IAEA Report Warns of Iran's Commitment to Building Nuclear Weapons

Dieter Nagl/AFP/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- Iran's contention that its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes received another damning blow Tuesday as a United Nations watchdog group's report spoke of "Credible ... information indicates that Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device."

The U.S. and its Western allies have long maintained that Tehran is attempting to stockpile a nuclear arsenal to launch a possible attack on Israel or, at the very least, upset the balance of power in the Middle East.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran has tried to develop an atomic bomb for years and prior to 2003, did so under a structured program that has since gone underground to escape scrutiny from its enemies.

However, the IAEA says that it has documents, intelligence and satellite photos to back up its claim about "possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program."

In addition to seeking equipment to build weapons and developing pathways for the production of nuclear materials, the U.N. group claims Iran has sought "nuclear weapons development information and documentation from a clandestine nuclear supply network."

Iran has denied it's doing anything dangerous or illegal.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi stated, "There is no serious proof that Iran is going to create a nuclear warhead...We have repeatedly stated that we are not going to create nuclear weapons."

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IAEA's Iran Report out Wednesday

Dieter Nagl/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report on Iran’s nuclear developments will be presented to member states on Wednesday, according to the IAEA and the State Department.

The report is a "restricted" document,” meaning the IAEA doesn’t distribute it publicly, though it’s fairly certain that one of the 151 member nations will make it public as soon as it becomes available to them,  which could be as early as Tuesday night.

The report will be taken up by the IAEA’s Board of Governors that are slated to meet in Vienna next week.

At Monday’s State Department briefing, spokesperson Victoria Nuland said she couldn’t comment on the unreleased report though the U.S. has had a preliminary briefing on its findings.  She said the U.S. has offered its support and provided “U.S. national contributions to the conclusions of the IAEA.”

According to officials, the report has found that Iran has been making progress with nuclear developments, indications it is tracking towards nuclear weapons development, should it decide to do so.  

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Israeli President Signals Attack on Iran Might Be Imminent

Uriel Sinai/Getty Images(JERUSALEM) -- It would appear now that news leaked about a possible preemptive strike by Israel to knock out Iran's nuclear program is more viable than previously believed.

Israeli President Shimon Peres on Sunday went as far as to tell the Israel Hayom newspaper that "the possibility of a military attack against Iran is now closer to being applied than the application of a diplomatic option."

Peres' declaration comes just as the International Atomic Energy Agency gets set to release its latest study on Tehran's nuclear program, which the U.S., Israel and the West says is designed to create a weapons stockpile despite the government's long series of denials.

Last week, there were reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister were lobbying the Israeli Cabinet for permission to hit Iran's nuclear sites.  In addition, Israel also conducted ballistic missile tests and civil defense drills, a sign that the country may be preparing a major military operation.

Peres tempered the possibility of an imminent military attack against Iran by saying, "We must stay calm and resist pressure so that we can consider every alternative.  I don’t think that any decision has already been made, but there is an impression that Iran is getting closer to nuclear weapons."

Iran has already said it would strike back hard against Israel if any attack occurs and would also take revenge against the U.S.

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Iran Calls US Source of Global Terror

FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images(TEHRAN, Iran) -- A top Iranian official called the U.S. the "chief perpetrator of terror across the globe" Friday, and said he will present proof of U.S. terror to the United Nations.

Speaking to a Tehran crowd that had gathered to commemorate the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy and the taking of U.S. hostages, Saeed Jalili, a top Iranian security official and nuclear negotiator, displayed "two documents that pointed to U.S. involvement in acts of terror," according to Iranian state media.

Jalili claimed Iran has "irrefutable evidence" showing that the U.S. government has funded, directed, and conducted acts of terror in Iran and other countries in the region.

"The U.S. is employing terrorism to promote its objectives," insisted Jalili, who vowed to sue the United States, which he called on the United Nations to prosecute and punish.

Jalili said the documents will be presented by Iran's U.N. envoy to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York Friday. They will also be given to the Swiss ambassador to Iran; the Swiss handle U.S. interests in Iran, since this country. does not maintain an embassy in Iran.

Jalili asked why individuals who were on the U.S. sanctions list had been killed inside Iran. A number of Iranian nuclear scientists have died violent deaths in recent years, and Iran has accused the U.S., the U.K. and Israel of involvements in the death. The allies have denied any involvement.

The U.S. recently alleged that elements of the Iranian government, men from the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guard, were involved in a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. using Mexican drug cartel assassins. An Iranian-American from Texas pleaded not guilty in connection with the alleged plot in a federal court last month. Iran denies involvement in the alleged plot.

The crowd of thousands had rallied to mark the anniversary of the storming of the U.S. Embassy by militants 32 years ago. Fifty-two Americans were held hostage at the embassy for 444 days, from Nov. 4, 1979 to Jan. 20, 1981.

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Iran Soccer Stars Face Public Lashing After Celebratory Butt-Grope

Stockbyte/Thinkstock(RASHT, IRAN) -- In a matter of seconds, a victory celebration of a game-winning soccer goal turned into a crime punishable by a public lashing for two Iranian soccer stars.

Mohammad Nosrati and Sheys Rezaei, who played with the Tehran club “Persepolis,” jumped on a pile of their teammates following the goal Saturday at the Sardar Jangal Stadium in Rasht, a town to the northwest of Tehran. But then the players engaged in what Iranian authorities called “immoral acts,” as Nosrati groped Rezaei’s butt as Rezaei balanced in the air.

Now, members of parliament, sports officials and judges have called for punishment for Nosrati and Rezaei, according to the Fars News Agency.

Iran’s football federation suspended both players and fined them nearly $40,000 each, Fars reported. But public officials have tried to take it further, calling for the players to end their careers forever.
A judiciary official told Fars that Nosrati and Rezaei could also face public lashings, to be carried out on the soccer field where the behavior occurred.

According to an Iranian judge, the offending action “can be considered a violation of public chastity,” the news agency reported. “The punishment of this crime is prison up to two months and 74 lashes.”

However, Hadi Ghaemi, director of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, told ABC News that the players would likely only be fined. The head coach and members of the international team defended the players, whom Ghaemi said were joking with one another in what has become a common gesture among players.

Ghaemi said there is no law in the Iranian penal code that suggests lashings for the specific crime of men groping one another’s butts. However, if the crime was deemed “inappropriate behavior,” akin to “what boyfriends and girlfriends do,” then lashings could be ordered.

Many Muslim countries, including Iran, Saudi Arabia and Sudan, still allow crimes to be punished by such measures as lashing with bamboo rods and stoning criminals.

For a link to the video, click here

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Israeli Prime Minister Looking to Strike Iran's Nuclear Program?

Lior Mizrahi/Getty Images(JERUSALEM) -- There are new tensions in the Middle East, based on reports by the Israeli media that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is supposedly lobbying his Cabinet to permit the military to launch a preemptive strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.

Israel and the U.S. believe that Tehran is developing nuclear warheads although each government has pursued diplomatic means to convince Iran to abandon its program.

However, a senior Israeli official who spoke to the newspaper Haaretz suggested that the threat from Iran is growing and that Netanyahu wants to destroy his enemy's capability to launch a nuclear attack, as Israel did with Saddam Hussein's Osirak nuclear facility in 1981.

Responding to the report, Israeli Cabinet members were irritated that classified information was leaked to the press and tried to play down the possibility of a strike against Iran's nuclear program.

In Tehran, the armed forces chief of staff said, "We consider any threat -- even those with low probability and distant -- as a definite threat.  We are ready to punish them," adding that the U.S. would also suffer should the Israelis launch a preemptive strike.

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Secretary Clinton: US to Launch 'Virtual Embassy' to Reach Iranians

Win McNamee/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- The Obama administration is looking to launch a “virtual embassy” online to reach out to Iranians since it does not have a physical embassy in Tehran, Secretary of State Clinton said Wednesday.
 
Clinton made the announcement in interviews with two Persian-language television shows, the first time she’s spoken to Persian television as America’s top diplomat.
 
“My goal in speaking with you today is to clearly communicate to the people of Iran -- particularly the very large population of young people -- that the U.S. has no argument with you,” she told the popular Voice of America program Parazit Wednesday. The show is modeled on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show, but the interview was serious and featured questions submitted by viewers.
 
The website is scheduled to launch by the end of the year, Clinton said. It will offer guidance to Iranian students and others who want to apply for visas to visit the United States. She said the U..S wants to increase the number of Iranians studying in the United States. It’s unclear what other services the website will offer, but Clinton noted Wednesday that Iran is one of the most effective countries when it comes to restricting, blocking and monitoring Internet access.
 
“We have also seen the regime in Iran impose what amounts to an electronic curtain, it’s the 21st-century equivalent of the barbed wire and the fences and the dogs that the old Soviet Union used, because they come from the same mentality. They want totalitarian control over what you learn and what you say and even what you think and how you worship and all the things that go to the heart of human dignity and human freedom,” she told the BBC show Nowbateh Shoma, which means “Your Turn.”
 
“It’s our opinion that the regime has the most effective ongoing efforts to both disrupt the Internet online communication and more traditional forms of communication, obviously as well, like telephones, cellphones. And they also have a relentless campaign going to follow up on anybody they find who’s expressing themselves in anyway, which is sometimes hard to understand, that they consider subversive,” she told Voice of America.
 
Clinton confirmed that the U.S. is providing technology to Iranians that would allow them to circumvent those controls, but did not elaborate.
 
Clinton reiterated the Obama administration’s willingness to engage with the government of Iran, despite its nuclear ambitions and the recent alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington.
 
“We think there are reasons for regret on both sides, as to what has happened in the past fifty years. But we would like to forge a new relationship. President Obama was very committed to doing that, so far he hasn’t received a particularly positive response,” she said in the Voice of America interview.
 
Clinton also defended U.S. sanctions in Iran as an effective means of trying to change the Iranian regime’s behavior.
 
“We have always pursued a two-track policy, we are prepared to engage if there is willingness on the other side, and we use sanctions and the international community supports the use of sanctions to try to create enough pressure on the regime that they do have to think differently about what they are doing,” she told the BBC.

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Five Charged in Iranian Smuggling Network Linked to Iraq IEDs

Photodisc/Digital Vision/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- The Justice Department has charged five people, including an Iranian man, and four companies with illegally exporting specialized transmitters from a U.S. company to Iran that later were found in unexploded improvised explosive devices in Iraq.

The indictment charges Hossein Larijani, an Iranian citizen, with illegally exporting the radio frequency transmitters through companies and individuals in Singapore who then forward the items to Iran.

Police in Singapore arrested four others who have been indicted in the case -- identified as Wong Yuh Lan, Lim Yong Nam, Lim Kow Seng and Hia Soo Gan Benson -- for their alleged role in conspiring with Larijani to obtain the transmitters from the Minnesota wireless company Digi.

The indictment charges the defendants with conspiracy, smuggling, false statements, obstruction of justice, aiding and abetting and violations of the Arms Export Control Act and Iranian Transaction regulations.

According to the indictment unsealed Tuesday, between August 2007 and February 2008 the transmitters were sent to Singapore and then sent to Iran by Larijani’s company, Opto Electronics Ltd. The indictment alleges that U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq recovered unexploded IEDs in Iraq in May 2008, December 2008, April 2009 and July 2010.

“These defendants misled U.S. companies in buying parts that they shipped to Iran and that ended up in IEDs on the battlefield in Iraq,” Ronald Machen, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, said in a statement.

The indictment filed at U.S. District Court in Washington alleges that Ling Yong Nam’s company, NEL Electronics, and Lim Kow Seng and Hia Soo Gan Benson, from a firm called Corezing International, made false statements to Digi about obtaining 6,000 of the transmitters claiming they would be used for a “telecom project” in Singapore.

According to Digi’s website, the transmitters can carry signals as far as 40 miles away with specialized antennas. Calls to Digi asking about the case were not returned.

Iranian influence in Iraq has been a concern for several years now, especially when U.S. officials noticed that Iran was providing insurgents in Iraq with explosively formed projectile devices.

In an interview with Bloomberg in June 2011 before he retired, then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Iran is “facilitating weapons, they’re facilitating training, there’s new technology that they’re providing....They’re stepping this up, and it’s a concern.”

The Justice Department also alleges that Seng and Benson, through Corezing, illegally exported from the United States antennas used on U.S. military aircraft from a firm in Massachusetts. In total about 55 of the antennas were exported to Singapore and Hong Kong after they allegedly made false statements and avoided filing shipping declarations.

The United States is seeking the extradition of the four defendants from Singapore. Larijani is believed to currently be in Iran.

“This case underscores the continuing threat posed by Iranian procurement networks seeking to obtain U.S. technology through fraud and the importance of safeguarding that technology,” Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division Lisa Monaco said in a statement.

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Hillary Clinton Warns Iran: US Remains Committed to Iraq

ABC News(WASHINGTON) -- As American troops prepare to leave Iraq by the end of the year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a warning on Sunday to neighboring Iran, saying the U.S. will continue to have a presence in the region to assist Iraq as a "partner country" into the future.

"We're going to be present in Iraq, supporting the Iraqis and continually discussing with them what their needs are," Clinton told ABC's This Week anchor Christiane Amanpour.  "And no one should miscalculate our commitment to Iraq, most particularly Iran."

President Obama announced on Friday that all remaining troops will leave Iraq by the end of the year, a promise outlined during the 2008 campaign, and following a timetable set in motion by President George W. Bush before he left office.

U.S. military leaders had hoped to keep at least 3,000 to 5,000 residual forces in the country beyond the end of 2011 to continue to assist and train Iraqi troops, and as force protection for the continuing U.S. diplomatic presence.  But an agreement with Iraqi officials could not be reached, falling through in part over questions of immunity for American service members.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the full withdrawal "a serious mistake" that he fears could increase Iranian influence in Iraq.

"I'm here in the region.  And, yes, it is viewed in the region as a victory for the Iranians," McCain told Amanpour from Amman, Jordan.  "And I'm very, very concerned about increased Iranian influence in Iraq."

McCain said the U.S. did not make strong enough efforts to reach a final agreement, dismissing the immunity issue as an excuse for not reaching a final deal.

"There was never really serious negotiations between the administration and the Iraqis," McCain said.  "They could have clearly made an arrangement for U.S. troops."

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President Ahmadinejad Suggests Plot to Assassinate Saudi Ambassador Was Fabricated

ABC News(TEHRAN) -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday there was no reason for Iran to investigate claims by the American government that the Middle Eastern country was behind a brazen assassination plot on the Saudi ambassador in Washington, D.C., and suggested the whole scheme was made up by the FBI.

“Why should we do such an investigation?” Ahmadinejad asked rhetorically during an interview with al-Jazeera. “Every day the U.S. administration levels new accusations against Iran. Should we start our investigations into any of them?”

Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice released a 21-page criminal complaint, which included transcripts from wiretaps and references to bank transactions, accusing an Iranian-American of working on behalf of Iran’s elite military unit the Quds force in attempting to enlist a member of Mexico’s feared Zetas drug organization to kill the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S. in a bombing in or just outside a crowded Washington, D.C., restaurant.

Ahmadinejad said that “fabricating a bunch of papers is not a difficult thing to do” and said the FBI in particular is an expert at such a thing.  When it comes to Saudi Arabia believing the American version of events, Ahmadinejad said he was referencing the Koran when he said, “If a liar brings you some news, you should not accept it immediately.”

Ahmadinejad’s comments came just hours after Iran’s foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, said his country was “ready to study” the U.S. allegations and had asked Washington to turn over “any existing documents on the issue,” according to Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced last week the DEA and FBI had disrupted a plot "conceived, sponsored and... directed from Iran" to murder the Saudi Arabian ambassador in the U.S. capital, which potentially would have been followed up by bombings of the Saudi Arabian and Israeli embassies.

Iranian officials had previously said the alleged plot was nothing more than a "fabrication" and a "politically-motivated move" in a new wave of anti-Iranian propaganda.

However, top U.S. officials, including President Obama, said the U.S. is confident that the allegations made against Iran could be clearly backed up by evidence. "We would not be bringing forward a case unless we knew exactly how to support all the allegations...." Obama said Friday.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said last week the U.S. had been in direct contact with Iran and had also briefed representatives for a number of other nations on the details of the alleged plot.

Nuland said Thursday that while the scheme seems "like something out of a movie....As you begin to give more detail on what we knew and when we knew it and how we knew it, it has credibility."

Obama said during his Friday address Iran "would pay a price" for their alleged actions -- even if it was not clear Iran's top leaders had participated in or were even aware of the alleged plot.

"Even if at the highest levels there was not detailed operational knowledge, there has to be accountability with respect to anybody in the Iranian government engaging in this kind of activity," the president said.

"The important thing is for Iran to answer the international community why anybody in their government is engaging in these kinds of activities."

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