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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Blast shakes Tabriz (Iranian WMD center)
2008-02-25
An explosion shook the nortwestern Iranian city of Tabriz on Monday, but the cause of the blast and whether there were any casualties were not immediately clear, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

Fars said the blast occurred shortly after mid-day and was felt across the city.
According to Global Security, Tabriz is a missile production center and "has also been reported as a possible site of a nuclear weapons research facility of unspecified nature and provenance."

"As of 11 April 2000, Russian 2-meter resolution KVR-1000 imagery coverage was not available via the SPIN-2 service on TerraServer, nor was archived Space Imaging IKONOS 1-meter imagery of this facility available on the CARTERRA™ Archive."
Posted by:Atomic Conspiracy

#11  Inshallah.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2008-02-25 21:20  

#10  Hope the blast hole is about the size of the one at the port of Riga. Apparently they were loading missiles when a crane head broke. The Russians were never very good at storing munitions.

Our satellites at first thought it was a nuclear detonation. It left a very big hole.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2008-02-25 19:38  

#9  Do the Iranians use solid propellant motors? Making composite motors does yield propellant shavings and dust which can lead to OOPS!. One story I read the employees at one rocket plant in the US would take the ammonium perchlorate they swept up, make a solution, then soak a t-shirt in it and put it out in the sun. They would then take turns throwing rocks at, the one whose rock started it on fire had to buy the beers after work.
If the Iranians don't know about this fun activity we should make sure their missile plant workers find out about this.
Posted by: bruce   2008-02-25 18:52  

#8  Sorry about that guys. Look for our official press release soon.
Posted by: Halliburton - "fake" earthquake division   2008-02-25 14:30  

#7  Tabriz is near Kurd dominated area.
Posted by: mhw   2008-02-25 12:47  

#6  SEALs? SAS? One can only hope.
Posted by: Icerigger   2008-02-25 10:06  

#5  waste ammunition

That's not a nice thing to say about the Iranian's newest missiles, though in this case accurate.
Posted by: ed   2008-02-25 07:59  

#4  More, please. In more places.
Posted by: lotp   2008-02-25 07:31  

#3  Yeah, they like to dispose of about 10 tons of waste ammunition at a time. Good for community relations. It's also good to know that no operators were injured, seeing as even when they are planned that they like to hang out real close to these kinds of blasts.

What is "waste" ammunition? Do they really mean ammunition, or do they mean waste explosives, which I would think they would be shipping over to Iraq anyway. I can't imagine blowing up any kind of ammunition all at once because it seems to me that half of it would just scatter.
Posted by: gorb   2008-02-25 06:16  

#2  Sheesh! The mullahcrats can't get their stories straight:

Explosion in Tabriz caused by waste ammunition disposal: IRGC
The explosion heard in Tabriz on Monday has been caused by disposal of waste ammunition.

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps said that the 31st combat division of Ashura, an affiliate to IRGC, had destroyed the waste ammunition on suburbs of Tabriz.

IRNA reporter in Tabriz said that the explosion was strong enough to cause public anxiety.

The IRGC said in a statement that the ammunition waste disposal had been arranged so far and no damage was caused for the operators. (emphasis added)

I guess none of those broken windows belong to the Revolutionary Guards.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy   2008-02-25 05:55  

#1  Update: The Iranians are now claiming that the explosion was due to construction work on a nearby road.
"The workers were blasting the Einali mountain to build a road," an official in the Tabriz governor's office told Reuters by telephone.


The original story said that the blast was felt across the city and implied that there was only one explosion. That seems very unlikely for construction blasting a good distance outside of town.

Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy   2008-02-25 05:22  

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