Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi, the Iranian military chief of staff, warned, “Obama has made his most dangerous blunder today as president of the U.S. when, with the deceit of the Israelis, he issued an order of sending weapons for terrorists in Syria,” reported Fars News Agency, a media outlet run by the Revolutionary Guards.

“Today the shipment of arms to the Syrian terrorists won’t solve anything as the Syrian nation with its national army will force the Israeli mercenaries to retreat and escape,” he said.

Firouzabadi claimed that providing weapons to “al-Qaida terrorists” and others in Syria is similar to the West providing chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein in Iraq. He said the weapons will be used against the Syrian people even though “the U.S. generals and the Zionists” blame the Syrian government for using chemical weapons against civilians.

The general also criticized France: “It is very strange that French officials demand the Syrian national army not to free their occupied country from the hands of terrorists.”

The Islamic regime has repeatedly warned against any attempt to overthrow Assad, an action which it has called a red line. The regime’s officials have openly stated that an Assad victory in Syria is essential to a greater power and role by the Islamic republic in the region and on the world stage.

As reported in 2011, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Islamic republic, in a letter filled with threats to Obama that reportedly had been delivered by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, accused the U.S. of meddling in Syrian affairs. Khamenei ordered the U.S. to cease and desist in pressuring the Syrian regime leadership. He warned that Iran would retaliate against America’s interests should Obama refuse to take him seriously.

About that time, the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar, a media branch of Hezbollah, quoted several of its Tehran-based sources as saying that the Iranian leadership also warned Turkey against taking any military action against Syria. The report said any “militaristic meddling” in Syria by the Turks would be considered “crossing a red line” and would not be tolerated by the Iranian regime. Iran asked Hezbollah to join forces with the its Quds Forces to help the Assad regime, Al-Akhbar said.

As WND reported exclusively last year, a joint war room was created among Iran, Hezbollah and Syria to defeat the opposition in Syria and respond to any possible attack by U.S. or NATO forces with a directive for an immediate response.

The response would be a barrage of missiles from the three allies not only toward Israel but also at American assets in the region.

The London Independent reported Sunday that Iran has decided to send 4,000 troops from its Revolutionary Guards forces to Syria to assure Assad’s survival.

Sources have previously indicated that Qassem Soliemani, the head of the regime’s Quds Forces, has a permanent presence in Syria’s war room overseeing and managing the attacks on the opposition.

Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin reaffirmed his commitment to continue selling arms to the Assad government, including sophisticated weapons such as anti-ship Yakhont cruise missiles and the S-300 antiaircraft system.

The Obama administration indicated Friday that it will provide military support to the Syrian rebels, citing evidence of Assad crossing the red line by using nerve gas against the rebels.

“Following a deliberative review, our intelligence community assesses that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year,” said a White House statement.

CBS reported that Obama held an hour-long video conference with the leaders of Britain, Germany, France and Italy to build consensus for his Syria policy.

Since the Syrian uprising in March 2011, at least 93,000 people, including women and children, have lost their lives and more than 1.5 million Syrians have taken refuge in neighboring countries.

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Rouhani replaces Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose fraudulent election in 2009 touched off rioting by millions of Iranians. Thousands of the protesters were arrested, with many tortured, raped or executed. Rouhani, who is well-versed in deceiving the West over Iran’s nuclear program, also has blood on his hands from previous regime crackdowns.

The defected intelligence officer, who had called the selection of Rouhani as the next president one week before the election, said the regime constantly creates a phony image of division within its political system between so-called conservatives and moderates. The aim of tapping the perceived moderate Rouhani as the winner is to deceive the West yet again by creating new hope that there could be meaningful negotiations over Iran’s illicit nuclear program, he said, while buying even more time to develop nuclear weapons and thereby becoming untouchable by the West.

That scenario includes the easing of international sanctions, which have caused great economic hardship in the country.

The source claims in reality there is no division within the clerical establishment that rules Iran when it comes to the regime’s survival.

The president-elect, in fact, is a cleric who has spoken out against popular uprisings that threatened the regime’s grip on the country.

Rouhani had called the 2009 protesters “thugs” and said, “If the regime had not acted, the revolutionary forces (plainclothes police) would have put the protesters in their place.”

He made a similar statement about the 1999 student uprising: “These students are so despised and inferior that they could not be labeled as a movement to change the regime. If the officials had not prohibited (the students from rioting), our people would have cut them in pieces.”

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Hassan Rouhani, a Shiite mujtahid, an Islamic scholar, attended religious seminaries in the city of Qom, the hotbed of radical clerics. He has served the Islamic Republic at the highest levels since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, among them as the deputy speaker of Parliament, the head of the Executive Committee of the High Council for War Support during the Iran-Iraq War, the deputy to the second-in-command of Iran’s joint chiefs of staff, a member of the Expediency Council, a member of the Assembly of Experts (the body that chooses the supreme leader), a former nuclear negotiator and, most importantly, the representative of the supreme leader to the Supreme National Security Council (1989 to present).

Rouhani, as the head of the High Council for War Support, was deeply involved with the regime’s effort to eliminate the opposition and the 1988 mass execution of thousands of political prisoners as ordered by the then-supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The president-elect also participated in the regime’s deceitful policies. He was put in charge of Iran’s nuclear team in 2003 by order of the so-called moderate president, Mohammad Khatami, and the supreme leader, Khamenei. He succeeded in preventing further U.N. resolutions by agreeing to suspend parts of Iran’s nuclear activity, but, as the International Atomic Energy Agency indicated, Iran’s nuclear program never truly stopped.

Hassan Rouhani (in white turban) during prayers, behind the founder of the Islamic Revolution, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini

In 2008, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, the former parliamentary speaker and secretary of the Iranian government during Khatami’s term, revealed that while Khatami was president and through Rouhani’s efforts, “We had an agreement for the suspension of enrichment, but we were importing all the necessary parts for our nuclear activity. We were conducting our policies on two fronts: one to continue negotiations openly and keep the Americans away from such negotiations, and the other to continue our nuclear activities in secret.”

The good cop/bad cop show has been masterfully played by the regime for the past 33 years, and every time the West has bought it, said the former intelligence officer, who has defected to a Scandinavian country.

Interestingly, in 2009 the regime announced the result of the election only hours after 39 million votes were cast, but it took the regime one day to announce the 2013 winner of the presidential election with a little over 35 million valid votes.

The former officer told WND that the actual votes cast this year were much lower than what the regime had announced, despite the fact that Rouhani presented himself to the voters as a moderate in order to get the crowds out. The regime days before the election even spread a rumor that Rouhani’s qualification could be reviewed and he might be barred from the election, thus further painting him as a figure opposed to the regime and getting more people to vote.

An indication that Rouhani is not regarded as a moderate came in the form of a congratulatory note that the leader of the Hezbollah terrorist group in Lebanon, Hassan Nasrallah, sent to the president-elect.

“Hezbollah, along with all the mujahideen in this country of resistance, congratulate you … for aptly earning the big trust of the great people,” Nasrallah said in the cable, Naharnet reported.

The regime enforced strict censorship on both domestic and international media on their coverage of the election, with many major media barred from traveling to Iran.

America must be warned, the former intelligence officer said, that “the regime will have its ballistic missiles armed with nuclear bombs before the next Iranian calendar year (March 21, 2014), at which point it will be too late to stop the madmen in Tehran.”

Gen. Gholamreza Jalali, head of Iran’s Passive Defense Organization, in a recent event discussing defensive and offensive measures for cyber-attacks and viruses, talked about the strategic importance of using viruses as weapons to contaminate an environment, according to AsrIran, a media outlet of the Islamic Republic.

“Biological viruses are extremely clever and have the capability to distinguish their environment. These viruses can only be recognized in labs,” he said, stressing that these agents are easily hidden in the environment and can cause widespread epidemics.

Jalali said that viruses, parasites, botanical poisons and animal poisons are elements that can be used in biological warfare.

“The environmental threats include humans, domesticated animals, poultry, environment, natural resources, food industry and drinking water,” he said, identifying seven ways a biological agent could strike.

The United Nations’ Biological Weapons Convention has banned the development, production and stockpiling of these threats since 1975. But based on orders from Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country has made great progress in the field and currently several labs in Iran are working independently of each other in developing the biological elements, although the general said the effort is defensive.

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WND reported exclusively in December and January that, according to a source in the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence unit with knowledge of Iran’s microbial research and development, Iranian scientists, with Russian and North Korean help, currently possess eight extremely dangerous microbial agents that, if unleashed, could kill millions of people.

The eight agents are anthrax, encephalitis (the blueprint of this virus, Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis, was provided by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in an agreement two years ago with the Islamic regime), yellow rain (developed with the help of North Korea), SARS, Ebola, cholera, smallpox and plague.

Iran, with North Korea’s help, has genetically altered the smallpox virus, which make current vaccinations useless against the new strain. And research at two facilities that act as drug companies but are fronts for the deadly research shows insects can be used as the vector to carry plague, infamous as the “Black Death,” according to WND’s sources.

A new SARS-like virus has been found in humans that could be “a threat to the entire world,” Dr. Margaret Chan, the director-general of the U.N. World Health Organization, told CNN recently.

“We do not know where the virus hides in nature,” she said. “We do not know how people are getting infected. Until we answer these questions, we are empty-handed when it comes to prevention. These are alarm bells. And we must respond.”

In another Iranian warning, Brig. Gen. Mohammadreza Naghdi, the head of the Basij paramilitary forces, said the regime is involved in a war that expands on five fronts with America, according to the Islamic regime’s media outlet Fars News Agency.

Fars reported Sunday that in a speech to Basij forces in Khorasan Province, Naghdi said, “We are at war with America in the political front, cultural, economics, science and technology.”

Claiming that America’s economy is disintegrating, he said, “America’s military budget has been reduced and they don’t have the means for battle.”

Naghdi said Western culture is on the verge of destruction and claimed, “All Western analysts are sure that America will fall.”

Naghdi told the forces that “an epic is made at the height of the war” and that it has two forces: “On one side are the people who make this epic, and on the other side are the oppressors with the leadership of America.”

In another interview, Naghdi set three conditions for America for any chance of betterment in relations with the Islamic regime: remove all of its bases from the region, remove its support of the “Zionist regime” (Israel) and ask for forgiveness for all of “its crimes against humanity.”

A report by the New York Times in 1998 indicated that U.S. officials were aware of the Islamic regime approaching Russian scientists who worked for laboratories tied to Moscow’s vast germ warfare program. American officials, according to the report, believed then that Tehran’s biowarfare program may have already turned some germs and toxins into weapons.

“Outside assistance is both important and difficult to prevent, given the dual-use nature of the materials and equipment being sought,” the CIA said in its report back then on Iran and its biological weapons program.

The May 24 Times article said the targets included American oil, gas and electric companies with a goal of finding ways to seize control of critical processing systems.

The Department of Homeland Security warned this month about the cyber attacks, and one government official told the Times, “Most everything we have seen is coming from the Middle East.”

Government officials and other experts, according to the report, confirmed a report in the Wall Street Journal that the source of the attacks had been narrowed down to Iran.

However, America had earlier been warned of cyber attacks by Iran. As reported in a WND exclusive in August 2011, Iran had been planning to retaliate against the United States for its efforts to stop the Islamic regime’s nuclear program.

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A July 29, 2011, editorial in the Keyhan newspaper, the mouthpiece of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that the U.S. has all of its infrastructure connected to the Internet and as a result, “it is constantly worried about an unknown player whom they will never be able to identify … sitting in some corner of the world who would launch an attack on a sector of (America’s) foundations. They will be taught the mother of all lessons.” That warning was carried in the WND’s story.

The editorial mocked the Pentagon with its announcement that cyberspace will be considered a war zone and that it will retaliate against cyber attacks: “The laughable part of this document is when the neurotic American generals threaten hackers sitting behind their computers who attack America (that they) should be careful that a cruise missile does not fly in through their heating pipes to destroy their turf.”

The United States is no longer the unequivocal leader of the Internet, the editorial said. “Diverse and interesting players have now come on the scene and have … managed to inflict some costly and unprecedented damages on the American Internet infrastructure. … Due to the convenient global nature of the ‘players,’ their network operates outside time and space. They can be anywhere from right under Mr. Obama’s ear in Washington, D.C., to the depths of the African desert.”

The editorial accused the U.S., with the help of Israel and Germany, of creating the Stuxnet virus that attacked Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities.

“Americans are under the (mistaken) impression that they are the only ones who can strike violent blows against their most ardent opponents and not sustain any real damage,” the editorial warned.

Part of the Keyhan editorial and its warning were used in the April 2012 presentation of Ilan Berman, vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council, to the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection and Security Technologies and the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence.

As reported in April 2011, according to a source in the Revolutionary Guards, during a meeting among Iran’s Revolutionary Guard commanders and Iranian scientists, America’s vulnerabilities for a cyber attack were discussed. They concluded that the U.S. power grids represent the best opportunity for such attacks, as more U.S. utilities are moving their control systems to the Internet and using smart-grid technology.

The head of Iranian cyber warfare within Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Gholam Reza Jalali, officially had blamed the U.S. and Israel for Stuxnet – a mysterious computer worm that has harmed Iran’s nuclear program. The Guard officials have repeatedly warned of retaliation – both for the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists inside Iran, which they called acts of espionage, and for Stuxnet.

Reports by the U.S. Department of Energy’s inspector general found that the nation’s power grid is still prone to cyber attack. The vulnerable state of the power grid was blamed on several factors, especially the fact that the “critical infrastructure protection” cyber standards, which power companies were to have fully implemented, are not effective.

Other reports within the U.S. have concluded that cyber spies have penetrated the U.S. electric grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system. It is also believed that the Chinese have attempted to map the U.S. infrastructure, including the electric grid.

While China has little incentive to disrupt the U.S. economy, Iranian leaders see it as an opportunity to further weaken U.S. supremacy. A successful cyber attack on the North American power grid could disrupt the economy and possibly create a national trauma.

Iran’s cyber warfare unit is now actively recruiting hackers from around the world for what it promotes as the goals of the Islamic republic.

Iran has also been suspected of cyber attacks on Saudi oil companies and Israeli companies that handle critical infrastructure.

Whether his denial will carry any weight, however, may be moot, as Iranian media is reporting that Rafsanjani and another candidate, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s handpicked successor, were disqualified from the race.

Iranian media earlier has speculated that would happen, with reports that Rafsanjani and Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei would be rejected by the council that approves candidacies.

Ahmadinejad has warned that if his handpicked successor, Mashaei, was rejected, he will release a tape that proves his 2009 re-election was fraudulent.

In a May 15 exclusive, WND reported that a secret message from Kerry was delivered to Rafsanjani of U.S. support, according to a source affiliated with the office of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The source, who remains anonymous for security reasons and who has provided valuable information before, said that on May 3, Kerry’s letter was delivered via the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh to Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, who arranged through the Saudi Embassy in Tehran to present the message to Rafsanjani indicating support from both the White House and the Saudi monarch.

Over 100 of the regime’s media outlets, including Channel 1 TV, immediately picked up WND’s report, which forced Rafsanjani’s office to post a denial on his official website.

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“After the false publication of internal media quoting American WND regarding a secret letter by John Kerry to Ayatollah Rafsanjani and on the threshold of the presidential elections,” Rafsanjani’s press release said, “some vengeful media in Iran, without considering the national interest of the country and with the goal of character assassination, have expanded on news and rumors of anti-revolutionary foreign media.”

The press release said it’s unfortunate that some “internal media,” based on their political tendencies, have chosen to become aligned with WND’s report.

After a warning that Rafsanjani might reveal some official regime secrets, the release asks, “Are (the media) willing to publish reports against all officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran!?”

The release said Rafsanjani’s office regretted this “anti-human and anti-moral” behavior by the “internal media” that have become the “loudspeaker” of the anti-revolutionaries and he reserved the right to take legal action against those in regime media who expanded on the WND report.

Fars News Agency, the media outlet run by the Revolutionary Guards, published Rafsanjani’s denial under a big headline: “I did not receive a secret message from the U.S. Secretary of State.”

Jamnews, a regime media outlet, not only put up the WND report in full but partly translated it into Farsi.

Another regime outlet, Yjc.ir (Young Journalist Club), also run by the Revolutionary Guards, not only fully translated the WND piece but said the news of U.S. support for Rafsanjani was published at a time when other U.S. officials had stated that Rafsanjani’s candidacy would be their best scenario for the June 14 presidential election.

The outreach to Rafsanjani goes back to what led to the Iran-Contra Affair in the 1980s in which a direct channel of communication was established with Rafsanjani, who was then the speaker of parliament.

Rafsanjani had promised the American administration that once Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the Islamic Revolution, died, then relations between the two countries could improve, but his promises then and after continued to be hollow as he bought time for the regime to progress in various fields.

Rafsanjani, who portrays himself as a moderate, announced his candidacy just before the May 11 registration deadline, drawing harsh reaction by the hardliners in Iran, who requested that authorities bar him from the election.

Rafsanjani played a major role in the 2009 election by supporting Mousavi, who actually won the vote against Ahmadinejad, whose victory was assured under orders by the supreme leader to add millions to his tally. That fraud touched off days of rioting in which thousands were arrested and many imprisoned or executed and led to the Green Movement, angering the hardliners.

WND reports of April 30 and May 2 revealed that Ahmadinejad had been arrested and detained for several hours recently and warned by regime officials to keep his mouth shut.

As also reported, Ahmadinejad had promised to release a tape that would prove the 2009 election was fraudulent if his handpicked candidate, Mashaei, was denied a spot in the presidential election. That WND report also caused a firestorm in Iran.

The Guardian Council, which must approve candidates, had said its decisions would be announced Wednesday. The source who provided the information both on Ahmadinejad and Rafsanjani to WND said security forces have been stationed around Tehran in anticipation of possible rioting should one candidate or another be rejected.

The source said the WND reports have not only touched off a furor in Iran but have caused grave complications for the regime, which is now confused about what to do in its approval process, fearing instability as the elections nears.

WND’s reports have continuously unnerved the regime in ways that no other reports have done, the source said. This only benefits the Iranian people, he said, who as a majority “want nothing to do with this regime and the so-called moderates (Rafsanjani) who are as much of a criminal as the other officials of the Islamic Republic, whose only goal is for the survival of the regime for a bit longer.”

In an exclusive March 20 report with updates on March 24, March 25 and April 10, WND revealed the vast “Quds” site. Iranian scientists are trying to perfect nuclear warheads at this underground facility previously unknown to the West.

According to WND’s source, an officer who has been assigned to the regime’s Ministry of Defense, the site, approximately 14 miles long and 7.5 miles wide, consists of two facilities built deep into a mountain along with a missile facility housing over 380 missile silos/garages that is surrounded by barbed wire, 45 security towers and several security posts.

The most significant information provided by the source is that the regime has succeeded in not only enriching to weapons grade but has converted the highly enriched uranium into metal.

Moreover, the source said, successfully making this metal neutron reflector indicates the final stages for a nuclear weapons design that would be a two-stage, more sophisticated and much more powerful nuclear bomb. Regime scientists are also working on a plutonium bomb as a second path to becoming nuclear-armed, the source said, and they have at this site 24 kilograms of plutonium, which is sufficient for several atomic bombs. The scientists are at the last stage of putting together a bomb warhead, he said.

The nuclear weapon-effects test expert, who could not be named but who served at the U.S. Defense Nuclear Agency and who inspected more than 200 tunnel structures of Russian nuclear test sites as well as Russian operational facilities and silos, viewed the imagery of Iran’s new secret facility.

“The site is similar to a common approach by several other nuclear-capable countries which have used advanced design in hardening these types of tunnels or garages for a quick deployable system,” he said. “I understand exactly what Iran has at the site … (including) a very important part of the structures … the apparent hardened underground stub tunnels for secure storage of mobile systems which can be quickly moved to launching sites.”

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“… the overheads indicate there are many apparent tunnel portals designed to hold a weapon and/or an operational controlling element (support system) for the weapons, an indication of an advanced design for a quick deployable nuclear weapons system capable of surviving retaliation, very much similar to what the U.S. had in mind in the 1960s in its major confrontation with the Soviet Union. … And it is very scary because its defeat may not be as easy as attacking it with a couple bombers, even if they have nuke weapons. This layout is very scary because it is … ready for the operational weapon systems to be installed, and then they are ready to take on the world.”

The source said there is close collaboration among Iran, North Korea and key figures in China in working on the nuclear warheads and that he will soon reveal detailed information of this collaboration, along with the plans and the timing for both Iran and North Korea to arm their missiles with nuclear warheads. The source emphasized that the world does not have much time but the time for negotiations with the Islamic regime is over.

Other experts also viewed the imagery.

“(The satellite images) suggest the possibility that Iran may in fact be further along in its nuclear weapons program than is generally assumed,” said David Trachtenberg, who for 30 years served in the national security policy field and who, as principal deputy assistant secretary of defense, played a leadership role in nuclear forces and arms control policy. “It is clear they have gone to great lengths to bury and protect high-value assets at this site, which also complicates the possibility of direct military action and illustrates the risks of allowing years to pass while hoping diplomacy will work.

GoogleEarth 12-2012 Image, Quds secret nuclear facility

“An accelerating train is harder to slow and takes longer to stop. These images reinforce my concern that Iranian nuclear progress is accelerating. The more emphatically the U.S. declares its determination to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state, the harder it may be to ensure that outcome.”

Fritz Ermarth, who served in the CIA and as chairman of the National Intelligence Council, reviewed the satellite photos and said, “(This) imagery strongly suggests that Iran is working on what we used to call an ‘objective force’ … a deployed force of nuclear weapons on mobile missiles, normally based in deep underground sites for survivability against even nuclear attack, capable of rapid deployment.”

“This open-source analysis by itself illustrates that Iran is very serious about building survivable facilities for its nuclear enterprise,” said Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, the executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, a congressional advisory board. Pry, who has served with the House Armed Services Committee and in the CIA, also reviewed the imagery and added, “The location of the site amid an Iranian missile armory, protected by a vast array of defensive and offensive missiles, is consistent with the intelligence reporting that the site is for the final stages of nuclear weapons development. The complex appears to be the most heavily protected site in Iran.”

“Reza Kahlili (who revealed the Quds site) has provided the West with one of the most critical pieces of evidence of the Iranian government’s drive to break out its nuclear development into a fully operational capability,” said Maj. Gen. Thomas G. McInerney (Ret.). “All the red lines have been crossed. Beware America, Israel and the West, a nuclear Iran is here!”

The U.N. nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, said last week that a 10th round of talks with Iran over Tehran’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons had failed.

Tabnak, an outlet of Iran’s Islamic regime, said an unidentified Hezbollah commander, in an interview with the Kuwaiti paper Alrai, thanked Syrian President Bashar Assad for keeping his promise to provide those weapons to Hezbollah.

“The weapons given to Hezbollah will change the balance of power,” he said.

“We have in recent days done extensive operations for reconnaissance on Israel’s central and sensitive military and infrastructural installations in different areas and also on Israel’s commando posts and peacekeeping forces in the Golan Heights,” he said, “to prepare for the coming battle with the occupying regime.”

The commander revealed some of the weapons given by Syria to Hezbollah, including Pantsir (SA-22 Greyhound) surface-to-air missiles, SAM 5 surface-to-air missiles and the Russian anti-tank Kornet missiles. However, the commander also hinted that soon Hezbollah will receive the advanced and dreaded ship-killer Yakhont missiles from Assad.

U.S. officials, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had urged Russian President Vladimir Putin not to go ahead with his arms sales to Syria, including the S-300 antiaircraft system and the feared Yakhont cruise missiles. But despite their pleas, Russian officials said they were honoring contracts with Syria, and those weapons Russia will send to Syria may eventually wind up in the hands of Hezbollah and Iran.

The Hezbollah commander also said that Assad has ordered formation of resistance forces similar to Hezbollah, arming them with various weapons, for the confrontation with Israel.

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On May 9, days after Israeli warplanes struck shipments of advanced Iranian weapons on the outskirts of Damascus intended for Hezbollah, the terrorist group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, boasted that Syria will supply “game-changing” weapons to Hezbollah.

“The attack carried out by the Zionist regime (in Syria) will shorten this fake regime’s life,” Iranian Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi warned Israel after the Israeli attack.

Meanwhile, the British Sunday Times reported Sunday that Syria has begun deploying advanced surface-to-surface missiles aimed at Tel Aviv to be launched if Israeli warplanes strike inside Syria again.

According to a source within the Iranian intelligence apparatus, there is now little hope the Assad regime can be saved, hence the panic by Russia in arming Assad with further sophisticated weapons in a warning to U.S. and NATO to stay out of the conflict. He said Iran’s rapid shipment of sophisticated weapons to Hezbollah is part of that strategy. By reinforcing its arsenal, Hezbollah can strike all of Israel and, as a last resort, engage Israel from within Syria, further complicating the already-chaotic region.

Israel, worried about the disintegration of Syria and the further arming of Hezbollah, has warned continuously that giving “game-changing” weapons to Hezbollah is its red line.

Despite the open Iranian threats against Israel, the source said, regime officials have no intention of engaging the Jewish state directly unless America launches a direct attack against Syria or if there is an attack on Iran. In fact, he said, Iranian officials are worried about Israel attacking their nuclear facilities as Iran seeks to create a nuclear-armed state that would then become untouchable.

However, Iranians have devised several plans to engage Israel through their forces in Syria and their proxies, such as Hezbollah, to draw the Jewish state into a wider conflict should Israel continue to attack Syrian armaments facilities.

The source added that the regime also has devised plans for terrorist attacks against Israel, the U.S. homeland and their interests around the world as a warning to leave Syria alone and to stop the pressure on the Islamic regime because of its illicit nuclear program. The fall of Assad, they think, would be a culmination of an effort to then target the clerical regime in Iran.

As reported exclusively on WND on May 13, Iran not only has formed a new coalition of terrorist masterminds among its Quds Forces, Hezbollah and al-Qaida to attack the U.S. homeland, but has also given the go-ahead for three imminent operations within the U.S. to change the perception of security in America, which it believes has helped empower America’s actions in the Middle East.

The source, who remains anonymous for security reasons and who has provided valuable information before, said that on May 3, Kerry’s letter was delivered via the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh to Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, who arranged through the Saudi Embassy in Tehran to present the message to Rafsanjani.

The message said both the Saudi kingdom and the White House would support Rafsanjani in the June 14 elections and that, the source said, Rafsanjani showed the message to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who agreed that Rafsanjani should announce his candidacy.

The message said that both Washington and Riyadh understood Iran’s political landscape and economic situation, the source said, and that they believe that mistaken policies of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad both nationally and internationally have taken Iran further away from better international relations. They believe that with Rafsanjani as president, those problems, including the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program, could soon be resolved.

Rafsanjani, who portrays himself as a moderate, announced his candidacy just before the May 11 registration deadline, which drew harsh reaction from hard liners in Iran who requested that authorities bar him from next month’s vote.

The source added that the approval of Rafsanjani’s candidacy by the Guardian Council will mean that Khamenei is on board and will use Rafsanjani not only to help turn out those voters who believe Rafsanjani offers an anti-regime candidacy but also to start another merry-go-around with the U.S. to buy more time for its nuclear bomb program. The Guardian Council is set to announce the list of approved candidates next week.

The outreach to Rafsanjani goes back to what led to the Iran-Contra Affair in the 1980s in which a direct channel of communication was established with Rafsanjani, who was then the speaker of the parliament. Rafsanjani had promised the American administration that once Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the Islamic Revolution, died, then relations between the two countries could improve.

That outreach, as reported before, continued under President George H.W. Bush. At that time Khomeini was dead, and the American administration believed that Rafsanjani, who had become president, could then deliver on what he had promised – normalization of relations – only to find out that the promises were hollow.

Rafsanjani then played a role again in the 2009 elections in a power grab by supporting Mir Hossein Mousavi against Ahmadinejad. Mousavi actually won the popular vote, but on orders from the supreme leader, the election was fraudulently given to Ahmadinejad. That touched off days of rioting in which thousands were arrested and many imprisoned or executed and led to the Green Movement, which angered the clerical establishment.

As reported exclusively on WND on Oct. 4 and in The Washington Times on Oct. 30, a three-person delegation of the Obama administration met secretly in Doha, Qatar, on Oct. 1 with Ali Akbar Velayati, the former Iranian foreign minister and current close adviser to the supreme leader who is also running as a candidate for the presidency next month. Other U.S. and Iranian officials also participated in several similar meetings, which took place from 2009 to 2012 in Turkey, Georgia and Thailand to discuss Iran’s nuclear program as well as regional issues.

The source added that the White House would rather Rafsanjani win than Velayati but has contacts with both. However, he said, to hope that either will change the regime’s policies is delusional because not only are ultimate decisions made by the supreme leader, but that both candidates (and for that matter all those who run for elected office) only serve the interest of the regime and “these games are only to buy time for the system to survive and continue with its evil plans.”

Another source within the Revolutionary Guards intelligence unit, who provided information on Ahmadinejad’s recent arrest and the presence of an audiotape proving fraud in the 2009 elections, informed WND that if Ahmadinejad’s hand-picked candidate to succeed him, close confidant and top adviser Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, was rejected in his attempt to get on the ballot, Ahmadinejad would retaliate. He would not only reveal the tape, causing a major headache for the regime, but also would immediately fire several of his ministers in an effort to disrupt the operation of the government and delay the elections. The sources said that if that did not work, he would resign to further pressure Khamenei before the elections.

Khamenei has warned that no one can delay the elections and that the Guardian Council, the body that approves candidates for office, should not hesitate to reject those not qualified.

Iran has given the go-ahead to operatives of three terrorist groups that have infiltrated the United States to carry out missions, including what is expected to be a Mumbai-style attack on a hotel where innocent bystanders would be killed, WND has learned.

A full report with many details of the missions has been passed on to U.S. officials.

Three targets have been chosen within America for imminent attack, and the terror teams have now cut communications with the operational center in Iran, a sign that they are moving ahead with the attacks, according to a high-level intelligence officer within the Islamic regime.

If only one of the attacks occurs, the regime will consider the operation a success, the source said. Tehran believes, he said, an attack would not be traced back to Iran due to the nationalities of the operators.

One of the planned attacks resemble the Mumbai attack in 2008, the source added, in which a hotel was targeted, hostages were taken and 164 people were killed over several days. India alleges Pakistan used proxies to carry out the Mumbai attack so it wouldn’t be traced back to Pakistan, just as Iran now is using proxies to hide its current terrorism. The information provided by the source provides details of a new jihadist coalition with a focus on creating instability in the U.S.

The source said the regime views the Boston bombing as a successful terrorist attack in which fear was created, U.S. intelligence questioned and a sense of security diminished. There has yet to be any link to a specific group or country.

As WND reported exclusively April 22, the regime’s Quds Forces have done extensive planning on gatherings, events and high-value targets in the U.S., but for two years have focused on events such as the Boston Marathon. The Quds Forces run an extensive network of terrorists out of South Asia.

A Feb. 14, 2010, meeting in Iran either set up the new jihadist coalition or continued the coalition among the Quds Forces, Hezbollah and al-Qaida. The latter coalition was formed years ago by Imad Mugniyeh, the dead mastermind terrorist from Hezbollah, under the direction of Ahmad Vahidi, then the head of the Quds Forces and the current Iranian defense minister, to collaborate on their fight against the U.S.

At the 2010 meeting, Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Forces; Seif Adel, the operational head of al-Qaida; and Mustafa Badr al-Din, the operational head of Hezbollah; devised a plan for operations against the U.S. under a new coalition, dubbed the “Coalition of Muslim Soldiers.” The coalition includes al-Shabaab, an al-Qaida offshoot based in Somalia, and has its central command in the Iranian city of Kerman. Command and control centers are located in the Iranian provinces of Kerman, Khorasan, Khuzestan, Kurdistan, and Sistan and Baluchistan, the source said.

The coalition, led by Soleimani, with Iran the main source of funding, is based on a strategic collaboration and devoid of ideological differences and opinions of Shiite and Sunni Marjas. The main operational commanders, mostly well-known terrorists, are:

1. Gen. Soleimani, the head of the Quds Forces with full power given to him by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
2. Brig. Gen. Abdolreza Shahlabi of the Quds Forces.
3. Brig. Gen. Hamed Abdollahi of the Quds Forces.
4. Brig. Gen. Hossein Movahedian of the Quds Forces.
5. Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr of the Quds Forces.
6. Seif Adel, the operational head of al-Qaida.
7. Abdul Rahman Yasin of al-Qaida operations.
8. Abu Saeed al-Mesri of al-Qaida in Latin America.
9. Adnan ShokriJuma of al-Qaida in America.
10. Hakimalah Masoud of al-Qaida operations.
11. Mustafa Badr al-Din, the operations head of Hezbollah and the brother-in-law and cousin of the dead terrorist Imad Mugniyah, who now serves as Mugnyiah’s replacement as the military leader of Hezbollah and the deputy to the Quds’ Soliemani.
12. Talal Hamieh, the head of the External Security Organization, strategic planning and funding for Hezbollah in Venezuela. He commutes directly from Venezuela to Damascus, Syria, then to Lebanon and back.
13. Fozi Mohammad Mostafa of Hezbollah operations.
14. Mohammad Ali Hamdi of Hezbollah operations in Toronto, Canada. He targets nuclear power plants and other sites in Canada.
15. Ebrahim Saleh Mohammad al-Yaghoub of Hezbollah operations.
16. Mohammad Ahmad al-Monavar, the operations commander for Abu Nidal.
17. Jahad Servan Mostafa, the operations commander for al-Shabaab in Somalia.

Based on intelligence and infiltration by Western intelligence agencies into institutions, operations and cultural centers of radical Arab Islamists after 9/11, the new coalition recruits non-Arab Islamists from many other nationalities and Arabs from countries not on the hot list for American agencies.

Iran believes that the perception of security in America that has helped empower its actions in the Middle East must be turned 180 degrees, not only to defeat and derail all U.S. calculations based on gathered intelligence but to destabilize the political, economic and social conditions in America, the source said.

Based on that understanding, he said, the U.S. through its military might has kept the fight in the Islamic region and away from its homeland and its allies’ turf. Now continuous operations must be conducted in the U.S. homeland to change that equation, they believe.

More than 2,600 targets, including public places, government buildings and military installations, have been chosen for attack, and reconnaissance has been done. Information about some of the targets, based on direct knowledge of the source, has been given to U.S. officials to neutralize the threat and confront the terrorists. They include specific government buildings, news networks, malls and sports events.

This new coalition has also prepared for a major attack to avenge al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden’s killing to satisfy Seif Adel, the operational head of al-Qaida, for his collaboration with the Iranian regime.

The radical regime ruling Iran has set up several channels for financial support of the new coalition with its terrorist activities. Multiple commerce, cultural and financial institutions in the U.S. are part of that network. The connection includes individuals running businesses in Damascus and its connections to al-Qaida operatives in America.

Since 2001, more than $270 million has been invested in the expansion of mosques and Islamic centers in America by institutions in the Iranian city of Qom. As part of the coalition’s plan, some 27 mosques and Islamic centers in America are their target for collaboration, infiltration and recruitment of sympathizers for various missions, including reconnaissance and terrorist acts.

The source said the new coalition, due to its composition of different people in Central Asia, is a very complex organization.

The publication of a limited version of the full report is an intention to put the Islamic regime on notice that should it go ahead with its planned attacks in the U.S. homeland, it will be held responsible, the source said.

WND reported exclusively on April 30 that Ahmadinejad had been detained for seven hours and warned to shut his mouth over his claim of having embarrassing documents on several regime officials.

WND’s story, from a source in the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence unit, soon became international news, with several media covering the story, including Shepard Smith of Fox News, The Guardian Express, Britain’s Daily Mail, the Jerusalem Post, Turkish Hurriyet, Alarabiya and the American Jewish newspaper Algemeiner, forcing the regime to react.

The Islamic Republic News Agency Wednesday assailed WND, stating that the “U.S. news website World Net Daily, which had a record of publishing anti-Iranian news items, among its Wednesday news claimed baselessly that … President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was arrested temporarily by some Iranian security forces.” It claimed WND and its author, Reza Kahlili, were engaged in counterintelligence and anti-Iran projects.

Turkish media outlet Haber and Memleket reflected the report run by a major Turkish outlet, Hurriyet, on Friday: “Ahmadinejad was allegedly detained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard chief of intelligence for seven hours, according to former CIA agent Reza Kahlili.”

The report said there were documents that proved Ahmadinejad was fraudulently elected as president in 2009 by having millions of votes added to his tally and that now the president was blackmailing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over the document if his candidate, close confidant and adviser Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, was not allowed to run in the presidential elections in June.

Turkish media said there has been visible tension between Khamenei, the supreme leader, and Ahmadinejad in recent years and that the president’s detention was a warning to him that he either shut up or face consequences.

The WND report, which was posted on over 400 Iranian sites, has created a headache for a regime that is already dealing with international sanctions over its illicit nuclear program and the tension over its upcoming presidential elections.

The Iranian Embassy in Ankara attacked the Turkish media in a press release for picking up the WND story. According to the regime’s media outlet AsrIran, the embassy denied that Ahmadinejad had been arrested, accused the Turkish media of being “under the influence of foreign news sources” and asked them to cover Iranian news only from the regime’s official media.

AsrIran said the embassy’s press release started with the Quran’s Surah Hajarat, Verse 6: “O you who believe, if a state of perverse rebellion, brings you news, search for it in detail. Otherwise the result of ignorance, a people give to evil deeds will regret later.”

It urged the Turks to pay attention to recent statements by Khamenei for the need for unity in the Islamic world.

Relations between Iran and Turkey have been souring because Turkey has called on Iranian ally Bashar Assad to step down as Syrian president and because of the recent reconciliation of the Turkish and Israeli governments.

Ahmadinejad recently stated publicly he had been warned that if he released information embarrassing to the regime, he would be taught a lesson. He said he won’t back down and that he has files that, if revealed, would implicate certain officials and they would have no place to hide.

As reported exclusively on WND on May 2, the source provided detailed information on a taped phone conversation between Ahmadinejad and Vahid Haghanian, the head of the supreme leader’s office. During that taped call, the two argued as Haghanian told Ahmadinejad what Khamenei expected of him. Haghanian then told him that they had to add millions of fake votes to declare him the winner despite having all Guards and Basij personnel to vote for him.

Earlier, the regime’s media outlet, Baztab, reported on the existence of the tape and the threat by Ahmadinejad’s camp to release it. The Baztab site, after publishing that news, was immediately taken down by security forces. In an interview today, Baztab reporter Fouad Sadeghi said the news came directly from Ahmadinejad associates.

The man who beat Ahmadinejad in 2009, Mir Hossein Mousavi, has been under house arrest since Feb. 2011. Millions of Iranians took to the streets after that election, calling Ahmadinejad’s reported 62 percent tally of voters (he actually received only a third of the vote) a fraud and demanding a free election. Thousands were arrested, with many tortured and executed.

The source for the reports, a member of the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence unit, hopes to provide WND with a tape that proves Iranian officials admitted the truth about the level of fraud in the 2009 elections.

That revelation, should it happen, could potentially destabilize the regime right before the new presidential election, scheduled for June 14.