
Helen Kennedy
Explosions and assassinations at Iran nuke base pinned to Israel may have been CIA.
In public Sunday, President Obama was at a summit unsuccessfully
leaning on Russia and China to back diplomatic efforts to curb Iran’s
nuke program.
In private Sunday, there was more evidence of an efficient and brutal
covert operation that continues to degrade Iran’s military capabilities.
Iranian officials revealed that one of the 17 men killed in a huge
explosion at a munitions depot was a key Revolutionary Guard commander
who headed Iran’s missile program. And the IRNA state news agency
reported that scientists had discovered a new computer virus in their
systems, a more sophisticated version of the Stuxnet worm deployed last
year to foul up Iran’s centrifuges.
Iran said the army base explosion was an accident and the new Duqu
virus was contained. But Israeli newspapers and some U.S. experts said
it appeared to be more from an ongoing secret operation by the CIA and
Israel’s Mossad to eliminate Iran’s nuclear threat.
The covert campaign encompasses a series of assassinations of Iranian
nuclear scientists since 2007 and a similar explosion at another Iranian
missile base two years ago both widely attributed to the Mossad.
“May there be more like it,” was all Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said when Army Radio asked about the new blast.
There was a third mysterious event: The son of a top Iranian hard-liner
was found dead — a seeming suicide — in a Dubai hotel on Sunday. His
father called it “suspicious” and linked to the base explosion, without
elaborating.