considerable commercial and strategic interests in Iraq, reportedly sent the Quds unit of the Revolutionary Guards to help Noor Al-Maliki's government fight the emboldened ISIS movement as well as guard certain Shi'ite shrines from ISIS demolition. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Iranian officials authorized their Air force to bomb ISIS convoys if they come within 60 miles of the Iran-Iraq border.

Meanwhile, the Kurdish Peshmerga militia moved into positions abandoned by the retreating Iraqi Army in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. Although both Shiite and Sunnis are wary of Kurdish involvement in the conflict, the battle-hardened Peshmerga is the most cohesive fighting force remaining in Iraq to go up against ISIS.

ISIS was formed roughly three years ago in Syria's Civil War as one faction that took up arms against the Bashr Al-Assad regime. However, the group also battled with the more secular Free Syrian Army which was made up of deserters from Bashr Al-Assad's security forces. An Al Qaeda offshoot, ISIS seized large swaths of territory from both Assad's security forces and the Free Syrian Army in eastern Syria before turning their attention to Iraq earlier this year.

At Least 23 Reported Killed In Twin Bombings of Iran's Embassy in Lebanon

Hussein Mala/ AP

More islamist-on-islamist violence; almost certainly a spillover from the Syrian civil war.

Iran's cultural attaché to Lebanon was among more than 20 people reported killed in a terrorist attack targeting Iran's Embassy in the Lebanese capital of Beirut. Beirut is considered a stronghold of the Iranian-backed Islamic militia Hezbollah and their political arm collapsed the Lebanese government as recently as 2011.

A lesser-known Al Qaeda affiliated group called the Abdullah Azzam Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack, claiming the bombings were retaliation for Hezbollah and Iran's support for the government of Bashr Al-Assad in Syria. Forces loyal to Assad have been fighting deserters from the Syrian army and Al Qaeda-aligned militants in a grinding, prolonged insurgency that has dragged on for nearly two years.

A Lebanese security official said the first suicide attacker was on a motorcycle that carried two kilograms (4.4lbs) of explosives. He blew himself up at the large black main gate of the Iranian mission, damaging the three-story facility, the official said.

Less than two minutes later, a second suicide attacker driving a car rigged with 50 kilograms (110lbs) of explosives struck about 10 metres away, the official said.

Iranian Ambassador Ghazanfar Roknabadi identified the dead diplomat as Sheikh Ibrahim Ansari. Speaking to Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV, he said Ansari took his post in Lebanon a month ago and was overseeing all regional cultural activities.

Lebanese Health Minister Ali Hassan Khalil said 23 people were killed and 146 wounded in the blasts.

Syrian officials indirectly blamed Saudi Arabia.

'Each of the terrorist attacks that strike in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq reek of petrodollars,' a Syrian government statement said, in a clear reference to oil-rich Gulf Arab countries that have sided with the Syrian rebels.

'People aren't sacred anymore. We aren't safe,' said a mechanic whose store windows were shattered by the blasts.

He declined to be identified because he did not want to be seen as involved in sectarian tensions that have split the Lebanese over Syria's conflict.


'People fight outside (Lebanon), but send their messages through Lebanon. With bombs. It's their SMS service,' he added.

Lebanese security officials confirmed the two bombings were both suicide attacks. They spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Earlier this year, a car bombing in a Hezbollah-controlled suburb of Beirut killed 27 people and injured more than 300. Syrian troops had occupied Lebanon as recently as 2005 until the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri triggered a wave of mass protests dubbed the Cedar Revolution that ultimately put pressure on the Assad to withdraw his army from Lebanon.

Commander of Iran's Cyber-Warfare Program Found Shot to Death.

The body of Mojtaba Ahmadi, who served as the head of the Revolutionary Guards Cyber Warfare unit, was found shot twice in a wooded area northwest of Tehran over the weekend.

Ahmadi was last seen leaving his home for work on Saturday. He was later found with two bullets in the heart, according to Alborz, a website linked to the Revolutionary Guard Corps. “I could see two bullet wounds on his body and the extent of his injuries indicated that he had been assassinated from a close range with a pistol,” an eyewitness told the website.

The commander of the local police said that two people on a motorbike had been involved in the assassination.

The Facebook page of the officers of the Cyber War Headquarters confirmed that Ahmadi had been one of their commander and posted messages of condolence. But Alborz users warned that the openly accessible book of condolence could harm Iran’s national security.

Ahmadi is the most recent Iranian security official to be assassinated. In 2010, an Iranian nuclear scientist was killed by a bomb blast and in November 2011, seventeen members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards were killed in a suspicious blast at a weapons depot outside of Tehran. Among the dead was a Revolutionary Guard commander considered pivotal to Iran's long range missile development program.

The high profile deaths have triggered accusations by Iran's hardline islamist regime that the assassinations were carried out by a foreign entity such as Israel. Israel has neither confirmed or denied their involvement in the deaths, although Mossad agents were believed to have carried out the assassination of a Hamas commander in a Dubai hotel room.

Although Iran's cyber-warfare capabilities aren't as worrisome as the development of their nuclear program, Ahmadi is believed to have lent his unit's manpower and expertise to a clique of pro-Assad hackers calling themselves the Syrian Electronic Army. Targets of the Free Syrian Army in the past year have included the New York Times website, the Reuters twitter account as well as the homepage for the University of California- Los Angeles, the United State Marine Corps and Harvard University.

Israel Launches Airstrikes Deep Within Syrian Territory

Syrian military facilities under the control of forces loyal to Syrian president Bashr Al Assad were struck by the Israeli air force in multiple raids over the weekend.

The first airstrike reportedly targeted Damascus International Airport where long-range missiles from Iran and reportedly destined for Hezbollah in Lebanon were targeted.

The second strike was considerably more dramatic.



On Sunday, Israeli warplanes struck Syria's Jamraya Military research center- where Western observers believe Assad's military develops unconventional weapons. The facility is also home to a Presidential Guard brigade said to be commanded by Bashr al-Assad's brother, Maher al-Assad.

Damascus was shaken by repeated explosions coming from the north-western suburbs.

Amateur video footage and eye witness testimony suggested rocket attacks had hit weapons dumps, triggering dramatic orange-flamed blasts.

The area houses numerous military facilities, including the Jamraya research centre, designated by Syria as a scientific research centre "in charge of raising our level of resistance and self-defence".

A state TV bulletin said: "The new Israeli attack is an attempt to raise the morale of the terrorist groups, which have been reeling from strikes by our noble army."

Damascus-based journalist Alaa Ebrahim told the BBC it was "the biggest explosion" the city had seen since the conflict began two years ago.

He said residents living near Jamraya reported feeling a "mild earthquake" just before the blast, indicating that the rockets may have hit an underground facility.

In addition to being located on the outskirts of Damascus, the Jamraya facility is located close to the Lebanese border, which makes facilitating the transfer of weapons to Hezbollah fairly easy.

While Israel has seemed reluctant to involve itself in Syria's ongoing civil war, this weekend's strikes were meant to send a message to Bashr al-Assad and Hezbollah's main benefactor, Iran. The missiles that were reportedly destined for Hezbollah were Iranian-made Fateh 110 ground to ground missiles, which have a range of 200 miles.

Although the Assad regime and Syria's state-run media have claimed that Israel is acting in concert with the Free Syrian Army and other rebel groups, Israel actually stands to gain very little from the uncontrolled collapse of the Assad regime on their doorstep.

Post Benghazi Update- State Department Insists Deadly Consulate Attack was 'Spontaneous' Demonstration; Filmmaker Identified, Questioned by Authorities

Violent protests and attacks on American embassies throughout the Middle East continued on Friday and over the weekend. Demonstrators in Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Sudan and Yemen had stormed the grounds of US diplomatic missions, set fires and tore down the stars and stripes while hoisting a black islamist flag with arabic script.

The continued unrest comes as the White House and State Department repeatedly denied that the deadly attack on the Benghazi consulate was premeditated in any way. The attacks that killed US Ambassador Chris Stevens, Diplomatic Security officers and former Navy SEALS Tyrone Woods and Glenn Doherty and information officer Sean Smith took place on the 11th anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks.

While President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton maintain that the mob that had stormed the grounds of the US Consulate in Benghazi had formed 'spontaneously' in response to a short anti-Islam film that appeared on YouTube, Libyan officials have claimed otherwise. In an interview with NPR, Libyan president President Mohammed el-Megarif said the Benghazi assault was a military-style attack that used heavy weaponry such as RPGs and mortars to assault the consulate and safehouses as well as keep reinforcements at bay. Such an attack, el-Megarif points out, would require comprehensive advanced planning. Egyptian PM Hesham Kandil said that at least some of the rioters in Cairo who were arrested after clashes with police in front of the US Embassy there had confessed to being paid to show up. In the face of all that, White House Press spokesman Jay Carney claimed that the protests, arson, looting and murders directed at American diplomats throughout the Middle East and arab world somehow aren't directed at the USA, but rather a visceral reaction to the anti-Muslim video circulating online.

Curiously, a few days prior to the American consulate in Benghazi being overrun, Canada had announced they were closing down their embassy in Tehran and expelling all Iranian diplomatic personnel from Canada. The Canadian government cited their official designation of Iran as a terrorist-sponsoring state, their continued support of the Syrian regime's military crackdown on its citizens and an attack against the British Embassy in Tehran that the UK insists was orchestrated by Iran's ruling mullahs. I thought Canada's Foreign Affairs ministry was newsworthy in and of itself at the time, but it's taken on greater significance since the murder of American diplomats on September 11.

Meanwhile, the Obama Administration, State Department and US Media's response to the slaughter in Benghazi has been disheartening at best.

While insisting that an attack utilizing heavy weaponry such as RPGs and mortars WASN'T pre-planned, the Obama Administration and American media outlets quickly went on the counterattack- not against the people who murdered our ambassadors and torched our diplomatic posts, but rather Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and the purported filmmaker.

A number of press outlets immediately jumped on Romney shortly after he issued a statement criticizing a message from the State Department that the Administration themselves had backed away from. So as Obama flew out to a Las Vegas campaign fundraiser as American embassies throughout the middle East were burning, there was the matter of a compliant media coordinating questions shortly before a press conference former governor Romney's non-existent gaffe and 'jumping the gun' to the point while President Obama briefly issued a statement and took no questions before leaving to continue his re-election campaign in Nevada.

However, that paled in comparison to what took place in Southern California on Friday night when Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies showed up at the house of one Nakoula Basseley Nakoula to take him into custody. Nakoula, who made The Innocence of Muslims film under the pseudonym Sam Basile, was identified as a Coptic Christian who emigrated here from Egypt and was sentenced to 20 month in prison after being arrested in a 2009 check-kiting scam. Nakoula had also reportedly agreed to become a government informant after his 2009 arrest in exchange for a sentence reduction. Reportedly the deputies were there to escort him to an interview with federal probation officials. However, the late night visit by deputies only came after calls from Islamist groups like Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood to prosecute the filmmaker for insulting the prophet Muhammed.

Over the weekend, images of Nakoula with his face hidden and flanked by deputies had circulated throughout the web. Curiously, some of Obama's more prominent supporters [in the entertainment industry of all places- NANESB!] had come out in favor of prosecuting Nakoula on ambiguous 'hate crimes' charges.

Meanwhile, the press had thoughtfully taken it upon themselves to reveal Nakoula's face and home address to the world. Unsurprisingly, Nakoula and his family have fled their Cerritos, CA home to an undisclosed location. Google- which is the parent company of YouTube- has since rejected a White House request to take down the offending video.

7 Killed, At Least 30 Wounded in Tour Bus Bombing In Bulgarian Coastal City

A bomb targeting Israeli tourists in the eastern Bulgarian city of Burgas detonated on a tour bus, killing at least 7 people and injuring 32 on Wednesday.

The bus was carrying 42 Israeli tourists who landed in Bulgaria at 4:45 p.m for a vacation in Sunny Beach. Two adjacent buses were also damaged in the blast.

Six of the victims died on the spot, and the seventh in the hospital following the attack, Bulgarian officials confirmed. Two of the victims were said to be Bulgarian -- the bus driver and tour guide

As recently as January, Bulgarian police had stepped up security measures for Israeli tour groups after a suspicious package was discovered on a bus carrying tourists from Turkey to Bulgaria.

Local officials belive the device was detonated via remote control, although witnesses at the airport told Israeli TV they had seen an unidentified man get on immediately before the bus exploded.

Citing recent Iranian-backed terror plots targetting Israeli and western interests in Thailand, India and Azerbaijan, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Iran and the Lebanese-based Shi'ite terrorist group Hezbollah. For its part, Iran has accused Israeli agents of carrying out assassinations of scientists working with their nuclear program.

Over the weekend, police in Cyprus arrested a Lebanese man holding a Swedish passport in the city of Limasol. While in custody, the man admitted to being a member of Hezbollah and had detailed information on flights arrivign from Israel and photos of possible Israeli tagerts.

Carrying out attacks on Israeli tagets on foreign soil is nothing new for Hezbollah. The Bulgarian attacks come on the 18th anniversary of the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association bombings in Buenos Aires that killed 84. There are reports that Argentine prosecutors have recently discovered that some of those involved in the 1994 bombing were using Iranian diplomatic credentials to travel and plan out the details of the attack.

The resort town of Burgas has become popular with Israeli visitors in recent years, particularly recent high school grads seeking out a 'spring break' type getaway before beginning their compulsory military service.

UPDATE- 7/19: Bulgaria's Interior Ministry said the attack was most likely a suicide bombing. The suspected bomber was caught on survaillence video in the terminal at the Bargas airport.

Interior minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said that investigators have found a Michigan ID at the scene thought to belong to the suspected bomber. The Interior Ministry is sending the identification to the FBI for authentication.

UPDATE #2- Bulgarian officials are now saying the Michigan identification card in fake, but some reports also claim a US Passport belonging to the suspected bomber was also found at the scene but has yet to be authenticated.

Pressure Mounts Over Intelligence Leaks From White House

Lawmakers from both parties have called for an independent investigation into intelligence leaks after a series of articles published in the New York Times disclosed details from a number of opeartions ranging from drone strikes on the Arabian peninsula and Pakistan, a double-agent that infiltrated a Yemeni Al Qaeda cell, a secret 'kill list' and the 'stuxnet' worm that crippled Iran's nascent nuclear program.

Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA), the chair of the Senate Intelligence Community, said the leaks jeopardize American lives and would make recruitment of foreign nationals for clandestine counterterrorism activities even more difficult.

Feinstein said she had no reason to believe that the leaks to the New York Times originated from either the House or Senate Intelligence Committees. The articles cite a number of unnamed current and former advisors from the Obama Administration.

Top Republicans such as Arizona Senator John McCain and House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King have accused the Obama Administration of passing on sensetive information to the New York Times to bolster his image of being tough and uncompromising on national security heading into the 2012 Presidential Election.

'This is the most shameful cascade of leaks I've ever heard or seen in government,' Mr King said [in an interview with] Fox.

'It's clear from those stories this came right from the White House, came right from the National Security Council, came right from the Situation Room... It has to lead to people very high up in the administration in his White House.'

Meanwhile, some agents with Israel's Mossad intelligence agency have not only claimed that the leaks from the White House put them in danger, but that the Obama Administration is taking credit for a computer virus that infected Iranian centrifuges as they attempted to refine uranium that was actually of Israeli design. Stuxnet surfaced in 2010 in Iran and targeted equipment operated by Seimens- including centrifuges- and would increase their operating speeds while continuing to provide operators with continuous false readings showing that the devices were running at normal speed.

Computer security experts believe that Stuxnet is closely related to the more recently discovered Flame or Wiper virus which has surfaced in computers used by Iranian government agencies. The flame virus would monitor keystokes and send screen captures of the infected computer back to a central command and control module before seeking out other systems to infect and then self-destructing via external command.

As Chavez, Ahmadinejad Taunt, Threaten USA, Americans Come to Aid of Iranian Mariners- AGAIN

USCG Monomoy seen during an earlier deployment to the Persian Gulf

To quote Mandy Manners from C2, "We're getting good at staging these things".

While Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadeinejad was yukking it up with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez in Caracas this week and an Iranian court handed down a death penalty to an American accused of spying, American sailors once again came to the aid of an Iranian-flagged vessel in distress.

For the second time in as many weeks, the U.S. Navy has rescued distressed Iranian sailors, despite the extremely high tensions between the two nations.

According to the Navy's account, at about 3 a.m. local time an American Coast Guard patrol boat in the north Persian Gulf was hailed by flares and flashlights from an Iranian cargo ship whose engine room was flooding. Six Iranians were rescued from the ship, fed halal meals in accordance with Islamic law, and later taken to shore.

"Saving lives is the last thing you expect to do at [3 a.m.] while patrolling in the Northern Arabian Gulf, but being in the Coast Guard, that's what we are trained to do," Boatswain Mate 2nd Class Emily Poole said in a Navy statement, using an alternate designation for the Persian Gulf.

After the Iranian regime's lukewarm reaction to 13 Iranian fishermen freed by the US Navy after being abducted by Somali pirates, the captain of an Iranian Coast Guard vessel assigned to pick up the half dozen mariners was much quicker to thank his American counterparts.

The U.S. Navy said the captain of the Naji 7, through a translator, "Sends his regards and thanks to our Captain and all crewmembers for assisting, and taking care of the Iranian sailors. Wishes us the best, and thanks us for our cooperation."

Both rescues come amid heightened tensions between the USA and the Islamic republic after Iran threatened to close off the straits of Hormuz, a vital shipping channel at the easternmost tip of the Arabian peninsula that's less than 35 miles wide.

Regime That Photoshops Extra Missiles Into Official Photos Accuses US Navy of Staging 'Hollywood Drama' After Iranian Fishermen Rescued

Just days after sailors from the USS Kidd rescued more than a dozen Iranian fishermen captured by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean, the Iranian regime accused the United States Navy of staging the entire incident days after a senior Iranian Army commander warned the United States to keep their warships out of the Persian Gulf.

The U.S. Navy announced Friday it had rescued 13 Iranian fishermen being held by Somali pirates in the Arabian Sea, despite rising tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

An SH-60S Seahawk from the guided-missile destroyer USS Kidd detected the pirates while a simultaneous distress call was received from the Al Molai fishing vessel.

"The Al Molai had been taken over by pirates for roughly the last 40 to 45 days," said Josh Schminky, a Navy Criminal Investigative Service agent aboard the Kidd. "They were held hostage, with limited rations, and we believe were forced against their will to assist the pirates with other piracy operations."

The Navy reports that Iranian boat had been pirated and used as a "mother ship" for pirate operations throughout the Persian Gulf, according to members of the Iranian vessel's crew.

"When we boarded, we gave them food, water, and medical care," Schminky said. "They had been through a lot. We went out of our way to treat the fishing crew with kindness and respect."

The pirates were detained until transferred to the USS John C. Stennis, where the matter will be reviewed for prosecution.

According to the rescued Iranians, they had been held captive by the Somali pirates since mid-November and their vessel was being used as a 'mother ship' to launch attacks on other vessels with the pirates using skiffs to scout for potential targets. After a close call with a French naval vessel and the guided missile cruiser USS Mobile Bay, the commandeered dhow was discovered by the USS Kidd.



Since most of the crew members of the Iranian dhow were from Eastern Iran, where the native language is Urdu, the captain of the captured vessel was able to reply to the USS Kidd's hails in his native tongue without his Somali captors understanding.

As the U.S. destroyer Kidd loomed alongside this hijacked Iranian dhow, the warship’s loudspeaker issued a command in Urdu to the dhow’s frightened Urdu-speaking crew. U.S. sailors stood ready, weapons in hand. If you have weapons aboard, the voice boomed, put them where we can see them, on the roof of your wheelhouse.

Fifteen Somali pirates were also on board Al Mulahi, crouched and cornered on the very vessel they had seized in November to use as their mother ship. They had knives, a pistol and four assault rifles. But they did not speak Urdu. For a moment, the captors depended on their captives.

They asked their Iranian hostages what the U.S. sailors had just said.

One of the hostages, Khaled Abdulkhaled, answered without pause: “They said they are about to blow this ship up.”

The pirates panicked. Their unity broke down. Each man hoped to surrender, find cover or hide. Discarding their weapons, nine of them crammed into a hold beneath the wheelhouse. Six huddled near the open bow. Soon armed U.S. sailors climbed aboard.

They spotted the six Somalis on the bow, who did not resist. As more of the boarding team swarmed over the side, the Iranian hostages pointed to where the remaining pirates were hiding. The sailors pulled those men out, one by one, into the light and forced them face down onto the deck.

Shortly after the rescue, the same regime that photoshops extra missiles into official photos accused the US Navy of staging a 'Hollywood drama' with the rescue.

Fars reported: 'Basically, rescuing trading and fishing boats from the hands of pirates in the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden is considered a completely normal issue.

'A U.S. helicopter filming the rescue operation from the first minute makes it look like a Hollywood drama with specific locations and actors. It shows the Americans tried to publicize it through the media and present the American warship as a savior.'

The semiofficial Fars news agency is considered close to Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard military force.

While captured, the Al Mulahi fishing vessel made at least one trip to Somalia for provisions before the crew was rescued in the Indian Ocean some 175 miles south of Muscat, Oman.

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.

Feds Disrupt Iranian-Backed Plot to Bomb Israeli Embassy, Assasinate Saudi Envoy to USA

Agents from the FBI and DEA have reportedly disrupted a terror plot liked directly to Iran's Quds force that involved simultaneous attacks against the Israeli and Saudi embassies in Washington D.C.

Federal investigatos allege that an Iranian American identified as 56 year old Mansour Arbabsiar, a Corpus Christi TX used car salesman as the man who approached what he thought was a member of the Los Zetas cartel with a proposal to kill the Saudi ambassador to the USA and bomb the Israeli embassy in Washington D.C. in exchange for $1.5 million and an undisclosed amount of opium.

Arbabsiar and the informant met twice in Reynosa in the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas, across the border from McAllen, TX [interestingly, observers note that Reynosa is in territory still under control of the Gulf Cartel, but the accused was meeting with what he thought was an enforcer from the archrival Los Zetas- NANESB!] where Arbabsiar bragged that he had a cousin who was a high-ranking member of the Quds force of Iran's Revolutionary Guard and that they were being directed by senior-level officials of the Iranian regime.

The five count criminal complaint names Gohlam Shakuri, an Iranian based member of the Quds force still at large in Iran, as a co-conspirator in the plot. Arbabsiar and the informant negotiated a $1.5 million payment to carry out the attacks, with the accused wiring two seperate payments of $49,960 into a dummy FBI bank account. Arbabsiar also told the informant that his contacts in Iran couild provide Los Zetas with 'tons' of opium if they were interested.

Federal agents said they recorded a number of phone calls and meeting with the informant and Arbabsiar, some of the calls coming from Iran. In late September, when Arbabsiar was flying to Mexico City from Iran via Frankfurt, he was refused entry into Mexico by immigration officers at Arturo Beneitez international airport and was put on a flight to New York where he was taken into custody.

Not surprisingly, Iran has denied the charges against their regime, claiming the case is a 'prefabricated scenario' and propaganda against the Islamic regime.

Interestingly, even though Arbabsiar was taken into custody nearly two weeks ago, Attorney General Eric Holder's press conference announcing the disruption of the plot came a day before House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chariman, Darrell Issa (R- CA49) issued Holder a subpoena in regards to their ongoing Fast & Furious probe in which the ATF allowed firearms to be trafficked from the USA to Mexican drug cartels. In fact, one of the reporters brought up Fast & Furious during the press conference, only to have Holder dismiss it with a boilerplate statement about turning over the relelvant documents before walking out.

There is precedent for Iranian-backed groups co-ordinating attacks out of Latin America. In 1992, 29 people were killed when a truck bomb exploded outside the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires. A group with links to the Iranian back Hezbollah terrorist group and Iran called the Islamic Jihad organization claimed responsibility. The Isreali Embassy attacks were followed up by the 1994 bombing of the AMIA (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina) building in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people. Argentine investigators believe that both operations were planned and financed in the Tri-Border area where the boundaries of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil meet near Iguazu Falls and where Hezbollah has been active over the last two decades. More recently, Mexican intelligence has been aware of a Hezbollah presence in Tijuana and Durango.

Days of Rage: Antigovernment Protests in Lebanon, Egypt

EGYPT: As anti-government protests entered their fourth consecutive day, the entire nation of Egypt went into Friday morning with no internet or SMS text messaging. This unprecedented step by the Mubarak regime was taken in an effort to hinder realtime communications among the protesters as the unrest has started spreading to other parts of the country.

Egypt's four primary Internet providers -- Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, Telecom Egypt, Etisalat Misr -- all stopped moving data in and out of the country at 12:34 a.m., according to a network security firm monitoring the traffic. Telecom experts said Egyptian authorities could have engineered the cutoff with a simple change to the instructions for the companies' networking equipment.

The Internet appeared to remain cut off Friday morning, and cell-phone text and Blackberry Messenger services were all cut or operating sporadically in what appeared to be a move by authorities to disrupt the organization of demonstrations.

Egyptians outside the country were posting updates on Twitter after getting information in voice calls from people inside the country. Many urged their friends to keep up the flow of information over the phones.

The developments were a sign that President Hosni Mubarak's regime is toughening its crackdown following the biggest protests in years against his nearly 30-year rule.

The shutdown comes as former International Atomic Energy Association head Mohammed El Baradei arrived in Cairo from Vienna on Thursday. The former UN nuclear watchdog [and a piss poor one at that- NANESB!] said that the Mubarak regime was on its last legs and has expressed a willingness to serve in some capacity on a post-Mubarak interim government.

[OK, kindly indulge me as I put on my conspiracy theorist hat. I didn't give much thought to any external factors playing a role in Egypt's unrest until I heard El Baradei's name mentioned. I'm well aware the Mubarak's autocratic rule combined with the rising prices of food and high unemployment by themselves would set up conditions for unrest.

With that said, if I wanted a nuclear-armed Iran, I would've had El Baradei continue to serve as the IAEA head- North Korea and Iran's nuclear programs had advanced considerably under his watch. Perhaps there's some quid-pro-quo involved or perhaps El Baradei really was just that inept and incompetent as IAEA head.

Also, Mubarak is in his 80s, so you wouldn't exactly need a Machiavellian advisor to realize that your golden opportunity to seize power would come sooner rather than later. Even if I did fully believe that Iran was stirring up unrest in Egypt so they could install El Baradei as a puppet leader of a client state, even they likely would've been caught off guard by the nature of this week's protests and are perhaps attempting to move up their timetable after events in Tunisia earlier this month.

This would not be unprecedented for Iran's ruling mullahs- take a look at Lebanon since 1979. Also keep in mind that the Iranians named a street in honor of Sadat's assassin.

Whaddaya think; too tinfoil hat?- NANESB!]

LEBANON: Sunni Muslims and supporters of ousted Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri burned tires and blocked roads in Lebanon on Tuesday to protest the takeover of the Lebanese government by Hezbollah.

Angry protesters in the northern city of Tripoli also torched a satellite van belonging to the Qatari-based Al-Jazeera TV Network, which Hariri's supporters have referred to as 'Hezbollah TV'. The series of protests came shortly before 68 out of 128 members of parliament named Telecom mogul Najib Mikati as Prime Minister-designate.

At issue will be the the Mikati government's willingness to accept the results of the United Nations Tribunal's investigation into the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri- Saad's father. The Tribunal had completed the investigation and handed down a series of sealed indictments widely believed to implicate Hezbollah earlier this month. Hezbollah has denied any role in the assassination 2005 Valentine's Day car bombing that killed Rafiq Hariri and 22 others in Beirut and claims Israel was behind the assassination [even though Hezbollah and their Syrian and Iranian benefactors would benefit most from the elder Hariri's death- NANESB!].

Pentagon Says Nothing New in Afghanistan Documents Leaked Online

Pentagon and Administration officials are downplaying the online leak of more than 90,000 documents regarding the military effort in Afghanistan. However, senior Pentagon officials say that they still need to sort through at least 75,000 of the documents.

Some of the revelations contained in the Wikileaks document dump were already widely known or suspected by those in military, diplomatic and intelligence community, such as Pakistan's Interservices Intelligence Directorate playing a double-game with the USA and the Afghan Taliban. Documents from Afghan officials included in the leaks also allege that Iran has been arming and financing Taliban commanders as far back as 2005.

Earlier this month, the US Army pressed charges against PFC Bradley Manning, an intelligence analyst stationed in Iraq who leaked classified video of two Reuters journalists killed by a helicopter gunship along with Iraqi insurgents back in 2007. While Manning was stationed in Iraq and the Wikileaks document dump deals mostly with Afghanistan, Army officials have not ruled out the possibility that Manning could also be the source of the latest leaks and are attempting to backtrack what information he had access to.

"WikiLeaks does not have an opinion whether the war in Afghanistan should continue or not continue. ... It should continue in a just way if its to continue at all,"

Wikileaks creator Julia Assange claimed in a CNN interview. However, in an inteview with Germany's Der Spiegel the other day, Assange said:

"I enjoy crushing bastards. So it is enjoyable work."

Note that the Wikileaks benefits nobody but the Taliban in the short-term, so it's pretty clear who Assange thinks the 'bastards' are in this instance.

Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said the information should be put "in context" and that journalists should avoid publishing anything that could harm U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Assange, he said, "is an anti-war activist who has repeatedly cast a very unfair light on the American military and on the American population in general."

"There are American troops in harm's way getting shot and killed," Rieckhoff said. "If WikiLeaks is endangering them, we need to push back, and the American public needs to push back."

As others much more in the know than myself have described it, the leaks are more or less "old news that comes at a bad time".

Steve Schippert of threatswatch.org goes into more detail about some of the familiar-sounding memes that seem to be a common theme of the latest offering from WikiLeaks.

Curious how Assange and the others haven't gone to such lengths to undermine the regimes of Hugo Chavez, Hu Jintao or Mahmoud Ahmedinejhad. I guess they're part of the 'vulnerable' that he seeks to protect.

Even More Borderline Psychosis- Another Mass Grave Uncovered; Work Release Killing Spree; Mexican Hezbollah Network Disrupted?

*Authorities in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon acting on an anonymous phone tip have discovered 51 bodies at a garbage dump outside the city. The attorney general for the northern state said that the bodies of 48 men and 3 women have been unearthed so far. While the remains haven't been identified, investigators believe that most of the deceased were involved in drug trafficking, saying that tattoos on some of the bodies would help identify which group they had been working for. Back in May, the Mexican police and military discovered an abandoned silver mine in the city of Taxco where the cartels had dumped at least 55 bodies.

*The warden and three other officials from a Durango prison are under house arrest after state prosecutors say the prison officials lent out weapons and vehicles to some of the inmates so they could carry out killings in Torreon, the capital of the neighboring state of Coahuila. This included a massacre of 18 party goers on July 18th as well as shootings dating back to February and May.

Police found more than 120 bullet casings at the scene, and [Attorney General's office spokesman Ricardo] Najera said tests matched those casings to four assault rifles assigned to guards at the prison

.
Similar ballistics tests linked the guns to earlier killings at two bars in Torreon, the capital of northern Coahuila state, he said. At least 16 people were killed in those attacks on Feb. 1 and May 15, local media reported.I think I posed the question even before Calderon's state visit, but it bears repeating- How would additional gun control laws on this side of the border prevent further violence in Mexico when you have elements of the police in military operating at the behest of the cartels? And for those of you who think the police or military issued murder weapons are limited to those four rifles issued to the prison guards in Durango, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you for a modest fee.



*Also last week, a car bomb detonated in Ciudad Juarez across the river from El Paso, TX, killing two policemen and a doctor. Investigators on both sides of the border say the bombing is the first of its kind in Mexico and represents an escalation in tactics and increased sophistication of attacks on the cartel's part. Local police and paramedics were lured to the scene by calling in a false report that a police officer had been shot and then detonated a 22 pound bomb in a nearby parked car by cell phone. Explosives experts with the ATF have been helping their Mexican counterparts reconstruct the bomb as best they can.

So far it's been determined that the device was made from Tovex, a water gel based explosive and it would likely have to have been triggered while within sight of the rigged vehicle.

Graffiti written on the wall of a nearby elementary school specifically warned DEA and FBI agents that more bombs would follow unless the US Agencies investigated alleged links between the Sinaloa cartel and Mexican authorities.

*A Kuwaiti newspaper reported earlier this month that Mexican authorities had thwarted an attempt by Hezbollah operatives to establish a network in the country using Mexican nationals with family ties to Lebanon or of Lebanese descent themselves. The leader was residing across the border from San Diego, CA in Tijuana, Baja California at the time of his arrest.
Now....I know some of you might be saying 'What? Mexicans of Lebanese descent? You're just making stuff up. I've never heard of something so silly and farfetched'. To which I would have to reply- yes there is such a thing, actress Salma Hayek and billionaire Carlos Slim being the more prominent examples.
[I would also have to add 'Thanks for the completely gratuitous opening to toss out some Selma Hayek-centric ocular sweetness!' Oh....and legal disclaimer; I'm in no way inferring that Mr. Slim or Salma Hayek are Hezbollah operatives. Please don't sue me - NANESB!]

According to the report, Mexican police mounted a surveillance operation on the group's leader, Jameel Nasr, who traveled frequently to Lebanon to receive information and instructions from Hezbollah commanders there.
Nasr was living in Tijuana, Mexico at the time of his arrest, the report said. The report follows warnings from the United States that Hezbollah and its backer Iran are stepping up operations in the region.

Nasr also travelled to other parts of Latin America, including Venezuela. I wouldn't be too shocked if he went to the tri-border region along the Argentina, Paraguay and Brazilian border if he's indeed a Hezbollah true-believer.

*With widespread corruption and resources focused on the bloody, ongoing narcoinsurgency, logistics experts are noticing a rise in thefts targeting Mexico's trucking and railroad industries. Gangs of thieves, sometimes posing as police and setting up bogus roadblocks, will hijack tractor trailers at gunpoint, offload cargo to another trailer, or hitch the trailers to their own cabs.

Railway robberies are a little more labor-intensive, however:

Criminal gangs deploy more gunmen when they're robbing trains. A senior director for Kroll Global Risk Assessment's Mexico City office, Francesco Pipitone said that raids with 10 to 15 rifle-toting gunmen weren't uncommon.

Acting to slow the rampant holdups of trains, Mexico's Congress categorized train robbery as a "serious crime" in late April and toughened sentences to 10 to 30 years in prison. Unlike in the past, train-robbing suspects won't be freed on bond before trial.

The president of the Mexico subsidiary of Kansas City Southern, Jose G. Zozaya, said his railway was "not immune to being hit by organized crime."

He said it had employed tactics such as moving trains faster, using "jump teams" of responders when situations developed and fostering good support from state and federal police to minimize robberies of cargoes that include fuel, steel, grains, petrochemicals, auto parts and new automobiles.

"Our competitors have had autos stolen off their platforms multiple times," Zozaya said, noting that Mexico is a major exporter of new cars.

It's thought that the cartels may have a hand in this, diversifying their operations beyond drug-smuggling and human smugging.

Criminals have also been siphoning fuel and oil off of pipelines owned by the state-run oil company PeMex. This weekend, Mexican soldiers on patrol in Tamaulipas have raided a cartel safehouse with a small arsenal of guns, ammunition and grenades as well as a lot that contained oil tanker-trailers filled with oil believed to have been siphoned off of a PeMex pipeline.

Also over the weekend, Mexico's Defense Ministry reported that soldiers seized 59 pounds of explosives (including Tovex, which is believed to have been used in the Juarez car bombing last week) and killed 9 gunmen after clashing with smugglers at the rural village of La Simona in northern Chihuahua. Besides the explosives, 40kg of marijuana, 15 rifles, 3 pistols, 3 bulletproof vests, a roll of detonator cord, 10 vehicles, three satellite phones and some night vision goggles were found.

22 Dead In Suicide Bomb Attack on Iranian Mosque

Two suicide bombers have killed at least 22 people at a Shia mosque in south-eastern Iran, officials say.

The first bomber blew himself up at a checkpoint outside the Jamia mosque in the city of Zahedan, with a more deadly second blast moments later.

Worshippers and Revolutionary Guards were reportedly among the dead.

Regional media reported that a Sunni rebel group, Jundullah, said it carried out the attacks in revenge for the hanging of its leader by Iran in June.

This follows a suicide bombing in October 2009 in Zahedan that killed 37 and targeted at least five senior Revolutionary Guard officers. That attack also took place in Iran's Baluchestan province that abuts both the Afghan and Pakistani border.

Happy Persian New Year's From Not Another New England Sports Blog!

The Persian Holiday of Nowruz dates back to Zoroastrian times in ancient Persia, although it's exact date of origin is unclear. The first day of Spring also marks the beginning of the new year on the Persian calendar. Apparently the holiday is celebrated any number of ways, but primarily revolves around cleaning up the household (signifying a new beginning and ridding oneself of excess baggage) ahead of a visit from friends and neighbors. Some celebrants believe that a person's mood during Nowruz celebrations will affect their outlook for the rest of that year.

Never really known for their outgoing, fun-loving nature, the Iranian regime this year announced another heavy-handed crackdown during one of the festivals leading up to Nowruz, Chaharshanbe Suri (jumping over a bonfire to purify oneself).

And what kind of holiday would it be at Not Another New England Sports Blog! would it be if I let it pass without gratuitously throwing out some ocular sweetness that's (at least tangentially) germane to the Holiday being observed? From Iran, even.....

Attractive Iranian women? you might be asking yourself. Believe me- that is no contradiction in terms. The perception seems to be the females that currently populate Iran are joyless, plain, dour bhurka-clad souls....and the backwards 'leaders' of Iran don't do much to dispel that stereotype. After the Ayatollah Khomeni seized power in 1979, thousands of Iranian families fled to the USA, Canada, Europe and the UK. The children of those families would be in their 20s and 30s by now. [I happen to know firsthand a few such women of Persian background who fit that definition to a 'T', but "That chick that works in the sales department over in the Nissan dealership" or "The pouty girl with the accent at the barbershop" are pretty obscure examples- NANESB!]. Some of these women have never even set foot in the country their parents were born and raised in though.

Sarah Shahi

Take for instance Sarah Shahi from Showtime's The L Word among other appearances. Sarah (who's given name is Aahoo Jahansouz according to wikipedia) is of Iranian ancestry, but born and raised in Texas and was even a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader for awhile.

And there's also the introverted, shy, girl-next door Roxana Saberi- a journalist, former Miss North Dakota and one-time political prisoner of the Ahmedinejahd regime. Saberi grew up in Fargo, ND the daughter of an Iranian father and Japanese mother. In 2009, she was accused of espionage by Iran's Revolutionary Guards while working as a journalist and interpreter and recieved and 8 year prison sentence. In May 2009, her sentence was overturned by an Iranian appeals court and she received a two-year suspended sentence before returning to the USA.

Or singer and model Claudia Lynx, who's family left Tehran for Norway when she was a few months old, and moved to Canada when she was five. She's also appeared in Levi's magazine ads and had a cameo as 'Miss World' on The West Wing.

That's not to say all the attractive Persian women were able to flee the Islamist regime and live freely in America or Europe. As we saw during last year's presidential elections and the subsequent protests over in Iran, there is still plenty of vintage Persian ocular sweetness to behold.However- they are required by law over there to wear a headscarf and dress 'modestly' at all times, even in the summer when the average temperature in most of the country exceeds 100 degrees. It would be one thing if they chose to dress like that, but that decision (along with many others) has made for them by a bunch of dour, faceless old men for the last 30 years. You gotta think that deep down inside, like 90% of these girls currently in Iran are just dying to put on the proverbial little black dress, go out clubbing with their girlfriends [and probably make catty remarks to their friends in little back dresses about other girls in their little black dresses- NANESB!] without the Basiij militia or 'morality police' gunning them down as they stood in a traffic jam harshing their mellow.

But for now, at least, they still have Nowruz.

Iron Horse Roundup: December 2009/January 2010 Edition.

RUSSIA- Investigators from Russia's FSB and Transportation Police are looking for four suspects thought to be involved in the terrorist attack on the Moscow-St. Petersburg Nevsky Express on November 27, 2009. The blast and resulting derailment killed 27 passengers and used the equivalent of 15 lbs of TNT. A smaller bomb near the derailment site was detonated the following day, targeting rescuers and investigators. There were no fatalities in the second blast and security services believe that both bombs were detonated by remote. The suspects are thought to have rented a house in the nearby village of Lycoshino to monitor train movement on the Moscow-St. Petersburg Line.

This is not the first time the Moscow-St. Petersburg train has been the target of terrorists or saboteurs. Two men previously held on terrorism charges by authorities were found guilty of lesser charges of trafficking explosives and unrelated counts of armed robbery this week that carried 4 and 10 year prison sentences last week in connection with the August 2007 bombing of the Nevsky Express. The blast derailed the train just outside the town of Malaya Vishera, but resulted in no fatalities.

IRAN: Eight people were killed and twelve hospitalized when two coaches of a speeding passenger train derailed at the Azadvar Station in Joqati, in the northeastern part of the country some 430 miles east of Tehran. The Islamic Republic of Iran has been experiencing problems with it's deteriorating transportation network over the last several years that have resulted in numerous and deadly plane crashes and derailments [YET- they'll somehow get it right with a 'peaceful' nuclear energy program- NANESB!].

(Mariana Bazo/Reuters)

PERU: Heavy rains in southern Peru earlier this week stranded over 2000 tourists in the area around the Incan ruins of Machu Picchu when floods and landslides blocked off the railway line connecting Machu Picchu and the nearby town of Aguas Calientes with the rest of the country. Peruvian military officals evacuated the visitors using seven helicopters flying between the town of Aguas Calientes and Cuzco on a rotating basis. The railway line between Cuzco and Aguas Calientes is said to be obstructed by at least 40 landslides and will require several weeks worth of work in order to reopen.

(Victoria Times Colonist)

CANADA: Canadian Pacific hosted a ceremony this week featuring the Olympic torch at Craigellachie British Columbia, site of the ceremonial last spike driven on Canada's transcontinental line in 1885. The Canadian Pacific [NYSE: CP] is a corporate sponsor of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. The special train continued on to Revelstoke, BC where the torch resumed its journey through the Canadian Rockies. The 2010 Winter Games opening ceremonies are scheduled for Febuary 12, 2010.

USA: The Montreal, Maine & Atlantic has announced the layoff of 75 employees in their 315-employee workforce. The news comes a few months after one of the railroad's largest customers, the Katahdin Paper Mill of Millinocket, ME shut down due to increased fuel costs for the plant's $150 million No. 11 Machine. Currently, the Toronto based paper company is exploring alternative fuels for the No. 11 Machine, but more than 200 workers from the plant are out of work.

(Dan Tracy)

The Iowa Interstate has taken delivery of their two new ES44AC GEVO locomotives this month. What separates these two from the first dozen that IAIS ordered was that these two have been painted in vintage Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific colors.....on locomotives that were made nearly some 30 years after the Rock Island ceased to exist. Appropriately, the Iowa Interstate hauls commodities on the former CRI&P Blue Island, IL-Council Bluffs, IA line. Here, the Rock Island/Iowa Interstate #513 hammers the diamonds at Joliet, IL with a train of ethanol in tow on January 29, 2010. The #513 is using Metra trackage rights and the tracks in the foreground belong to Union Pacific and BNSF.

(Gary McLean)
A CSX track inspector in Alabama was in for a surprise when he was inspecting the tracks around the Birmingham, AL area in the wake of last week's cold snap down south. An unfortunate puppy, believed to be 8 weeks old was frozen to the rails after his wet fur froze to the steel rail. Track inspector Gary McLean was able to cut the puppy's fur free from the rails before a freight train was scheduled to traverse the line. McLean had the frozen pup warm up in his hi-rail vehicle while he sent some pictures of the critter to his wife. The couple already had 3 dogs and couldn't keep the puppy Gary found, but Mrs. McLean posted a photo on her facebook page when a local meteorologist got word of the little canine's plight and his tale made its way to the blog of the local ABC affiliate. The e-mails came pouring in and Terry Walls of nearby Bessemer, AL persuaded the McLean's that she could provide the best home for the baby pooch. Appropriately enough, the puppy's name is Track.
[Hat Tip: PiGuy]

Iranian Nuke Professor Killed In Tehran Bomb Blast

The BBC is reporting that a professor of nuclear physics at Tehran University was killed when a remote control bomb was detonated on his motorbike earlier today. Professor Massoud Ali Mohammed had just left his residence and was on his way to work when killed by the explosion.

Iran's press TV and security forces are blaming "counterrevolutionaries and elements of arrogance" for the bombing.

Backwards Misogynist Islamic Despots Behaving Badly- Iran Edition

Twitter, the social networking site that allowed protestors in Iran to communicate with the outside world during the post-election violence in Tehran this June, was hacked by a group calling itself the Iranian Cyber Army on Friday. Twitter readers were automatically redirected to a page that included a green flag with the name of the 3rd Shi'ite imam, Imam Huseyn, written in Arabic script.

The cyber-attack comes the same day that Iraq claimed 11 Iranian soldiers crossed into Iraqi territory and raised the Iranian flag at the Fakka oilfield. Iraqi Interior Minister claims that today's incursion was the most recent out of several this week.

This comes a few days after the ruling theocrats announced they would stage a show-trial for three American hikers detained by Iranian security forces at the Iran-Iraq border in July, a test of their newest long-range missile and about a week after security forces clashed with opposition demonstrators in Tehran once again.

The mullahs and Revolutionary Guard have been very busy little theocratic, despotic beavers this week- most likely because the world's attention is mostly diverted by the ongoing climate change farce in Copenhagen. Or perhaps they're that much closer to completion of their nuclear program [peaceful, of course! -NANESB!] and are trying to gauge the West's reaction to each provocation. Either that, or they no longer fear any sanctions from the West.

Now.....the million rial question for those of you who are gullible enough to believe that a nation sitting atop multiple lakes of oil needs nuclear energy: What makes you think the Iranian mullahs are going to be any better behanved once their nuclear program is up and running?