TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's defense minister said Sunday that Hezbollah's launch of a drone into Israeli airspace earlier this week proves the Islamic Republic's military capabilities, state TV reported.
The statement by Gen. Ahmad Vahidi was Iran's first official acknowledgement that the Lebanese militant group's drone used Iranian technology. It came a few days after Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah claimed responsibility for the launch and said the drone was manufactured in Iran and assembled in Lebanon.
"Great job by Hezbollah," Gen. Vahidi said. "The era in which the Zionist regime (Israel) could think it has regional supremacy is over."
Israeli warplanes shot down the unmanned plane, but the infiltration marked a rare breach of Israel's tightly guarded airspace.
Vahidi said Hezbollah had the right to launch the drone since Israeli warplanes routinely overfly Lebanon. Nasrallah warned that it would not be the last such operation by the group.
Iran routinely announces technological breakthroughs in its defense program. Last month it claimed to have started producing a long-range missile-carrying drone, months after it said it was reverse-engineering an American unmanned aircraft that went down in Iranian territory last year.
The defense minister reiterated Tehran's position that the Jewish state does not have the capability to act against Iran. Israel has not ruled out a military strike against Iran's nuclear program, which the West suspects are aimed at developing weapons. Iran denies the charge, saying its nuclear activities are only geared toward peaceful purposes like power generation and cancer treatment.
Hezbollah, a powerful Shiite group committed to Israel's destruction, has long served as an Iranian proxy along Israel's northern border. Israel and Hezbollah fought a brutal month-long war in mid-2006. Hundreds of people were killed, and Hezbollah fired several thousand rockets and missiles into Israel before the conflict ended in a stalemate.
Iran's Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi (file photo)
Sun Oct 14, 2012 3:0PM GMT
Whatever we have at our disposal will be used at the proper time in defending the Muslim community and Islamic territories and that's natural."
Iran's Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi
Iran's defense minister has confirmed that a radar-evading drone the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement recently sent deep into the Israeli airspace had been developed by Iran.
"Whatever we have at our disposal will be used at the proper time in defending the Muslim community and Islamic territories and that's natural," Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi said on Sunday adding, "Given the Zionist regime's frequent incursions into the Lebanese airspace, we see it as the natural right of Lebanon's Hezbollah to fly its drone above the Occupied Territories."
"The Islamic Republic's capabilities are too high and [are] at the disposal of the Muslim community," he said.
The minister added that the flight of the Hezbollah drone proved the weakness of the Jewish entity's iron dome.
"The so-called iron dome of the Zionist regime's defense space collapsed by this action and it became clear that the Zionist regime could not be safe from the fury of the Muslim community," Vahidi said.
He went on to say that by this action, Lebanon's Hezbollah proved that it would be in full [combat] readiness in rainy days and would firmly respond to any infringement by the Zionist regime.
The operation code-named Hussein Ayub saw Hezbollah's drone fly hundreds of kilometers into the Israeli airspace and getting very close to the Dimona nuclear plant without being detected by the advanced Israeli and US radars, Hezbollah Secretary-General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Thursday.
Hezbollah plans to send more drones over Israel in the future, Nasrallah said, adding that the operation shows the resistance movement is ready to defend Lebanon.
KA/PKH/AZ
Iranian bomber drone Karrar (file photo)
Sun Oct 14, 2012 3:29PM GMT
A senior Iranian commander says the country's experts have built a new unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with bombing abilities.
Commander of Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya Air Defense Base Brigadier General Farzad Esmaili broke the news on Sunday saying the new drone, named Hazem, is a long range aircraft which can be used in air defense operations.
Esmaili noted that the drone will be used in targeting and identification operations, and for carrying cargo whenever needed.
The Iranian commander added that Hazem is not designed for carrying missiles, but we can mount explosives on them.
In recent years, Iran has made great achievements in its defense sector and attained self-sufficiency in producing essential military equipment and systems.
Karrar, Iran's first indigenous long-range drone unveiled in August 2010, is capable of carrying a military payload of rockets to carry out bombing missions against ground targets, flying long distances at a very high speed, and gathering information.
The country's indigenous unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), Shahed 129, unveiled in September, 2012, can carry out combat and reconnaissance missions with its 24-hour nonstop flight capability.
Tehran has repeatedly assured other nations that its military might poses no threat to other countries, insisting that the Islamic Republic's defense doctrine is entirely based on deterrence.
TE/PKH/AZ
An anti-war protest was held in the Turkish capital Ankara on October 9, 2012.
Sun Oct 14, 2012 3:21PM GMT
A recent opinion poll has revealed that more than 75 percent of the Turkish people are against a war with neighboring Syria.
The opinion poll was conducted by Metropol, an agency close to the Turkish government, and surveyed 3,000 respondents.
Analysts believe that this majority is increasing further and there is a sharp mismatch between the government's policies and the Turkish public opinion.
This comes as massive anti-war protests have taken place in many Turkish cities during the past weeks.
The row between Turkey and Syria escalated after Ankara held Damascus responsible for a mortar shell that killed five civilians in the southeastern town of Akcakale on October 3.
Ankara promptly responded with retaliatory fire that continued through the next days, and Turkish lawmakers also authorized the government to use military force against Syria when it deemed necessary.
Tensions have been running high between Syria and Turkey, with Damascus accusing Turkey along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar of backing a deadly insurgency that has claimed the lives of many Syrians, including security and army personnel.
Turkey has beefed up its military presence on its border with Syria over the past weeks, stationing tanks, anti-aircraft missiles, and additional troops in the area.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned on October 9 that Turkey's armed forces would not hesitate to strike back in response to any attack on the Turkish soil after Turkey's parliament authorized cross-border military action against Syria "when deemed right" On October 4.
TNP/JR/AZ
World nations should stay away from Western culture: Leader
The Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei addresses students and schoolchildren in the northeastern North Khorasan province, Sunday, October 14, 2012.
Sun Oct 14, 2012 2:17PM GMT
The Western culture is basically invasive, for whatsoever reason it spreads in any country, it will gradually destroy the culture and identity of that nation."
The Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei
The Leader of the Islamic revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has called on the world nations to steer clear of the Western culture, warning that copying on the Western modus vivendi will give rise to traumas.
"Certain countries, without having faith in any specific school of thought, follow the Western civilization," the Leader told a crowd of thousands of students and schoolchildren on Sunday in North Khorasan province, located in northeastern Iran.
He went on to say that these countries might progress in appearance, but the interminable losses stemming from their humiliating imitation will inflict serious traumas on them and destroy their roots.
"Unlike these imitating states, the nations that opt for the school of monotheism, to the Western civilization, will achieve real and all-out progress and at the same time build a deep-rooted civilization which would promote their attitude and culture across the world," Ayatollah Khamenei noted.
The Leader heaped scorn on the pseudo-intellectuals scaring the Iranian nation away from monotheistic slogans, saying, "They intend to transmit their fear and horror to people and that's why they keep saying that the [monotheistic] school slogans [would] bring about trouble, sanctions and threats."
Ayatollah Khamenei called for full avoidance of following the lifestyle defined in the Western civilization.
"We do not pick a quarrel with the West, but based on [our] studies and investigations, we emphasize that following the West would get no nation anywhere," he said.
"The Western culture is basically invasive, for whatsoever reason it spreads in any country, it will gradually destroy the culture and identity of that nation," he added.
Ayatollah Khamenei described the Western culture as a "lustful, material, sinful, identity-removing and anti-spiritual lifestyle."
The Leader called for concurrent avoidance of "superficiality, rigid-mindedness and secularism," stressing that "Some words and propaganda are apparently religious, but in reality, they pursue the separation of religion from life."
KA/PKH/AZ
An insurgent carries an RPG launcher during clashes with Syrian troops near Idlib on June 15, 2012. (file photo)
Sun Oct 14, 2012 12:56AM GMT
Syrian Army soldiers have killed a Saudi military officer during a mop-up operation in the northwestern province of Idlib.
The officer, identified as Mohammad Salem al-Harbi, was killed in fierce clashes between foreign-sponsored insurgents and Syrian soldiers in the western town of Ma'arrat al-Numan, situated 73 kilometers (45 miles) south of the flashpoint city of Aleppo, on Saturday, the Arabic-language news network Al-Alam reported.
The report added that several foreign militants of Turkish nationality were also killed in the battle.
Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011.
Damascus says outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorists are the driving factor behind the unrest and deadly violence while the opposition accuses the security forces of being behind the killings.
The Syrian government says that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country and accuses Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey of arming the opposition.
MP/HGL
Sat Oct 13, 2012 6:10PM GMT
A prominent author says the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has gone hysterical over the defeats inflicted on the insurgents fighting against the Syrian government, Press TV reports.
"He [Erdogan] was told by the United States, he was told repeatedly by Obama in their private telephone conversations that the Syrian government would collapse like a house of cards and he could then emerge as the hero of that regime change," an author and historian from Washington, Dr. Webster Griffin Tarpley said in an interview with Press TV on Saturday
Referring to the October 10 incident, in which Turkish F-16 fighter jets intercepted a Syrian Airbus A320 flying over Turkish airspace and escorted it to Ankara's Esenboga Airport, Tarpley said the event made Erdogan look like an "unstable, erratic, mercurial kind of leader and not at all what he wanted to be".
"He [Erdogan] is now gotten himself into this really terrible fix, which of course could be potentially tragic for the world," he added.
The Turkish authorities allowed the plane and its passengers to leave Ankara nine hours after landing, but they seized parts of a cargo carried by the plane.
Prime Minister Erdogan later said the grounded plane contained "equipment and munitions sent for the Syrian Defense Ministry from a Russian institution."
Syrian foreign ministry dismissed Turkish premier's claims, saying that Erdogan "continues to lie in order to justify his government's hostile attitude towards Syria."
On Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that "There were, of course, no weapons on the plane and could not have been any. There was a cargo on the plane that a legal Russian supplier was sending in a legal way to a legal customer."
Syria has demanded that Ankara return the confiscated equipment and pay compensation for grounding the airplane.
PG/JR/IS
Atul Aneja
A file picture of U.S. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta at the Pentagon in Washington.
Iran has denied any role in cyber-attacks against two major oil and gas companies in the Persian Gulf, amid statements from the United States that alluded to the possible rise in Tehran's capability to launch massive cyber-strikes against Washington and its allies.
The director of Iran's National Center of Cyberspace, Mehdi Akhavan Beh-Abadi, on Sunday dismissed U.S. claims that Tehran was behind the recent cyber- attacks against a number of Persian Gulf oil and gas companies.
Addressing a press conference in Tehran, Mr. Beh-Abadi said that US claims were bereft of any "technical basis". "We interpret this issue politically and in light of domestic issues and election in the United States," he said referring to the upcoming November 6 presidential polls. The Iranian official said he sympathised with the two companies, Saudi Arabia's Aramco and Qatar's Ras gas, which had been attacked by the Shamoon virus.
The cyber strike had apparently targeted 30,000 computers, wiping and overwriting files. In the words of Leon Panetta, the U.S. defence secretary, the Aramco files had been replaced by an image of a burning U.S. flag. However, analysts point out that apparently the attacks, however dramatic they might appear did not, even for a day, stall production in the two companies that had been targeted.
But that did not stop Mr. Panetta from citing the incident-using imagery of some of the most iconic national security disasters faced by the United States-to state how vulnerable U.S. networks were, to cyber-strikes that could be undertaken by determined foes.
"The collective result of these kinds of attacks could be a cyber- Pearl Harbor," claimed Mr. Panetta, citing the surprise Japanese air attack, which firmly ingratiated the United States in World War II.
Mr. Panetta then drew on the 9/11 example to reinforce his exhortation for an exponential growth in U.S. cyber-capabilities. "Before September 11, 2001 the warning signs were there," observed the defence secretary. He added: "We weren't organised. We weren't ready. And we suffered terribly for that lack of attention. We cannot let that happen again. This is a pre-9/11 moment."
While Mr. Panetta did not state that Iran had directly carried out the Shamoon cyber- attack, he did say that Tehran had "undertaken a concerted effort to use cyberspace to its advantage".
After creating an aura of victimhood, the defence secretary warned "potential aggressors" that they "should be aware that the United States has the capacity to locate them and hold them accountable for actions that harm America or its interests".
To ward off the supposed threat, the Pentagon, Mr. Panetta said, has been investing around $3 billion per year on cyber warfare-a figure which amounts to 40 per cent of Iran's entire 2011 budget on military spending.
Writing in the World Socialist website, analyst Niall Green points out that, " Whatever cyber- attacks the Iranian government may have had a hand in-and no evidence has been presented that Tehran had any involvement in the spreading of the Shamoon virus to Aramco and Rasgas computer systems—they cannot compare to the concerted campaign of cyber warfare and physical attacks carried out by the U.S. government and its Israeli allies against Iranian government, military and scientific institutions and personnel."
In the past, the malware Stuxnet had caused considerable damage to Iran's Bushehr atomic power plant and the uranium enrichment facility in Natanz. New York Times reported in June that the Obama administration has speeded up a cyber- warfare programme, dubbed "Operation Olympic Games," which had been started during the presidency of George Bush. The project specifically mounted "increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran's main nuclear enrichment facilities," the report said.
Israel sole beneficiary of Turkey-Syria warSun Oct 14, 2012 3:9PM GMT
Interview with Kevin Barrett, Islamic Studies expert
Somehow the power seems to have shifted in Turkey and the Israeli-linked Likud crazies along with the people in NATO that they work with have recaptured a lot of the power in Turkey. And this is a disaster for Turkey because Turkey is going to be destabilized itself if the destabilization of the region continues."
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle has called on Turkey to show restraint with regards to its recent conflict with Syria.
Westerwelle, who is in Istanbul for talks with Turkish officials, made the remarks in a meeting with his counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu on Saturday.
"It is important that no one pours oil on the fire," he said. However, he backed Turkey's decision to intercept a Syrian plane flying from Moscow.
Tension between Turkey and Syria soared on October 3 after a mortar shell fired from Syria landed in Turkey's border town of Akcakale, leaving five people dead.
Ankara promptly responded with retaliatory fire that continued through the next days, and Turkish lawmakers also authorized the government to use military force against Syria when deemed necessary.
Press TV has conducted an interview with Kevin Barrett, Islamic Studies expert from Madison, to further discuss the issue.
The following is an approximate transcript of the interview.
Press TV: We have the German Foreign Minister in Turkey saying that Ankara is moving towards a dead end. Turkey, it seems, is beating the drums of war with its neighbor Syria. The first question that comes to mind is why? I mean what vital interest does Turkey see in preparing for a war with Syria, taking into consideration the costs and benefits Ankara has summed up for itself?
Barrett: Well that is a good question. You really should be asking the policymakers in Turkey because I do not think anybody really understands what in the world they can probably be thinking of.
They were doing very well with their policy of no problems with neighbors, they were trading with all countries in the region, they were maintaining a certain kind of neutrality, they refused to let the US come through their country when the US invaded Iraq and they were beginning to develop some independence vis-à-vis the Zionist entity that is Turkey has been a long time ally of Israel due to the corrupt network of Donmeh Jews who are in very high positions in Turkey especially in its military.
So it looked like Turkey was moving towards independence, democracy, non-aligned foreign policy and increasing sway in the region. Turkey has a hinterland of Turkish speaking people that goes all the way to China and they were really moving in the right direction and then this instability in Syria which we could call destabilization actually broke out and I guess the only explanation that I can think of and that anybody has put forward and makes any sense to me is that Erdogan is trying to apologize to the powerful forces in NATO and … Israel for having crossed them a couple of years ago.
Somehow the power seems to have shifted in Turkey and the Israeli-linked Likud crazies along with the people in NATO that they work with have recaptured a lot of the power in Turkey. And this is a disaster for Turkey because Turkey is going to be destabilized itself if the destabilization of the region continues.
The incitement of Kurdish nationalism, the breakaway of the Kurdish part of Iraq perhaps followed by Syria threatens Turkey's territorial integrity especially since Turkey has to behave reasonably towards the Kurds due to its aspirations to be family with the Europeans but at this point it looks who wants to join the European Union anyway, it is a sinking ship.
So I think the leadership in Turkey is just making a terrible, terrible mistake and I hope wiser people in Turkey realize this, certainly the people of Turkey do. Two-thirds of the people of Turkey are against the current policy of bellicose increasing animosity towards Syria.
So let's hope that the government in Turkey follows the wisdom of its people.
Press TV: Briefly, at the end of the day, who will benefit from such a conflict, and what would be the consequences for Turkey?
Barrett: Well I would be arguing all along that the Israelis are working on the Oded Yinon plan to destabilize the entire Middle East and break up the Middle Eastern countries into smaller enclaves based on ethnicity and religious sect.
So they do not want any large powerful successful countries in their region because the people of the Middle East have never accepted the ethnic cleansing of Palestine which we might even call the Palestinian genocide.
So in order to survive and thrive in the region and perhaps even create greater Israel which is supposed to go all the way from the Nile to the Euphrates River, the Israelis have to smash their neighbors into little pieces and that is what has been happening since 9/11 which was an Israeli sponsored coup d'état here in the USA designed to launch America's military power against the Middle East in order to smash up all of these Middle Eastern countries into small ethnic and sectarian enclaves that would never be able to threaten a greater Israel.
So that is the policy I think it's been dictated by the crazies in the Likud faction of Israel and they gain when the region is destabilized and broken into pieces.
