The Latest from Iran (26 June): The Oil Squeeze

See also Iran Feature: The Week in Civil Society --- At Neda's Grave
Iran Snap Analysis: A Fight Within the Regime Over Egypt
The Latest from Iran (25 June): Doing the Currency Slide

---

1800 GMT: Oil Watch. Earlier we reported an apparent attempt by the National Iran Tanker Company to circumvent oil sanctions by re-naming 10 tankers and putting them under the Tanzanian flag (see 1100 GMT). It appears, however, that NITC has further problems....

Industry sources say the company has delayed the expansion of its fleet. A senior NITC official said the firm has yet to take delivery of a 318,000 deadweight tonne tanker "Safe", the first of 12 new supertankers the firm was to manage under a $1.2 billion contract with Chinese shipyards. Delivery was initially scheduled for May.

The delay also deprives the Islamic Republic of capacity to store oil on vessels as its customers cut purchases. Iran-based shipping sources said in April that Tehran had been forced to deploy more than half of its national tanker fleet to store oil at anchorage. That proportion has since increased, trade sources say.

Click to read more ...

Iran Feature: Muffling the Drumbeats of War? Israel, Azerbaijan, and the US

We have been following the news and analysis heralding a military attack on Iran over its nuclear programme, and more recently, we have noted the media coverage --- following an Obama Administration "red line" against a strike --- hitting back at any launch of conflict.

Now an episode which brings both sides of the political and propaganda struggle together. 

On Wednesday, journalist Mark Perry posted the dramatic revelation, "Israel's Secret Staging Ground":

Four senior diplomats and military intelligence officers say that the United States has concluded that Israel has recently been granted access to airbases on Iran's northern border. To do what, exactly, is not clear. "The Israelis have bought an airfield," a senior administration official told me in early February, "and the airfield is called Azerbaijan."

It was immediately clear, however, that the news had not been fed to Perry to encourage the Israelis. Rather...

Click to read more ...

Iran Feature: Israel's Mossad, Posing as CIA Officers, Recruited Anti-Regime Insurgents (Perry)

Jundullah leader Abdolmalek Rigi, executed June 2010Buried deep in the archives of America's intelligence services are a series of memos, written during the last years of President George W. Bush's administration, that describe how Israeli Mossad officers recruited operatives belonging to the terrorist group Jundallah by passing themselves off as American agents. According to two U.S. intelligence officials, the Israelis, flush with American dollars and toting U.S. passports, posed as CIA officers in recruiting Jundallah operatives -- what is commonly referred to as a "false flag" operation.

The memos, as described by the sources, one of whom has read them and another who is intimately familiar with the case, investigated and debunked reports from 2007 and 2008 accusing the CIA, at the direction of the White House, of covertly supporting Jundallah -- a Pakistan-based Sunni extremist organization.

Click to read more ...