Richard Cochrane / DebkaFile – 2009-05-03 10:15:55
http://richardcochrane.hypocrisy.com/2009/05/01/iran-canceled-air-show-upon-russian-warning-of-israeli-plan-to-destroy-all-140-warplanes/
Iran Canceled Air Show upon
Russian Warning of Israeli Plan
To Destroy all 140 Warplanes
Richard Cochrane / DebkaFile
(May 1, 2009) — DEBKAfile’s Iranian and intelligence sources disclose that Moscow warned Tehran Friday April 17 that Israel was planning to destroy all of its 140 fighter-bombers concentrated at the Mehr-Abad Air Force base for an air show over Tehran on Iran’s Army Day the following day. The entire fleet was accordingly removed to remote bases and the display cancelled.
In the first week of April, Tehran announced it would stage its biggest air show ever to dramatize a ceremonial military parade in the capital on April 18. Iran would show the world that it is capable of fighting off an Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities. Instead, only four aircraft flew over the saluting stand. Iranian media explained that the big show was cancelled due to “bad weather and poor visibility,” when in fact Tehran basked in warm and sunny weather.
Moscow had informed the Iranians that its spy satellites and intelligence sources had picked up preparations at Israeli Air Force bases to destroy the 140 warplanes, the bulk of the Iranian air force, on the ground the night before the display, leaving its nuclear sites without aerial defense. A similar operation wiped out the entire Egyptian air fleet in the early hours of the 1967 war.
Unknown vessel destroys another Iranian arms ship bound for Gaza
26 April: An Iranian ship transporting arms to the Gaza Strip was destroyed off the Sudanese coast in the Red Sea last week, the Egyptian newspaper Al-Usbu (The Week) reported on Sunday. An unidentified warship launched missiles at the ship, sinking it with its crew and cargo. Quoting anonymous sources, the newspaper suspected Israeli or American forces were responsible for the attack.
The same sources said the ship was on course to dock in Sudan, where the weapons would be unloaded and eventually shipped to Gaza through Egypt.
Neither Iran, Israel, or the United States has commented.
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