Production of 15-ton bunker buster sped up

Production of 15-ton bunker buster sped up: "WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is speeding up delivery of a colossal bomb designed to destroy hidden weapons bunkers buried underground and shielded by 10,000 pounds of reinforced concrete.Call it Plan B for dealing with Iran, which recently revealed a long-suspected nuclear site deep inside a mountain near the holy city of Qom.The 15-ton behemoth — called the ‘massive ordnance penetrator,’ or MOP — will be the largest non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal and will carry 5,300 pounds of explosives.



Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said. ‘This is just a capability that we think is necessary given the world we live in.’The Obama administration has struggled to counter suspicions lingering from George W. Bush’s presidency that the United States is either planning to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities itself or would look the other way if Israel did the same.The administration has been careful not to take military action off the table even as it reaches out to Iran with historic talks this month. Tougher sanctions are the immediate backup if diplomacy fails to stop what the West fears is a drive for a nuclear weapon.Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently said a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities would probably only buy time.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen has called a strike an option he doesn’t want to use.The new U.S. bomb would be the culmination of planning begun in the Bush years. The Obama administration’s plans to bring the bomb on line more quickly indicate that the weapon is still part of the long-range backup plan.‘Without going into any intelligence, there are countries that have used technology to go further underground and to take those facilities and make them hardened,’

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. ‘This is not a new phenomenon, but it is a growing one.’After testing began in 2007, development of the bomb was slowed by about two years because of budgetary issues, Whitman said, and the administration moved last summer to return to the previous schedule.North Korea, led by Kim Jong Il, is a known nuclear weapons state and has exploded working devices underground. The United States and other countries have offered to buy out the country’s weapons program. The Obama administration is trying to lure Pyongyang back to the bargaining table after a walkout last year.Iran is a more complex case, for both diplomatic and technical reasons. Iran’s president,

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, claims its nuclear program is peaceful and meant only to produce energy, but the West suspects a covert bomb program that may be only a year or so away from fruition.‘I don’t really see it as a near-term indication of anything being planned. I think certainly down the road it has a certain deterrent factor,’ said Kenneth Katzman, a specialist on Iran and the Middle East at the Congressional Research Service. ‘It adds to the calculus, let’s say, of Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong Il.’Details about Iran’s once-secret program have come out slowly and often under duress, as with last month’s surprise confirmation of the hidden underground development site near Qom.

>That revelation came a month after the Pentagon had asked Congress to shift money to speed up the MOP program, although U.S. and other intelligence agencies had suspected for years that Iran was still hiding at least one nuclear development site.The MOP could, in theory, take out bunkers such as those Saddam Hussein had begun to construct for weapons programs in Iraq, or flatten the kind of cave and tunnel networks that allowed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden to escape U.S. assault in Tora Bora, Afghanistan, shortly after the U.S. invasion in 2001.The precision-guided bomb is designed to drill through earth and almost any underground encasement to reach weapons depots, labs or hideouts."

(Via Air Force Times - News.)

North Korea reportedly test-fires 5 short-range missiles

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea test-launched five short-range missiles Monday, reports said, in what analysts said was an attempt to improve its bargaining position ahead of possible talks with the United States.
North Korea has recently reached out to the U.S. and South Korea following months of tension over its nuclear and missile tests earlier this year. Leader Kim Jong Il told visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao last week that his government might return to stalled six-nation negotiations on its nuclear program depending on the outcome of direct talks it seeks with the United States.
Washington has said it is considering holding talks with North Korea as part of efforts to restart the six-party negotiations.

The missile launches off North Korea's east coast were the first by the communist nation since it test-fired seven missiles in early July, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.
Yonhap, citing a South Korean official it did not identify, said the KN-02 surface-to-surface missiles were fired from mobile launch pads and had a range of up to 75 miles (120 kilometers). It said North Korea launched two missiles in the morning and three more in the afternoon.

More missile launches expected today.

Photos from Road Runners Event in Las Vegas.

Some very interesting photos by Photos by Alan Johnson at this LINK.

Of particular interest is the display of secret program patches.

Read the DREAMLANDRESORT discussion thread HERE. in the DISCUSSIONS FORUM.

Related Las Vegas Review Journal article HERE.

-Steve Douglass

Los Angeles man being held for suspected bomb making

A Los Angeles/Lake Elsinore man who lost his hand in an improvised explosion device (IED) is being held in custody today after he went to a hospital emergency room with his hand blown off. His brother and mother have been arrested on suspicion of making explosives and child endangerment, a Riverside county sheriff's sergeant said.

The allegations stem from explosives found at the family's home, where the mother ran a licensed daycare facility, said sheriff's Sgt. Dennis Gutierrez.

Benjamin Kuzelka, 23, walked into a hospital and told emergency personnel that he had shot his own hand, said sheriff's Sgt. Gutierrez.

An examination of the wound determined it was not consistent with a gunshot, and Kuzelka later told deputies that he had been injured by explosives, Gutierrez said.

Sheriff's deputies, along with agents from the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, went to his home at 30524 Audelo Street and found bomb-making materials and marijuana plants, the sergeant said.

Kuzelka was in serious condition and will be arrested when he recuperates.

His brother, Grey Timothy Kuzelka, 21, was arrested and booked into the county jail. He had been free on bail since Sunday, following an arrest on suspicion of drug possession, sales and transport.

Their mother, Rebecca Kuzelka, 55, was also being held.

The possibility that the family is associated with hate groups or other radical home grown or international terrorist with intentions of bombing southern California targets is being investigated by local, county and federal authorities according to an investigator.

Law enforcement in surrounding counties including Orange and L.A.Counties are investigating to see if there is any connection between the Kuzelka family and any recent bomb threats.

CERN Contractor Connected To Al-Qaeda Arrested In France

Posted on: Saturday, 10 October 2009, 10:21 CDT

France has captured a worker at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) for alleged connections with al-Qaeda, officials announced.

The 32-year-old man was one of two brothers apprehended in the town of Vienne on Thursday. Police think that the suspect communicated on the Internet with the al-Qaeda, and had been contemplating attacks on France.

The organization established that a physicist working at CERN was detained "under suspicion of links to terrorist organizations", and is aiding the French police.

"He was not a CERN employee and performed his research under a contract with an outside institute. His work did not bring him into contact with anything that could be used for terrorism," they said to BBC News.

The suspect was a part of LHC Beauty research, which is exploring the distinctions between matter and anti-matter.

CERN, a civilian group endorsed by 20 member states, is Europe's primary laboratory for the examination of the basics of sub-atomic physics.

Security service officers, using a warrant from an anti-terrorist officer, held the two brothers for questions on Thursday in Vienne.

The physicist spoken via the Internet with people connected to al-Qaeda and told them he was interested in performing the attacks, but had "not got to the stage of carrying out material acts of preparation.”

Two computers, three hard drives and other machines were taken from his residence after the arrest.

"The inquiry will doubtless establish what the targets were in France or elsewhere, and perhaps indicate that we have avoided the worst," French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said at a press conference.

"We are in a situation of permanent alert. We follow statements made by the leaders of certain organizations day by day. We never let our guard down. The danger is permanent," he added.