End Of The World As We Know It - August 22nd

[tngirl]

For the past few weeks I have been hearing on Glen Beck http://www.glennbeck.com/home/index.shtml and Coast-to-Coast that August 22nd Iran has some very nasty things planned for Israel. There is speculation that may involve a nuclear strike. This past weeks news has really not been too reassuring.

[tngirl]

Iran tests tactical missile during war games

Sun Aug 20, 8:46 AM ET

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060820/wl_mideast_afp/iranmilitary_060820124639

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran test-fired a short-range missile during the second day of nationwide military exercises in a demonstration of its readiness to "respond to any threat,".

The surface-to-surface missile, called Saegheh or lightning in Farsi, has a range of between 80 and 250 kilometers (50 and 155 miles).

"The upgraded Saegheh missiles have been tested today," Iranian Brigadier General Kiumars Heydari was quoted as saying Sunday.

"Surface-to-surface as well as surface-to-sea missiles built by domestic defence industries with considerable range, high precision and large production numbers, will enable us to prevent any type of threat."

The missile was test-fired from Kashan, 200 kilometers (120 miles) south of the capital Tehran as part of the massive war games which began Saturday with the aim of testing new weapons and tactics against a potential enemy.

Twelve army divisions along with air and naval forces and missile units are involved in the military operation, named "Zolfaghar Blow" after the two-point sword of Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed.

The exercises, which began in the restive southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan, will continue in 15 other provinces around Iran.

In April, the Islamic republic unveiled a wide range of weaponry such as multiple-head missiles, high-speed torpedoes and radar-evading anti-ship missiles during a week of exercises in the strategic Gulf waters to the south.

The latest operations come amid rising international tensions over Tehran's nuclear program, which the West fears is a cover for efforts to build an atomic bomb.

Iran has two bodies of armed forces, the traditional army and the elite Revolutionary Guards, an ideological army, equipped with terrestrial, naval and air units. All are under the command of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The UN Security Council has given Iran until August 31 to halt enrichment and reprocessing activities or face possible sanctions.

But Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters Sunday that a freeze of the nuclear work was "not on the agenda".

[tngirl]

Iran says it won't stop nuclear program By NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press Writer
14 minutes ago

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060821/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_nuclear_6

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Monday that Tehran will continue to pursue nuclear technology, despite a U.N. Security Council deadline to suspend uranium enrichment by the end of the month or face the threat of economic and diplomatic sanctions.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran has made its own decision and in the nuclear case, God willing, with patience and power, will continue its path," Khamenei was quoted as saying by state television.

He accused the United States of putting pressure on Iran despite Tehran's assertions that its nuclear program was peaceful. "Arrogant powers and the U.S. are putting their utmost pressure on Iran while knowing Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons," he said.

Khamenei's declaration came on the eve of Iran's self-imposed Aug. 22 deadline to respond to a Western incentives package for it to roll back its nuclear program.

He accused the United States of pressuring Iran despite Tehran's assertions that it was not seeking to develop nuclear weapons, as Washington and several of its allies have contended.

"Arrogant powers and the U.S. are putting their utmost pressure on Iran while knowing Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons," he said.

Iran on Sunday said it will offer a "multifaceted response" to the incentives proposal. It insisted that it won't suspend uranium enrichment altogether.

The U.N. Security Council passed a resolution last month requiring the halt to enrichment under threat of economic and diplomatic sanctions.

Also on Monday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel pressed for a "solid answer" from Iran on the package.

"I still hope that it will be positive, although some signals have been very confused," said Merkel, whose country drew up the package with the five permanent Security Council members.

The proposal includes promises that the United States and Europe will provide civilian nuclear technology and that Washington will join direct talks with Iran.

Tehran says uranium enrichment does not violate any of its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and that its nuclear program aims to produce electricity.

Khamenei accused the West of wanting to obstruct scientific progress in the Islamic world and called for Islamic countries to stand together in the face of such pressure

[tngirl]

Iran to Nuke Israel on August 22?

by Robert Spencer
Posted Jul 26, 2006

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=16208

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has frustrated Western officials by refusing to reply to their offer of various incentives in exchange for Iran’s discarding its nuclear program until August 22. The Western governments had asked Ahmadinejad to reply by June 29; why would Tehran need two extra months?

Farid Ghadry, the president of the Reform Party of Syria, has offered a provocative explanation for this delay. He asserts that the Supreme National Security Council of Iran chose the August 22 date “for a very precise reason. August 21, 2006 (Rajab 27, 1427) is known in the Islamic calendar as the Night of the Sira’a and Miira’aj, the night Prophet Mohammed (saas) ascended to heaven from the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on a Bourak (Half animal, half man), while a great light lit-up the night sky, and visited Heaven and Hell also Beit al-Saada and Beit al-Shaqaa (House of Happiness and House of Misery) and then descended back to Mecca.…”

The Night Journey, or Miraj, is central to Islam’s claim to Jerusalem as an Islamic holy city. According to Islamic tradition, Muhammad was carried on a Buraq, a miraculous horse with a human head, from Mecca to Jerusalem, where he ascended into heaven and met the other prophets. The only thing the Qur’an has to say about it is this: “Glory to (Allah) Who did take His servant for a Journey by night from the Sacred Mosque to the farthest Mosque, whose precincts We did bless, in order that We might show him some of Our Signs: for He is the One Who heareth and seeth (all things)” (17:1). There is no identification of the “farthest Mosque” with any mosque in Jerusalem in this, but the Hadith is very clear on the identification of its location with Jerusalem.

The traditions say that Muhammad and the Buraq, along with the angel Gabriel, went to the Temple Mount, and from there to heaven itself, where Muhammad encountered various prophets. In the sixth heaven was Moses, occasioning a dig at the Jews. “When I left him,” Muhammad says, “he wept. Someone asked him, ‘What makes you weep?’ Moses said, ‘I weep because after me there has been sent (Muhammad as a Prophet) a young man, whose followers will enter Paradise in greater numbers than my followers.’”

Evidently, however, Muhammad’s stories of his journey were not altogether convincing: some Muslims even abandoned Islam. Did he really go anywhere? According to his favorite wife, Aisha, he didn’t: “The apostle’s body remained where it was but God removed his spirit by night.” Nevertheless, the Night Journey has become firmly embedded in the Islamic consciousness, such that Muslims today celebrate it as one of the central events of Muhammad’s life. And now, according to Ghadry, Ahmadinejad is planning an illumination of the night sky over Jerusalem to rival the one that greeted the Prophet of Islam on his journey. What the Iranian President, he says, is “promising the world by August 22 is the light in the sky over the Aqsa Mosque that took place the night before. That is his answer to the package of incentives the international community offered Iran on June 6.”

Certainly a nuclear attack on Jerusalem or even an all-out conventional assault against Israel by Iran would be consistent with Ahmadinejad’s oft-repeated denials of Israel’s right to exist and recent predictions that its demise was at hand. He hinted at the use of nuclear weapons in his phrasing when he said that Israel “pushed the button of its own destruction” by finally retaliating against Hizballah’s relentless rocket barrage from south Lebanon.

“Arrogant powers,” Ahmadinejad said, “have set up a base for themselves to threaten and plunder nations in the region. But today, the occupier regime” -- that is, Israel -- “whose philosophy is based on threats, massacre and invasion, has reached its finishing line.”

Will he attempt to make good on these threats this year on the anniversary of the Miraj, illuminating the night sky over Jerusalem? Will Western powers heed Farid Ghadry’s words and move to stop Iran before it is too late?

Mr. Spencer is director of Jihad Watch and author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)" and the forthcoming "The Truth About Muhammad" (both from Regnery -- a HUMAN EVENTS sister company).