IRAN BUILDING SECRET NUKE TUNNELS

AMID U.N. ASSURANCES THAT IRAN IS SLOWING DOWN IT'S NUKE WORK, NEW SATELLITE PHOTOS SHOW IRAN FRANTICALLY CONSTRUCTING A NEW, HIDDEN REACTOR.

Tunneling Near Iranian Nuclear Site Stirs Worry - Joby Warrick
The sudden flurry of digging seen in recent satellite photos of a mountainside in the back yard of Iran's Natanz nuclear facility appears to be the start of a major tunnel complex inside the mountain. The construction has raised concerns at the International Atomic Energy Agency. "The tunnel complex certainly appears to be related to Natanz," said David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector.

In a report analyzing the photos, officials of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) compared the new Natanz construction with a tunnel built by Iran inside a mountain near Esfahan, home to a major nuclear research center and a factory that converts uranium to a form that can be enriched at Natanz. Iran began the work at Esfahan in 2004, digging a large, two-entrance mountain tunnel that it later acknowledged was meant for nuclear storage. "Such a tunnel inside a mountain would offer excellent protection from an aerial attack," said the ISIS report. (Washington Post)

Defector Reveals Some of Iran's Nuclear Secrets - Ronen Bergman (Ynet News)

Top Iranian intelligence official Gen. Ali Reza Asgari, who disappeared in Istanbul last February, has defected in an intricate CIA operation that transferred him and his family to the U.S., Yediot Ahronot reported Sunday. Asgari has been able to shed new light on much of the Iranian regime's most inner workings, especially regarding the Iranian nuclear development project.

Asgari told his interrogators that Iran is working in a stealth path toward enriching uranium by using laser beams along with certain chemicals designed to enhance the process, in trials held in a special weapons facility in Natanz. Iran is making special efforts to hide this path from the West, Asgari said.