A blast at Iran's Alghadir missile base at Bid Ganeh—so powerful it rattled windows 30 miles away in Tehran—has raised speculation about Israeli covert action against the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. Seventeen of the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps were killed, among them a man described as the "architect" of the country's missile program, Maj. Gen. Hassan Moghaddam, reported to have been trained in ballistic science by China and North Korea. Mostafa Izadi, an Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps commander, and a close friend, said in his obituary: "Since 1984 he pioneered the IRGC's ground-to-ground missile system...the work which has so frightened the world's imperialist powers and the Zionist regime today."

Iranian authorities said the cause of the explosion was unknown. But assassinations of nuclear scientists and a sophisticated cyber-attack were already fueling fears of a secret Mossad program before the blast. Israeli leaders have not been slow to express their pleasure. "May there be more like it," Defense Minister Ehud Barak said when asked about the Bid Ganeh blast. (BBC News, Nov. 15; The Guardian, SANA, Jerusalem Post, Nov. 14)

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