Iran suicide bombers ‘ready to hit Britain’
By Marie Colvin, Michael Smith and Sarah Baxter
04/16/06 "The
Times" -- -- IRAN has formed battalions of suicide
bombers to strike at British and American targets if the
nation’s nuclear sites are attacked. According to Iranian
officials, 40,000 trained suicide bombers are ready for action.
The main force, named the Special Unit of Martyr Seekers in the
Revolutionary Guards, was first seen last month when members
marched in a military parade, dressed in olive-green uniforms
with explosive packs around their waists and detonators held
high.
Dr Hassan Abbasi, head of the Centre for Doctrinal Strategic
Studies in the Revolutionary Guards, said in a speech that 29
western targets had been identified: “We are ready to attack
American and British sensitive points if they attack Iran’s
nuclear facilities.” He added that some of them were “quite
close” to the Iranian border in Iraq.
In a tape recording heard by The Sunday Times, Abbasi warned the
would-be martyrs to “pay close attention to wily England” and
vowed that “Britain’s demise is on our agenda”.
At a recruiting station in Tehran recently, volunteers for the
force had to show their birth certificates, give proof of their
address and tick a box stating whether they would prefer to
attack American targets in Iraq or Israeli targets.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned last Friday that Israel was
heading towards “annihilation”. He was speaking at a Tehran
conference on Palestinian rights aimed at promoting Iran as a
new Middle Eastern superpower.
According to western intelligence documents leaked to The Sunday
Times, the Revolutionary Guards are in charge of a secret
nuclear weapons programme designed to evade the scrutiny of the
International Atomic Energy Agency.
One of the leaked reports, dating from February this year,
confirms that President George W Bush is preparing to strike
Iran. “If the problem is not resolved in some way, he intends to
act before leaving office because it would be ‘unfair’ to leave
the task of destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities to a new
president,” the document says.
Alireza Jafarzadeh, a former spokesman for National Council of
Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an opposition group, said a secret,
parallel military programme was under way. According to sources
inside Iran, the Revolutionary Guards were constructing
underground sites that could be activated if Iran’s known
nuclear facilities were destroyed.
The NCRI is the political wing of the Mujaheddin-e-Khalq, which
is deemed a terrorist organisation in Britain and America.
However, much of its information is considered to be “absolutely
credible” by western intelligence sources after Jafarzadeh
revealed the existence of the Natanz plant in 2002.
Within the past year, 14 large and several smaller projects have
been created, according to Jafarzadeh. Several are designed to
be nuclear factories; others are for the storage of weapons, he
claimed.
Additional reporting: Safa Haeri
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