'Iran raising alert amid fears of strike'

Western intelligence officials say Revolutionary Guard deploying artillery amid mounting int'l pressure, 'Telegraph' reports.

Isfahan uranium enrichment facility, Iran_311 (photo credit: Reuters)
Isfahan uranium enrichment facility, Iran_311
(photo credit: Reuters)
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard is raising its preparedness for war fearing a strike after mounting international pressure, and a number of mysterious explosions that rocked different cities in the country, British newspaper The Telegraph reported.Western intelligence officials said that Iran was deploying artillery and guards to key defensive points, as well as arranging "long-range missiles" and "high explosives" fearing a potential attack, according to the Telegraph.
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Satellite imagery "clearly showing billowing smoke and destruction" has proven that an explosion at the end Novemeber damaged a nuclear facility in the Iranian city of Ifsahan, according to a Times of London report .
The report quoted Israeli intelligence officials as saying that there was "no doubt" that the blast damaged a uranium enrichment site, and asserted that it was "no accident."
Officials from Isfahan have been denying that the city had been hit by an explosion.
Mohammad-Mahdi Esma'ili, Isfahan's deputy governor in political and security affairs, called the reports "sheer lies" according to the IRNA news agency. An official from the city's fire department also denied that there had been an explosion.
On November 12, an explosion hit an Iranian military base near the town of Bid Kaneh, killing 17 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and Maj.-Gen. Hassan Moghaddam, chief architect of the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile program. Israel’s Mossad has been accused of orchestrating the blast.
Head of the Military Intelligence Research Directorate Brig.-Gen. Itay Brun told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday that the November 12 blast at the missile base could delay Tehran’s development of long-range missiles.
“The explosion at the site to develop surface-to-surface missiles could stop or delay activities on that track and in that location, but we must emphasize that Iran has other development tracks in addition to that facility,” Brun said.
Click here for full Jpost coverage of the Iranian threat
Click here for full Jpost coverage of the Iranian threat
Reuters and Yaakov Katz contributed to the report.