When a simple email just wouldn’t do, Israeli saboteurs decided two months ago to send a message to the Supreme Leader and his cronies in Tehran. Not for the first time, Israel decided that an act of spectacular derring-do would put the Iranians on notice: you are being watched, everywhere; we know everything you do; you may go thus far, but no farther. The stirring story is here.
An explosion two months ago at Natanz, a key Iranian uranium enrichment facility, was meant to send a message of determination to stop the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, The Jerusalem Post has learned. The purpose of the attack was to send an unambiguous deterrent message that progress toward a nuclear weapon beyond certain redlines would not be tolerated.
Additionally, the Post has confirmed foreign reports that the explosion was caused by physical sabotage as opposed to exclusively cyberwarfare weapons.
Israel is a world leader in cyberwarfare, as its unprecedented creation and use of the computer worm Stuxnet in 2010 demonstrated. The Israelis then infected Iranian computers with the worm, which in turn ordered about 1,000 centrifuges to speed up so fast that they destroyed themselves. This set back the Iranian nuclear program, at that point, by at least a year.
Israel is also a master at inserting its agents into Iran. Such agents managed to kill, in separate incidents, four of Iran’s top nuclear scientists, by riding up on motorcycles to their cars, stopped in Tehran traffic, shooting them, and then riding away. None of these agents were ever caught.
In another act of derring-do, Israeli agents targeted a certain nondescript building in the middle of Tehran. They waited until just after the last guards had left for the night. And then they sprang into action, as the New York Times reported:
The Mossad agents moving in on a warehouse in a drab commercial district of Tehran knew exactly how much time they had to disable the alarms, break through two doors, cut through dozens of giant safes and get out of the city with a half-ton of secret materials: six hours and 29 minutes….
The agents arrived that night, Jan. 31, with torches that burned at least 3,600 degrees, hot enough, as they knew from intelligence collected during the planning of the operation, to cut through the 32 Iranian-made safes. But they left many untouched, going first for the ones containing the black binders, which contained the most critical designs. When time was up, they fled for the border, hauling some 50,000 pages and 163 compact discs of memos, videos and plans.
It was an astounding feat, leaving the Iranians panicked. How did these agents get into the country? How did Mossad locate that building, and keep it under surveillance for a year before striking? How did its agents know which safes to open, in what order? And how did they manage to slip out of Iran unobserved with a half-ton of documents and compact discs? Did heads roll in Tehran as a result?
But let’s go back to the sabotage at Natanz:
To date, Iran has made multiple announcements, but has not accused Israel at an official level and Jerusalem has never officially taken responsibility, although multiple ministers have dropped hints.
At the time, a previously unknown group called the Homeland Cheetahs, claimed that it was a group of Iranian dissidents and had undertaken the attack.
However, that group has not been heard from since. Experts speculated that the group was a cover for the true attacker or at most a mixed operation of Iranian dissidents with a powerful foreign backer like Israel, the United States or Saudi Arabia….
The “Homeland Cheetahs” do not appear to exist, but were apparently fabricated in order to initially throw up a smokescreen, leading Iranian officials on a wild goose chase, possibly giving those Mossad agents involved sufficient time to escape.
Israel wanted the Iranians to understand that that their progress on their nuclear project would unceasingly continue to be undermined. Cyberwarfare capable of destroying centrifuges, assassinations of nuclear scientists, thefts of a half-ton of top-secret documents and compact discs about the nuclear project, and now this latest feat — the destruction at the centrifuge plant in Natanz, which could only have been caused by agents on the ground, who may have placed explosive charges inside the building. That latest act was not meant only to destroy the plant, but to send Tehran an unmistakable message: if you keep pursuing nuclear weapons, we will keep attacking whatever and wherever you build, in the ways – agents or cyberwarfare – we deem most effective. We are masters of cyberwarfare as you know to your own secret sorrow. And we have agents everywhere inside your country. We know everything you are trying to do. Go ahead and rebuild your Natanz plant inside a mountain. It won’t help; we will find a way (you know we always find a way). Besides, the Americans are going to provide us with those bunker busters we’ve been eyeing, that our airplanes or drones or agents – you may never know which – will send down shafts to blow up whatever you’ve built underground.
Though Tehran initially played down the Natanz and other explosions, within days satellite footage revealed that the impact was far more serious than the regime was claiming.
By July 9, Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) president David Albright had told the Post that around three-quarters of the advanced centrifuge assembly facility had been destroyed, setting back advanced centrifuge development by between one to two years.
The Post has confirmed that official levels of the Israeli government agree with this assessment and believe that the attack has dealt a major setback to Iran’s development of advanced centrifuges.
In other reports, Israelis have said that Iran’s nuclear project has been set back, as a result of the advanced centrifuge plant’s destruction, of at least two years. But there is reason to think it has been set back even longer.
Shortly after the explosion, Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi hinted to [sic] Israeli involvement. Furthermore, last month Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen responded to the Post’s questions about the attack saying, “we know what is happening everywhere” in the Islamic Republic and “whoever wants to threaten Israel’s existence will have no immunity anywhere… I say to Iran, ‘don’t put Israel’s determination to the test.’”…
Albright estimated that the facility would take at least a year to rebuild, but likely longer since it took six years, from 2012-2018, to build it and become operational the first time.
If it took six years to build the Natanz plant, even allowing for a steep learning curve, surely “a year to rebuild” is a gross underestimate. Two years, as Israelis have mentioned, or even three, seem much more plausible estimates as to how long it will take to build a new plant. And if the plant is going to be rebuilt inside a mountain, as the Iranians claim, that will be a much more complex and lengthy undertaking than was the building of Natanz on flat ground.
The message to Iran from Israel is clear: if you build it, we will come. We will come with airplanes, or drones. We will come with Mossad agents, ready to lay their explosives at any facility they choose, ready to assassinate those nuclear scientists who are deemed critical to the program, ready to travel into, and around, and swiftly out of, Iran, with impunity. If you build it, we will come in another way, too — not physically but through the ether, sending messages to your computers that will cause massive self-destruction to your nuclear project. Spare yourselves the grief; stop your nuclear project. Or be prepared for more – much much more – of the devastation you have already experienced.
Buraq says
What this all means is that the Israelis/Americans/ the Scarlet Pimpernel, or whoever, could plant an electronic homing device in an Iranian military target to guide missiles fired from hundreds of miles away. A homing device to guide rockets launched from land, sea or air would mean millimetre-precision.
Go Israel!
mortimer says
I like the title of the article! And yes, Israel will come if they build it.
Send in the bunker-busters.
cornelius says
Truth is stranger than fiction. The most imaginative movie producer or fiction writer could not possibly come up with the mechanisms employed by Israel to infiltrate Iranian society the way they have.
For example, how do the Israelis manufacture Mossad agents who speak not only fluent but un-accented Farsi? Are they all exiled Iranian Jews?….with perhaps a smattering of sympathetic exiled Iranian Bahais?….(remember that while Iran has the world’s largest community of Bahais – typically hated and persecuted in that country, their religious head-quarters is based in Israel). Or are these agents simply Israelis who are taught Farsi with such attention to detail that they are linguistically indistinguishable from other Iranians? Doubtful. I know many Hispanics who learned to speak fluent English as children or young adults….but the Spanish accent is never fully lost.
Once implanted into Iran, how do they survive in the age of the data base….where being routinely pulled over or otherwise asked to produce their papers offers a very good chance of being detected with a false identity. It’s mind-boggling how not a single Israeli has ever been detected…..even by accident….(though Iranian Jews are sometimes arrested and accused of spying for Israel).
And after infiltrating into Iran, how do they develop such astonishingly accurate intelligence? They certainly had to have an agent or at least an informer inside the facility to know which safes to open and which not to bother with. How did they recruit this guy? Iran is not exactly an open society. And yet, Israel seems to have penetrated it so very successfully.
If I were in the Iranian leadership….I’d have trouble sleeping at night.
Ray Jarman says
+1 Excellent points.
john smith says
+1 seconded
curious george says
+10
For a small group of people, 0.20% of the worlds population… they pack a very powerful punch.
James Lincoln says
Yes, curious george.
When will muslim majority countries learn that you *never ever* mess with the Israelis?
curious george says
Never JL.
Historically, when someone attempted to destroy the Jewish people, the Jews ended up with another holiday.
The more things change, the more they remain the same.
Larry says
If someone is fully bi or multilingual by about the age of 7 they can later learn more languages, and learn them with correct accents rather than that they grew up with.
So a Bahai in Israel probably grows up speaking Farsi, Hebrew, and very possibly English, maybe Arabic as well.
Getting some who sound just like an Iranian would then be fairly easy. Training them to do the rest would be the hard but.
roberta says
China and Little Rocket man will help the mullahs get back on track.
Check Burry says
Praise to the brave, smart Israelis
Ray Jarman says
Amen Check Burry
Dave from San Antonio says
Israel has always, in my opinion, been at the forefront with these type of essential missions from the mid-1960s to today. Israel, when looking at the countries surrounding it, is really a small country in comparison. Israel has fought for it’s freedom and it’s right to survive, as an independent country almost from the moment of it’s birth. Israel, for the most part, is peaceful and would enjoy nothing more than to exist in peace. The neighboring countries, which are muslim for the most part, have wanted to destroy Israel from the moment of it’s conception. Israel has fought several wars in the pursuit of it’s freedom and has utilized a ‘preemptive’ strike many times with overwhelming success. They know what’s at stake and will defend their country at all costs. If they feel threatened and have good intelligence that backs up their fear, Israel will do something. This is a country that has more than survived against a ‘stacked deck’ and will continue to survive. I’ve been to Israel three times. Once in the 70s as a student/tourist for a couple months and twice in the very late 80s and early 90s. I would love to go there, again, if possible.
Wellington says
Whenever good guys keep prevailing over bad guys there’s great satisfaction to be had in reflecting upon this.
gravenimage says
+1
Walter Sieruk says
This jihadwatch article quotes “An explosion two months ago at Natanz, a key Iranian uranium enrichment facility, was meant to send a message of determination to stop the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program…”
It’s important and necessary that the Israeli’s use the power of an explosion to those in control of that aggressive and hostile Islamic tyrannical Islamic regime of Iran because the ayatollahs and mullahs who have such a controlling influence on Iran Muslim parliament are will not lesson to either reason or logic to stop their nuclear program. In other words they will not respond to reason.
Therefore the use of the force of might needs to be used “to send a message” that those Muslim clerics and their stooges in power and control In Iran will understand.
As a former American President had, wisely, written “With every barbarous people…force is law.”
For those tyrants of this “mullah tyranny ” don’t care about the lives and safety of the Iranian citizens so how much less if possible do they care the lives and safety of the Israeli citizens.
in addition, there aren’t some things wrong with that “mullah regime” of Iran because the word “some” would put a limit on the number of things that are wrong with that brutal, cruel and oppressive “mullah tyranny” of Iran.
Back on the date of 4/22/19 the US Secretary of State ,Michael Pompeo spoke of that brutal and oppressive tyranny which oppresses the people of Iran and said “We will not appease their oppressors as that last administration did .” Pompeo then stated “We will support the Iranian people.”
As far back as on Tuesday, 2/5/ 19 in his second State on the Union a speech President Trump ,wisely, spoke of that Islamic tyranny of Iran as well as those in total power and complete of that tyrannical rogue state. For the President declared “It is a radical regime, they do bad, bad things.”
Moreover, an author of an article on a Freedom Site, Dariush Afshar, had explained the reality of the situation well when he wrote that the “People of Iran who fight for freedom in Iran and abroad put a huge gap and draw a prominent line between Iran and the Islamic regime in Tehran.”
This is sadly and tragically the terrible reality of this Islamic tyrannical regime of Iran. This Islamic tyranny has been well nicknamed “the mullahs regime” in which them mullahs and ayatollahs as well as other fiendish and fanatical Muslims in power have a strong and awful control of the Islamic regime of Iran and through their band of Islamic state “police” , who are called the “Revolutionary Guards “come down hard human rights of the Iranian people .
Therefore, the Iranian people who are trapped and forced to exist in this Islamic tyranny live in terrible fear of the mullahs and others in power in Iran. This is a tragic and sad reminder of the wisdom that was printed in the periodical of Benjamin Franklin which is entitled POOR RICHARDS’ ALMANAC that reads “Those who are feared are also hated.”
It also should be added, to this that the actual word “Republic” has on origin the Latin meaning “Of the people” With the mullahs ayatollahs in so much power and even influencing the parliament of this Islamic regime is tyranny is hardly a real republic .Furthermore the ruthless gang of thugs who are the stooges of those Muslim clerics, called the “Revolutionary Guards,” those Islamic State “police” come down hard on the human rights and freedoms of the Iranian people. Therefore the people do have the right to overthrow a tyranny. This reality had even been expressed and described by men of great intelligence .For example the philosopher .John Locke. This is wisdom that mullahs and other villains in power in that Islamic tyranny don’t want the Iranian people to know about or understand.
Walter Sieruk says
Since that Islamic regime now let world know about its “nuclear intentions , proves the need to further uphold sanctions against that Islamic “mullah tyranny” of Iran is, indeed, vicious and deadly because is cruel, brutal and murderous Qu’ran based method 5:33 of persecuting Iranian protesters, and other people, is keeping with the long history of that violent “mullah regime” of Iran. Likewise also keeping within bounds All this fits with the actual legacy of Ayatollah Khomeini is the of violence and war. To be more specific Islamic violence and war. Strangely, there are many young people and strangely many older people, who are Westerns who in the United States as well other countries of the West are, no doubt sincere but very misinformed ,as in misled, therefore say ,because they believe it, that “Islam is a peaceful and non-violent religion .” To those people the first and supreme Ayatollah Khomeini , who was the very head this current Islamic regime of Iran knows better stated about how he feels about those naïve Westerns .For he declared “Islam grew with blood….Islam is a religion of blood for the infidels” He also said “Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war….I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.” [1]
So, in other words Ayatollah Khomenei felt nothing but arrogant contempt for those people who say that his religion “Is a peaceful religion” and understand that they in ignorant and uninformed.
Therefore the West needs to wake up to the reality of the truth about the actual violent essence of this religion.[1] THE ISLAM IN ISLAMIC TERRORISM, by Ibn Warraq, pages 336,339.
Walter Sieruk says
That the aggressive hostile tyrannical regime of Iran is striving for nuclear weapons is an awful and tragic fact reality and is staying within the national character of the rough Islamic state of Iran . Therefore that attack, by Iran, should be of no surprise to any informant person, in fact , this fits in with the real legacy of Ayatollah Khomeini who was the Imam who was so powerful that he played large role in the establishment of the current Islamic tyranny of Iran which has the official title of “ The Islamic Republic of Iran” Khomeini had declared “ Jihad or Holy War ,which is for the conquest of [other ] countries and kingdoms , becomes incumbent after the formation of the Islamic State in the presence of the Imam or in accordance with his command. Then Islam makes it incumbent on all males…to prepare themselves for the conquest of countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world… those who study Islamic Holy War will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world. The goal of this conquest would be to establish the hegemony of Islamic law.” [1]
[1] THE HISTORY OF JIHAD by Robert Spencer , page 319.
Walter Sieruk says
The mullah and ayatollahs who have so much terrible ruthless power, nuclear power weapons , in Iran and who have complete controls of the Muslim members of Iran’s official parliament are ,indeed, Muslim clerics who are viciously jihad –minded in the most violent and deadly ways possible .
So must so that their character may be well described in Psalm 73:6—9 which read “Therefore pride is their necklace:: they clothe themselves with violence. From their callous hearts comes iniquity; their evil ;their evil imaginations have no limits. They scoff and speak with malice; with arrogance they threaten oppression. Their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth.” [N.I.V.]
Kesselman says
The mullah regime continues to play with fire, maybe a bit more cautious when it dawns on them what capacity Israel and the US combined has to offer. Feeding each other with intelligence and hardware.—America’s Ohio-class submarines could bring the end to the world so much more to the Islamic Republic of Iran.—Having these magnificent weapons (subs) is excellent. But, how do we stop the internal corrosion of our leadership which makes us seem weak? Wake up silent majority and make yourselves known to support strong moral leadership. Our strength is in making sure those who think they can intimidate us are themselves intimidated and fearful.—A silent predator of the deep is something Iran should take into consideration.
gravenimage says
Natanz Explosion Sent Message from Israel to Iran: If You Build It, We Will Come
……………
Hear, hear!
Giacomo Latta says
”Israel is a world leader in cyberwarfare, as its unprecedented creation and use of the computer worm Stuxnet in 2010 demonstrated.”
If a group of American and Israeli experts hadn’t worked on explaining what had happened in Iran, it would still be in the dark wondering what the hell happened. Iran has a talent for purchasing turnkey systems and that’s about it.
Walter Sieruk says
Iran has in its Islamic arrogance and gall even quadrupled is stockpile of uranium for the production of nuclear weapons
Moreover in should be remembered that most that money Iran has obtained, thanks to Obama and Kerry, will had gone into funding weapons and other supplies to Iran murderous terror proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas.
Not very long ago young Iranian woman who now lives in an American city that I now also live in. This city has a newspaper and she wrote an article how she and her mother had returned from visiting her sick and dying grandmother in the hospital in Tehran in Iran In that article this young women explained that the medical and health care in Iran’s hospitals is so terrible that the people of Iran view hospitals s place that people go to not get better but to die.
The reason the this point is brought up is that the mullahs and ayatollahs as well as others in power in this Islamic tyranny Iran will not invest those news funds from, Obama and Kerry, in better health care in hospitals but instead use that money to engage in more support for brutal and murderous militant jihad organizations . For those tyrants in power in Iran don’t care, at all, about the Iranian people. They are only interested in furthering their mad jihad Islamic quest.