--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Robert Gimbel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:
>
>  Apr. 16, 2006 2:39 | Updated Apr. 16, 2006 11:02
> Report: Iran has readied suicide 'army'
> By JPOST STAFF, YAAKOV KATZ AND HERB KEINON
>                               
> 
>   Talkbacks for this article: 21
>   Iran has readied an "army" of 40,000 suicide bombers to strike 
> targets all over the Western world and Israel as a response to a 
> possible attack on their nuclear facilities, the British Sunday 
> Times reported Sunday morning.   Two senior officials from the 
> Homeland Security Agency, who spoke on condition of anonymity, 
> agreed with the prediction and warned that Iran could set a 
> worldwide terror network into motion in the US and elsewhere.

I checked this out on the Web.  It's actually not a new
story; the "40,000" figure was being tossed around last
year.  Iran has apparently been recruiting suicide bombers,
but how many have actually been "readied" is another issue.
>From what I've been able to glean, the figure includes
folks who have signed up on the Internet, for example.  And
of course even that is unverifiable.

On its face, the likelihood that Iran could actually recruit
and train 40,000 people who would actually then go out and
*be* suicide bombers seems unlikely, to say the least.  (Of
course, even a few who were "successful" could cause a great
deal of chaos.)









   They added that an attack on Iran would be much more dangerous to 
the US than was the strike on Iraq.   The Sunday Times also procured 
a tape of Dr. Hassan Abasi, head of the Iranian Center for Strategic 
Studies. He warned that Iran was ready to strike "sensitive American 
and British targets" if its nuclear facilities were to be attacked.   
With projections that Iran could develop a nuclear bomb within the 
next two-and-a-half years, a high-ranking IDF officer from Military 
Intelligence told The Jerusalem Post over the weekend that the
>  successful enrichment of uranium announced last week proved that 
diplomatic efforts to stop Teheran's race to the bomb had 
failed.   "The way it looks now, it is doubtful that the United 
Nations and the international efforts will succeed in stopping Iran," 
the high-ranking officer said. "Iran spit in the world's face but the 
world hasn't done anything."   On Friday Iranian President Mahmoud 
Ahmadinejad fired a series of verbal shots at Israel, saying it was 
a "permanent threat" to the Middle East that will "soon" be 
liberated, and questioning the validity of the Holocaust.   "Like it 
or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation," 
Ahmadinejad said at the opening of a three-day conference in support 
of the Palestinians attended by Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and other 
Hamas members. "The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will 
be eliminated by one storm," he said.   Although Israel had no 
official response to Ahmadinejad, Shimon Peres said that the
>  Iranian president's words were reminiscent of those of Saddam 
Hussein, and that his "end will be similar."   Peres issued a 
statement saying that Ahmadinejad "represents Satan, and not God." 
History, he said, has denounced "madmen and those who wave the sword, 
and all those who acted this way ended their careers accordingly."   
With that, Peres said that Israel needed to let the US and the 
international community lead the campaign to protect the world from 
the Iranian leader.   In an Israel Radio interview, Peres said 
Saturday that "Iran is a United Nations member state threatening 
another UN member state, and the international organization will not 
let this go unheeded."   "The Iranian president is uniting the entire 
world against him," he said. "Israel is following his statements and 
actions closely, but does not wish to respond to them."   Indeed, the 
Foreign Ministry had no response Saturday night to Ahmadinejad's 
comments.   On Tuesday, Ahmadinejad announced that Iran
>  had passed one of the major hurdles in its race to obtain nuclear 
power and had, for the first time, successfully enriched uranium.   
But while only a battery of 164 centrifuges was used to enrich the 
uranium to 3.5 percent, according to the IDF officer it was only a 
matter of time before Iran obtained technology allowing for the 
operation of thousands of centrifuges over a period of several months 
which could produce highly-enriched uranium at 90% - the amount 
needed for a nuclear bomb.   The officer noted that Iran was in the 
process of developing nuclear arms in a separate program run parallel 
and alongside the Islamic republic's publicly-known and claimed-to-be 
civilian nuclear program.
>   "It is more probable that they have a second and secret plan [to 
develop nuclear arms] and they will copy the technology they are now 
developing in the open and use it in a secret location," the officer 
said.   Iran, the officer predicted, would obtain independent 
research and development capabilities - sometimes referred to as 
the "point of no return" - in a matter of months, technically 
allowing it to move forward with its nuclear program without external 
assistance.   "Once they succeeded in enriching uranium at 3.5% there 
is nothing really technologically stopping them from enriching at 
90%," he asserted.   But after successfully enriching uranium, Iran's 
next test would be to operate thousands of centrifuges for more than 
just a few days. "The goal is to keep them going for several months 
without breaking down or falling apart," he explained. "The fact that 
they know how to do it for several days is not enough."   While 
Israel needed to fear a nuclear attack by Iran,
>  the threat was shared by the entire world and needed to be taken 
care of appropriately, the officer said. Tough and immediate 
sanctions could still potentially suspend and stop Iran's nuclear 
program, he added.   "The diplomatic efforts made until now have been 
exhausted," he said, "and it is now time for a diplomatic process 
with sharp teeth."   The Iranian president provoked a world outcry 
last October when he said Israel should be "wiped off the map."   On 
Friday, he repeated his previous line on the Holocaust, saying: "If 
such a disaster is true, why should the people of this region pay the 
price? Why does the Palestinian nation have to be suppressed and have 
its land occupied?"   The land of Palestine, he said, "will be freed 
soon." He did not say how this would be achieved, but insisted to the 
audience of at least 900 people: "Believe that Palestine will be 
freed soon."
> "The existence of this (Israeli) regime is a permanent threat" to 
the Middle East, he added. "Its existence has harmed the dignity of 
Islamic nations."
> 
>               
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