Ahmedinejabber

From JPost.com Apr. 16, 2006 by JPOST STAFF, YAAKOV KATZ AND HERB KEINON ...

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.

...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.

...the Foreign Ministry had no response Saturday night to Ahmadinejad's comments.

...(an) IDF officer (said) ... 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 ... 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.

...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 ... said... : "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."