Posts by Sandrea
Iran nuclear scientist killed in car bomb
0
AN Iranian nuclear scientist has been killed and two people injured when a magnetic bomb attached to a car by a duo on a motorbike exploded outside a Tehran university, Iranian news agencies said.
An Iranian official said Israel was behind the attack, pointing to similarities with previous killings of other nuclear scientists.
The person killed was identified by several media as Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a scientist who worked on separating gases at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, according to the website of a different university from which he graduated around a decade ago.
“This morning a motorbiker attached a bomb to a Peugeot 405, which exploded,” the governor of Tehran province, Safar Ali Bratloo, was quoted as saying by the ILNA news agency on Wednesday.
“The responsibility of this explosion falls on the Zionist regime,” Bratloo told Iran’s Arabic-language Al-Alam broadcaster.
“The method of this terrorist action is similar to previous actions that targeted Iran’s nuclear scientists,” he said.
The explosion occurred outside the east Tehran campus of Allameh Tabatai University, at its social sciences faculty.
Ahmadi Roshan was killed and the two wounded passengers were taken to hospital, Bratloo said.
Sharif University, Tehran’s elite technical university where the slain scientist had studied, said Ahmadi Roshan was specialised in making polymeric membranes used to separate gas. Iran uses gas separation to enrich uranium.
Three other Iranian scientists were killed in 2010 and 2011 when their cars blew up in similar circumstances. At least two of the scientists had also been working on nuclear activities.
One of the attacks occurred exactly two years ago, on January 11, 2010, killing scientist Masoud Ali Mohammdi.
The current head of Iran’s atomic organisation, Fereydoun Abbasi, escaped another such attempt in November 2010, getting out of his car with his wife just before the attached bomb exploded.
Those attacks were viewed by Iranian officials as assassination operations carried out by Israel’s Mossad intelligence service, possibly with help from US counterparts.
The latest blast comes amid extremely high international tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, which the West and Israel believe conceals research to develop an atomic bomb.
Israel has threatened to launch air strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The United States has said “all options are on the table” in terms of dealing with Iran – including military action.
Tehran, which has repeatedly denied that its nuclear program is for anything other than peaceful purposes, has threatened to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz at the entrance to the Gulf if it is attacked. Twenty per cent of the world’s oil flows through that strait.
Wednesday’s car explosion followed confirmation on Monday by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran had started uranium enrichment at a fortified underground bunker southwest of Tehran, in Fordo.
The United States, Britain, France, Germany and Italy have viewed that development with alarm, saying it was a violation of UN Security Council resolutions on Iran.
Scotsman drowns in whisky vat
0
A manager at the Glenfiddich distillery has drowned in a giant vat of whisky.
Brian Ettles, 46, allegedly threw himself into a 16ft wooden tank filled with water and yeast on Saturday night.
Firemen and paramedics tried to rescue him from the 50,000-litre container, but he was pronounced dead at the scene.
The father of two had worked at the site in Dufftown, in the heart of the Scottish Highlands, for 22 years.
The tragedy came a day after his wife, Irene, had celebrated her 54th birthday.
The Glenfiddich Distillery, which is a popular tourist attraction, was closed on Monday as a mark of respect to Mr Ettles.
Grampian Police said they were not treating the death as suspicious.
Fraudulent Halifax E-mail
0
The email below that state that it arrive from Halifax is a fraud, do not respond to this email, they are trying to get into your bank account
Halifax Bank Security department has sent this email to inform you the following:
Your account has been flagged for review and your access was suspended until further notice.
This may be due to either of the following reasons:
* Billing / Payment Issues
* Abuse & Terms of Use Issues
We strongly suggest you to review and confirm your account information today by following the link below:
http://www.halifax.co.uk/?online-review/lift-limitation-51952-1m/sandra.brownkeen@hotmail.co.uk/rem-l52.html
Once you’ve done this your account suspension will be lifted and you will be able to use your account as usual.
We are sorry for any inconvenience that this might have caused.
Accounts Security Department,
Halifax Bank plc.
Twenty dead in Pakistan bombing
0
Twenty dead in Pakistan bombing – A bomb exploded close to a bus in northwest Pakistan today, killing 20 people in the deadliest blast in the country in several months, a government official said.
The motive for the attack in the Khyber region, close to the Afghan border, was not known, but in the past Islamist militants have shown no hesitation in targeting civilians. Khyber is home to several extremist factions that are fighting the government.
Most of the victims were passengers on the bus, said local government official Iqbal Khan. The blast wounded at least 24 other people.
He said that the device was likely detonated by remote control.
Islamist militants with links to al-Qaida have carried out hundreds of bombings in Pakistan since 2007.
Many hundreds of soldiers, police, government officials and civilians have been killed.
The Pakistani army has carried out offensives against the militants in their strongholds in tribally administered regions like Khyber, but the insurgents have proven to be a resilient foe. The violence has triggered fears in the West that nuclear-armed Pakistan may be buckling under extremism.
The frequency of large-scale attacks outside of the northwest has decreased over the last 18 months.
The last major bombing was in September close to the Swat Valley, when a suicide bomber hit a funeral of a tribal elder opposed to the Taliban, killing 31
UK security forces tracked car of alleged IRA man
0
DUBLIN—A prosecutor says British anti-terror agents placed an electronic surveillance device on a car used by an alleged Irish Republican Army dissident charged with killing a Northern Ireland policeman.
The claim came on Monday’s opening of the murder trial of John Wootton and Brendan McConville.
Both men deny fatally shooting policeman Stephen Carroll through the head in a March 2009 ambush claimed by the Continuity IRA splinter group. Carroll was the first policeman killed in Northern Ireland since 1998, the year of the territory’s peace accord.
State prosecutor Ciaran Murphy told Belfast Crown Court that police could connect both defendants to the killing partly because a tracking device hidden in Wootton’s car placed him at the scene of the attack.
Iran sentences American ‘spy’ to death
0
AN American ex-Marine, who also holds Iranian citizenship, has been sentenced to death by an Iran judge for spying for the CIA, the Fars news agency reports.
Amir Mirzai Hekmati, 28, was “sentenced to death for co-operating with a hostile nation, membership of the CIA and trying to implicate Iran in terrorism”, the verdict said, according to Fars today.
Hekmati, who was born in the United States to an Iranian immigrant family, was shown on Iranian state television in mid-December saying in fluent Farsi and English that he was a Central Intelligence Agency operative sent to infiltrate the Iranian intelligence ministry.
He had been arrested months earlier.
Iranian officials said his cover was blown by agents for Iran who spotted him at the US-run Bagram military air base in neighbouring Afghanistan.
But Hekmati’s family in the United States told US media he had travelled to Iran to visit his Iranian grandmothers and he was not a spy.
In his sole trial hearing, on December 27, prosecutors relied on Hekmati’s “confession” to say he tried to penetrate the intelligence ministry by posing as a disaffected former US soldier with classified information to give.
The United States has demanded Hekmati’s release.
The State Department said Iran has not permitted diplomats from the Swiss embassy – which handles US interests in the absence of US-Iran ties – to see Hekmati before or during his trial.
Meanwhile Iran says it has arrested an unidentified number of “spies” who allegedly sought to carry out US plans and disrupt an upcoming parliamentary election, intelligence minister Heydar Moslehi said.
“Those arrested were after carrying out American plans and operations to disrupt the parliamentary election using cyber space and social networks,” Moslehi told reporters after a cabinet session on Sunday, state media reported.
Moslehi did not say when or how many people were arrested, nor did he reveal their nationalities.
But he said they were also in contact with people abroad, through the internet, as Iran braces to hold a legislative election on March 2, its first poll since the disputed 2009 presidential election.
Recent Comments