Iran's atomic energy chief Ali Akbar Salehi said on Jan. 29 that the Bushehr nuclear power plant would be connected to the national grid on April 9. He "forgot" about Tehran's promise to fully activate its first nuclear reactor Tuesday, Jan. 25. DEBKAfile's intelligence and Moscow sources reveal that on that day, Iran's hand on the switch was held back at the last minute by Sergei Kiriyenko, chief of Rosatom (the Russian national nuclear energy commission which oversaw the reactor's construction. He came hurrying over to warn Tehran that Stuxnet was back and switching the reactor on could trigger a calamitous nuclear explosion that could cost a million Iranian leaves and devastate neighboring populations. He complained to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the Iranian nuclear and engineering staff were ignoring the presence of the malworm and must be stopped.
Kiriyenko told the Iranian president that the Russian engineers employed at the reactor notified Moscow that Stuxnet was again attacking the Bushehr systems after apparently taking a rest from its first onslaught last June. There was no telling which systems had been infected, because a key feature of the virus is that the systems' screens show they are working normally when in fact they have been fatally disarmed. Activating the reactor in these circumstances could cause an explosion far more powerful than the disaster at the Russian reactor at Chernobyl, Ukraine in April 1986, which released 400 times more radioactive material than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
The impression the Rosatom chief had gained from his staff at Bushehr was that the Iranian teams had been ordered to activate the reactor at any price to prove that the Islamic Republic had beaten Stuxnet. This concern overrode security. The consequences of ignoring this fearful hazard, said Kiriyenko, were unthinkable and would destroy the revolutionary Islamic regime in Tehran in their wake.
Kirienko began worrying when he heard the Iranian nuclear commission's spokesman Hamid Khadem-Qaemi claim on Jan. 17 that Bushehr had not been affected by Stuxnet.
Our Iranian sources report that, after seeing the Russian official off, Ahmadinejad ordered the reactor to stay shut down.
This week, Salehi, who is also Iran's foreign minister, hinted at the cause of the delay when he said: "The reactor has started its operation and the next step is to reach critical phase which will happen by the end of Bahman (February 20) in presence of Russians. We have said before that due to some tests, we may have to face delays but these delays are around a week or two." He added, "We aim at launching Bushehr nuclear reactor safely not to merely launch it."
In Jerusalem, Maj-Gen. Aviv Kohavi, the new head of IDF military intelligence - MI, who appeared before the Knesset Security and Foreign Affairs Committee for his first briefing on Jan. 25 said Bushehr could be quickly converted from producing electricity for civilian use to a military reactor and incorporated into Iran's weapons program.
The next day, Jan. 26, Moscow took the unusual step of demanding a NATO investigation into last year's computer attack on the Russian-built nuclear reactor in Iran.
Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, said: T"his virus, which is very toxic, very dangerous, could have very serious implications," he said, describing the virus's impact as being like "explosive mines".
"These 'mines' could lead to a new Chernobyl," he said.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 31, 2011, 1:24 PM (GMT+02:00)
Egyptian reinforcements reached northern Sinai Monday, Jan. 31 to hunt down Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip battling Egyptian forces for control of the territory. Two were captured. DEBKAfile's military sources report that the gunmen of Hamas's armed wing, Ezz e-Din al Qassam opened a second, Palestinian, front against the Mubarak regime on orders from Hamas' parent organization, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, confirmed by its bosses in Damascus. The Muslim Brotherhood is therefore more aggressively involved in the uprising than it would seem.
DEBKAfile's military sources report that Sunday, Hamas gunmen attacked Egyptian Interior Ministry Special Forces (CFF) stationed in the southern Egyptian-controlled section of the border town of Rafah and the Sinai port of El Arish. Saturday, Bedouin tribesmen and local Palestinians exploited the mayhem in Cairo to clash with Egyptian forces at both northern Sinai key points, ransack their gun stores and free prisoners from the local jail. Officials in Gaza City confirmed Sunday, that Hamas's most notorious smuggling experts, including Muhammad Shaar, had broken out of the El Arish jail and reached Gaza City.
Sunday, Hamas terrorists aimed to start pushing Egyptian forces out of the northern and central regions of the peninsula and so bring Egypt's border with the Gaza Strip under Palestinian control. Hamas would then be able to break out of the Egyptian blockade of the enclave and restore its smuggling routes in full. The reinforcements from Cairo Monday were instructed to drive them back into the Gaza Strip. Early Sunday, they began moving east through the tunnels under the Suez.
Our military sources further report that the Multinational Force & Observers (MFO), most of whose members are Americans and Canadians, are on maximum alert at their northern Sinai base, while they wait for US military transports to evacuate them to US bases in Europe.
This force was deployed in Sinai in 1981 for peacekeeping responsibilities and the supervision of the security provisions of the 1979 Peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel under which the peninsula was demilitarized except for Egyptian police. Ending the MFO's mission in Sinai after thirty years knocks down a key pillar propping up the relations of peace between Egypt and Israel.
The Egyptian troop presence in Sinai, which violates the terms of the peace treaty, has not been mentioned by either of the peace partners. Our Jerusalem sources report the Netanyahu government may have tacitly approved it.
Hamas' Gaza leaders do not seem to fear Israeli military action – or even an air attack - to interfere with their incursion of Sinai and attempts to control the long Egyptian-Israeli border snaking south of the Gaza Strip along the Negev up to the Red Sea port of Eilat.
DEBKAfile Special Report January 30, 2011, 11:20 PM (GMT+02:00)
The popular uprising against the Egyptian regime reached a standoff at the end of its sixth day, Sunday night, Jan. 30: President Hosni Mubarak made it clear to the armed forces chiefs whom he met at military headquarters during the day that he has no intention of bowing to the massive popular call to step down .
It is from there that operations to quell the uprising against his regime are being conducted.
Mubarak clearly had not intention of heeding the pressure from Washington and European capitals to listen to the people and their call for an orderly transition to "a democratic government responsive to the aspirations of the Egyptian people" – reiterated by President Barack Obama Sunday.
The generals then continued to pour divisions into Cairo and Egypt's main cities in an effort to assume control. However, this tactic is not working: The officers and men on the ground realize they and their tanks are extras in a show of strength to the cities without the power to exert it: they can't shoot the protesters or exercise any other form of violence.
In Cairo, for instance, vigilantes protecting private property in the suburbs handed looters over to the soldiers who passed them to the police. In Alexandria, Egyptian tank officers were seen directing traffic in the town center.
Against the regime, the opposition groups - of which there are at leas ten - are just as hamstrung by their failure to produce a leader able to stand up and challenge the president. For lack of any representative figure, they picked the retired nuclear watchdog director Dr. Mohamed ElBaradi to speak for them in negotiations over the transfer of power. Hardly anyone in Egypt knows him: He is better known outside the country having spent many years abroad.
DEBKAfile's Middle East sources report that the Egyptian crisis looks like being in for a protracted period of uncertainty unless the army, which holds the key to breaking the deadlock, decided to step in and pick a side -Mubarak or the people. The generals alone have the clout to force Mubarak to step down and get out, as happened in Tunisia, or smash the street demonstrations. This would mean a massacre, the army's identification with a repressive regime and the end of its historic acceptance as the people's army.
It will be noted that the new Vice President Gen. Omar Suleiman, 76, is seen more as a loyalist of the president, whom he served as intelligence minster and strong arm, than the military.
He appears to be behind the steps ordered Sunday, such as sending Air Force fighter jets to swoop over Tahrir Square and building up a military presence in the main towns. None of these steps have broken the back of the uprising or intimidated the protesters. State TV announced accordinglty that the police would return to the streets Monday, two days after they were chased away by the protesters.
The curfew which has been consistently flouted is to be extended: From 1500 hours Monday, Jan. 31, no one will be allowed on town streets until the following morning.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 30, 2011, 5:58 PM (GMT+02:00)
The Mubarak regime sent two F-16 fighter jets and helicopters in repeated low-flying passes over the thousands of protesters massed in Cairo's Tahrir Square Sunday, Jan. 30, the sixth day of the anti-government protest. This latest, most dramatic attempt to break up the anti-government protest only added to the rage of the crowd who refused to disperse and called for Mubarak and his new Vice President, Gen. Omar Suleiman to go right now.
At the entrance to the square, protesters blocked the path of a dozen battle tanks attempting to assert control over central Cairo by sitting and lying down in front of them. The result was a standoff. The army has thrown up barricades around the square and imposed restrictions on movements, but has not used violence against the protesters.
It is not clear if sending the fighter jets to intimidate the protesters was decided with the army generals when Mubarak visited them at army headquarters earlier Sunday or a unilateral decision by the Air Force chiefs, who remain loyal to the president, himself a former air force chief and pilot.
The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a change of tone from her last statement 48 hours ago, called for an "orderly transition to democratic rule in Egypt." She also denied there had been any discussion of the cut-off of aid to the embattled country.
Around the city, neighborhoods have got together to protect their homes and property against looters and criminal gangs roaming the streets. The police have melted away and the vast city is in chaos. Disruptions and protests continue in other Egyptian cities.
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