Anonymous wrote:The Iranians bombed an Israeli nuclear facility and their defense headquarters in retaliation. Yikes

Anonymous wrote:IDF official to WSJ: Natanz facility may have imploded. Yikes, if accurate.

Near a peak of the Zagros Mountains in central Iran, workers are building a nuclear facility so deep in the earth that it is likely beyond the range of a last-ditch U.S. weapon designed to destroy such sites, according to experts and satellite imagery analyzed by The Associated Press.

The photos and videos from Planet Labs PBC show Iran has been digging tunnels in the mountain near the Natanz nuclear site

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A different set of images analyzed by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies reveals that four entrances have been dug into the mountainside, two to the east and another two to the west. Each is 6 meters (20 feet) wide and 8 meters (26 feet) tall.

The scale of the work can be measured in large dirt mounds, two to the west and one to the east. Based on the size of the spoil piles and other satellite data, experts at the center told AP that Iran is likely building a facility at a depth of between 80 meters (260 feet) and 100 meters (328 feet). The center’s analysis, which it provided exclusively to AP, is the first to estimate the tunnel system’s depth based on satellite imagery.

The Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based nonprofit long focused on Iran’s nuclear program, suggested last year the tunnels could go even deeper.

Experts say the size of the construction project indicates Iran likely would be able to use the underground facility to enrich uranium as well — not just to build centrifuges. Those tube-shaped centrifuges, arranged in large cascades of dozens of machines, rapidly spin uranium gas to enrich it. Additional cascades spinning would allow Iran to quickly enrich uranium under the mountain’s protection.

“So the depth of the facility is a concern because it would be much harder for us. It would be much harder to destroy using conventional weapons, such as like a typical bunker buster bomb,” said Steven De La Fuente, a research associate at the center who led the analysis of the tunnel work.

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Such underground facilities led the U.S. to create the GBU-57 bomb, which can plow through at least 60 meters (200 feet) of earth before detonating, according to the American military. U.S. officials reportedly have discussed using two such bombs in succession to ensure a site is destroyed. It is not clear that such a one-two punch would damage a facility as deep as the one at Natanz.

With such bombs potentially off the table, the U.S. and its allies are left with fewer options to target the site. If diplomacy fails, sabotage attacks may resume

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Anonymous wrote:Israel bit off more than they chew. I mean if Gaza and Lebanon were a challenge and the Houthis were a challenge, I don’t know they thought cutting the head off the proverbial snake would be easy.

Reports say Trump declined to assassinate ayatollah or invade Iran.

More yikes

One political analysts take:

The problem is that Iran is responding with relative restraint and proportionality, which makes it difficult for Israel to formally draw the US into war.

Their entire goal seems to be to try and bait Iran into using excess force putting them in a disadvantagous position so that the US has no choice but to help intervene. Notable is that the US has the bunker buster bombs that Israel requires to attack installations deep within mountainous areas.

Anonymous wrote:Netanyahu is an evil crazy man. So are the rest of them over there.

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Anonymous wrote:Reports of 3 f-35 shot down with two pilots captured.

source?

Iranian state media on June 14 reported the shootdown of a third Israeli F-35 fifth generation fighter in the country’s airspace, following two prior reported shootdowns and the capture of a female pilot. The aircraft was reportedly also shot down by ground-based air defence systems, with the pilot surviving and being apprehended. This has brought the total number of F-35 pilots captured to two. Military Watch previously analysed the likely veracity of Iranian claims in detail, including the strengths and limitations of the country’s air defences and the risks to F-35 squadrons as a result of the means by which they have been employed. With the large majority of Israeli fighter squadrons considered effectively obsolete, relying on F-15s and F-16s using ageing mechanically scanned array radars, the F-35 is relied on heavily to spearhead attacks on Iranian targets, and is the only fighter that retains a degree of survivability for penetration missions deep into Iranian airspace. While F-15s and F-16s fire missiles into Iran from safe distances, the F-35 can overfly high priority targets such as nuclear sites to drop high diameter gravity bombs, which have a significantly greater penetrative capacity than air-launched missiles. This is particularly valuable against fortified underground targets, such as parts of the Natanz Nuclear Facility.

Anonymous wrote:Israel bit off more than they chew. I mean if Gaza and Lebanon were a challenge and the Houthis were a challenge, I don’t know they thought cutting the head off the proverbial snake would be easy.

Reports say Trump declined to assassinate ayatollah or invade Iran.

More yikes

Anonymous wrote:The irony of these strikes on Iran is that Iran needs a nuclear bomb in order to prevent the bombing of their country. Iran has always said they did not want uranium for nukes, they should reconsider and do a Pakistan.

Anonymous wrote:Reports of 3 f-35 shot down with two pilots captured.

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Anonymous wrote:The irony of these strikes on Iran is that Iran needs a nuclear bomb in order to prevent the bombing of their country. Iran has always said they did not want uranium for nukes, they should reconsider and do a Pakistan.

Because Iran would only ever use nuclear weapons in self-defense, and never to advance its clearly stated goal of annihilating Israel, the Great Satan, and other Western countries which fail to accept its vision of Islam uber alles, because infidels deserve only death in their worldview? Right, great idea.

And Israel would never advance its clearly stated goal of annihilating Gaza, the Great Amalek, and other countries (Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, etc etc) which fail to accept its vision of Zionism because anti-Zionist deserve only death in their worldview? Right, great idea

More fabricated nonsense, with no basis in reality. Israel has zero expansionist ambitions, beyond those well justified as needful to provide border buffers from entities which attacked first. It has been that way since 1948. Attack Israel, lose territory. Stay put and behave yourself, and Israel leaves you alone. Iran, on the other hand, funds and encourages Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and others, as proxies for terror they pretend to deny stimulating, letting their Muslim "brethren" take the heat for them. Those days are finally over.

How can one reconcile your false claims regarding Israel’s expansive intentions in light of the actual statements made by its government officials?

What such statements? Asserting they exist doesn't make them happen. Hamas anbd Iran, on the other hand, have been clear forever about their ambitions towards Israel.