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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Could US be behind Iran power line blasts?
2012-09-20
US Special Forces, which have been training for operations in Iran for years, could be responsible for explosions that sabotaged Iranian nuke sites' power lines, Daily Beast suggests.

Could the United States be behind a move to sabotage power lines at Iran's nuclear facilities?
Operation Lemony Snickett lives...
The Daily Beast on Wednesday suggested that US Special Forces, which have been training for operation inside Islamic Republic for years, could already be on the ground .

On Monday, Fereydoun Abbasi, Iran's vice president and the chief of its nuclear energy agency, said that power lines between the city of Qom and the underground Fordo nuclear centrifuge facility were blown up with explosives on August 17. The power lines leading to Iran's Natanz facilities were blown up as well, he said.

According to the report in The Daily Beast, The US military been studying Iran's infrastructure closely, and in 2009 discovered a weakness in Iran's electrical grids that made it vulnerable to a cyber attack.

But Abbasi's disclosure indicates opponents of the Iranian program are targeting the country's electrical grid and are doing so on the ground, via a physical explosion as opposed to a cyber attack.

A retired US intelligence officer who still works as a contractor with the US military on Iran-related operations said the US Special Forces have trained for sabotage missions inside Iran for years.

"From the first reports, this attack looks like something from our guys," he told The Daily Beast.

The unnamed source also said US Special Forces conducted a series of targeted attacks on Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in late 2011 as the US military was exiting Iraq -- an offensive credited with stopping Iran from attacking US forces as they left Iraq.

The news website posited that If the United States conducted the interference with Iran's power lines, it may help Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's concerns about the US' resolve to stop Tehran from developing an atom bomb.

Ynet's military analyst Ron Ben-Yishai explained immediately after Abbasi's statement was released that the covert war against Iran -- initiated by the US, Israel and Britain -- is ongoing. He said the sabotage at Fordo has been confirmed and proves that Iran's nuclear work can be stopped without the use of bunker buster bombs.

In recent years, the West's stealth war on the disputed atom program has been waged through industrial explosions, cyber viruses and targeted killings, but the recent blasts could mark the first time that Iran's civilian infrastructure is targeted.
Posted by:Glinesh Craling7938

#10  Missions against insurgencies or powerful criminal gangs (e.g. Pablo Escobar) for beleaguered Third World allies, I can see. However, having an A-Team captured in Iran is the stuff of presidential nightmares. Qom is hundreds of miles inside Iran. How do you get them in? How do you get them out if they're detected? Unless the Super Friends are part of the Special Forces, it's not clear how they do some of these things.

Between the books Bravo Two Zero and Sole Survivor, it's quite clear that elite troops face extreme danger even in areas where our air force has established air supremacy. In a shooting war, dead or captured GI's are a part of doing business. Given that there's no such war going on with Iran, it's hard to conceive of a situation in which any president would send small special forces units deep into Injun country. If it's something that absolutely, positively has to be destroyed, they'll send in the B-2's or (more likely) sub-contract it via one or a combination of Kurdish, Arab, other ethnic separatist or communist opposition groups operating in Iran. A B-2 strike is feasible without anyone on the ground because it's not as if anyone's invented mobile power lines. However, given the fact that no air-dropped ordnance has been publicized, I'd go with the internal opposition (financed by us and/or the Gulf kingdoms) theory.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2012-09-20 21:51  

#9  If so, Obama and Dempsey are running one of the great deception ops of all time.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2012-09-20 20:54  

#8  I'm blaming djinn until someone proves otherwise.
Posted by: lotp   2012-09-20 20:24  

#7  If so, I'm proud of their accomplishment.
Posted by: JohnQC   2012-09-20 16:59  

#6  "Could US Be Behind Iran Power Line Blasts?"

It was probably Southern California Edison. They can get very snarky - if you don't pay your bill on time.
Posted by: Raider   2012-09-20 14:36  

#5  So it was either the US, Israel, or the Iranian opposition. Or some combination of those three. Great! I'm glad we cleared that up.
Posted by: SteveS   2012-09-20 12:09  

#4  A retired US intelligence officer who still works as a contractor with the US military on Iran-related operations said the US Special Forces have trained for sabotage missions inside Iran for years.

Contractors and retirees, we all know they can't be trusted.
Posted by: Besoeker   2012-09-20 08:08  

#3  The blueprint from a 2004 Air Force study
Posted by: tipper   2012-09-20 01:38  

#2  I would certainly hope so, Ollie.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2012-09-20 01:08  

#1  Could US be behind Iran power line blasts?
Aw shucks, who knows.
Posted by: bigjim-CA   2012-09-20 00:44  

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