Reza Kahlili, a former CIA spy in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, reported to World Net Daily that a former intelligence officer of the Iranian regime has claimed that there has been an explosion at the Fordow Nuclear facility that has caused extensive damage, shaking every thing within a 3-mile radius of the facility, and 240 Iranian personnel were trapped inside. Traffic was reportedly closed down within 15 miles of the Fordow Facility and the Tehran-Qom highway was also shut down. The Iranian regime has officially denied this event actually took place, referring to such allegations as “western propaganda.” However, an Israeli intelligence source has confirmed this report in Arutz Sheva, claiming that the Fordow Facility suffered a “mega-explosion” last week.

Kahlili claims that the Fordow Facility is a center of enrichment for the next phase in Iran becoming a nuclear power. The Fordow Facility, according to Yedioth Achronot, evidently contains at least 2,700 centrifuges for nuclear enrichment and is considered Iran’s second largest nuclear facility. However, since the Fordow Facility is located deep inside of a mountain near the Shiite holy city of Qom, it was believed to be a site very hard for people opposed to Iran’s nuclear ambitions to penetrate, since it is impossible to destroy via airstrikes and most bunker-buster bombs. Yedioth Achronot claims that Iran’s largest nuclear facility is located at Natanz, which contains over 10,000 centrifuges for nuclear enrichment.

This latest incident was merely one of many covert operations to try to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program, according to the World Net Daily. Several senior Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated. Last year, saboteurs struck the power supply to the Fordow Facility, temporarily disrupting nuclear production. Also, a computer worm known as stuxnet significantly held back Iran’s nuclear program. It is believed that more covert methods of trying to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program will be conducted in the near future. Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has stated to Reuters that the Iranian nuclear program will have to be confronted in 2013, which is the year in which Iran is expected to cross the red lines Netanyahu spoke of at his United Nations speech.

It is absolutely critical that the present Iranian regime, a clear and present danger to world peace, be prevented from achieving nuclear capability. On International Holocaust Memorial Day, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated, “All Muslims should mobilize their resources to uproot Zionism. Under the circumstances that the corrupt, uncultured and murderous Zionists are occupying and killing oppressed people, we should not sit idly by.” In other instances, Ahmadinejad has denied the existence of the Holocaust, claiming that the Holocaust was a “colonialist plan that resulted from a lie” that Israel exploits to suppress Palestinian Arabs.

A former Iranian envoy, Mohammed Raza Hidari, who has escaped from Iran, asserted on Channel 2 News that if Iran manages to obtain a nuclear bomb, “it would definitely use it against Israel or any other enemy state. The [Iranian] regime thinks that if it has several atom bombs, it will grant it an insurance policy. They believe that if [they have a nuclear weapon], the world would treat them the way it treats North Korea. [The West] should impose political sanctions on Iran [such as] closing all Iranian embassies, and not allowing Iranian ministers to visit other countries, like they did with the Apartheid regime.”

Indeed, Ayatollah Khameini asserted, according to the Washington Post, that Iran obtaining nuclear weapons is pivotal for the arrival of the Mahdi, the 12th Shiite imam that went into seclusion in the middle ages and whom Shiite Muslims believe will reappear in messianic times. Ayatollah Khamenei has also claimed, according to World Net Daily, that the arrival of the mahdi is near and specific actions must be taken for him to come. According to the Middle East Forum, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has asserted that the whole purpose of the Iranian Revolution was to prepare the way for the arrival of the Mahdi and Ahmadinejad sincerely believes that destroying Israel is a means of assisting the arrival of the mahdi.

By Rachel Avraham