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[Translated from RIA Novosti]

ATTACK ON IRAN EXPECTED IN EARLY APRIL (RUSSIAN MILITARY EXPERTS)

RIA Novosti (Russian News and Information Agency)
March 19, 2007

http://fr.rian.ru/world/20070319/62260006.html

MOSCOW -- Russian military experts believe that planning for the American military attack against Iran passed the point of no return on Feb. 20, when IAEA director Mohammed ElBaradei acknowledged in his report the inability of the agency to "confirm the peaceful character of Iran's nuclear program."

According to the Russian weekly Agourmenty nedeli, a military action will unfold during the first week of April, before the Catholic and Orthodox Easters (this year they are celebrated on the 8th), when "Western opinion" will be on holiday.  It is also possible that Iran will be struck on Friday the 6th, a holiday in Muslim countries.  According to the American plan, this will be a one-day strike that will last 12 hours, from 4:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.  The code name of the operation is, at present, "Bite."  About twenty Iranian installatins are supposed to be hit.  Among them, uranium-enrichment centrifuges, research institutes, and laboratories.  But the main block of the Bushehr nuclear reactor will not be hit.  On the other hand, the Americans will neutralize anti-aircraft defenses, sink several Iranian ships of war in the Gulf, and destroy key command posts of the armed forces.

Thes measures are designed to remove any capacity on Tehran's part to respond.  Iran has been planning the sinking of several oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz in order to cut off international oil markets and a missile strike on Israel.

The analysts say the American strikes will be launched from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, from which long-range B-52 bombers armed with cruise missiles will take off; by aircraft on the American carriers deployed in the Gulf belonging to the American Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean; cruise missiles will also be fired from submarines concentrated in the Pacific and off Arabia.

As a result, the Iranian nuclear program will be set back several years.  In private conversations, American generals suppose that the delivery dates for deploying American antimissile defense in Europe may be put off until later.  Another forecast event:  the price of oil may rise to $75-80 and stay there for an extended period.

Meanwhile, the new resolution on Iran whose draft has been approved by the five permanent members of the Security Council and Germany should be voted by the Security Council this week.  The text calls for sanctions on ten Iranian public enterprises and three companies under the authority of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, the elite unit under the command of the spiritual leader of the Islamic Republic, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.  Sanctions are also foreseen against fifteen individuals:  eight high-level directors of state companies and seven key figures in the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution.

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Translated by Mark K. Jensen
Associate Professor of French
Department of Languages and Literatures
Pacific Lutheran University
Tacoma, WA 98447-0003
Phone: 253-535-7219
Home page: http://www.plu.edu/~jensenmk/
E-mail: jensenmk@plu.edu