Tuesday, May 7, 2013

BREAKING: Blasts in Tehran, Syria Drops off Internet




Update

Syria was cut off from the Internet on Tuesday, according to US tech firms monitoring Web traffic and the State Department. The reasons were not immediately clear, but a similar blackout happened last November.

A similar picture came from Google through its Transparency Report on Web traffic and Web monitoring firms Akamai and Renesys. According to activists, sudden communication cuts may occur before major military offensives.

The BBC Persian journalist Kasra Naji tweeted today that three explosions had been heard in western Tehran, in an area where Iran carries out missile research and storage. It was not immediately clear if there were injuries or damage in the incident.

The report came days after Israel carried out two air strikes in Syria over the weekend, targeting Iranian-supplied Fateh-110 surface-to-surface missiles destined for Hezbollah.

In January, both Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency denied reported that a blast had hit the Fordow underground uranium enrichment center near Qom.

A mysterious and massive explosion rocked a military arms depot near Tehran in November 2011, killing 17 Revolutionary Guards Corps officers and wounding 17 others.

Iranian officials said the blast was caused by an accident as soldiers moved munitions at the base in Bidganeh, near Shahriar, 45 km. west of the Iranian capital. The base is also believed to be the storage center for some of Iran’s most-advanced long-range ballistic missiles, such as the Shahab 3.

In October 2010, a similar blast took place at a Revolutionary Guards munitions store in Khoramabad, in western Iran, killing and wounding several servicemen.