Italian Cruise Ship Reported Torpedoed

January 14, 2012

Italian Cruise Ship Reported Torpedoed By Iranian Submarine

By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers

A “flash” message received in the Kremlin today from the Northern Fleet Command, whose Russian Navy flotilla is in the Mediterranean Sea after having just left their Syrian port of call, reports that the anti-submarine ship Admiral Chabanenko has detected the firing of a torpedo having the “unmistakable signature” of one fired from a kilo-class submarine near Isola del Giglio a popular vacation island about 18 miles off the Italian Tuscan coast.

Within 10 minutes from the detection of this torpedo being fired, this “flash” message continues, a distress call was received from a cruise ship nearing the port of Isola del Giglio Costa named Costa Concordia [photo of sinking top left], and owned by owned by Genoa-based Costa Cruises, stating that it had been “attacked” and was in “immediate danger of capsizing.”

Reports from the London Telegraph about this attack state that the Costa Concordia’s passengers’ dinner was “interrupted by a loud boom around 8 pm local time” with an initial announcement claiming that the ship was suffering an electrical failure, ordering everyone onboard to don life-jackets, and appearing to confirm this “flash” message of it being an attack.

The Northern Fleet Command further states that after the initial distress call from Costa Concordia it was ordered by the US Naval Air Station Sigonella (located in Sicily and known as “The Hub of the Med”) to cease open broadcasts and, instead, use NATO encrypted communications only. [Note:Due to past attacks on cruise liners carrying international passengers, all Western ships of this type are required to carry NATO encrypted radios.]

Most disturbing about this “flash” message, however, is its stating that the only known submarine currently suspected to be in the Mediterranean Sea is one, or possibly two, possessing kilo-class torpedoes belong to the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy (IRIN).

Russian military analysts note that Iran has, indeed, previously stated its intentions to expand its naval forces reach into international waters with the Commander of Iran’s Navy Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari saying this past March they planned to expand their navy’s operational zone far beyond the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman.

In an 11 September 2008 report, the Washington Institute for the Near East Policy said that in the two decades since the Iraqi imposed war on Iran, the Islamic Republic has excelled in naval capabilities and is able to wage unique asymmetric warfare against larger naval forces.According to the report, Iran’s Navy has been “transformed into a highly motivated, well-equipped, and well-financed force and is effectively in control of the world’s oil lifeline, the Strait of Hormuz.”

Iranian naval leaders this past June, according to their state-run Fars News Agency, further stated that they now had a total of 11 submarines, which they said would be used to patrol the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman and that they would, also, send to distant waters such as the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.

To why Iran would attack innocent Western civilians Russian military analysts say is due to the “undeclared war” being waged against the Iranians by the West that has killed a number of their top nuclear scientists, military troops and bystanders, including women and children.

The latest attack in this “undeclared war” came this past week when another Iranian nuclear scientist was assassinated and that their Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said was committed by the “abominable” and “cowardly” intelligence services of the CIA and Mossad of the United States and Israel and that Iran is now reporting they have evidence to support.

Interesting to note is that within hours of these charges being leveled against the US by Iran’s Supreme Leader a number of top American intelligence officers leaked to the press that Israeli Mossad officers had posed as CIA agents and were recruiting for the Pakistani militant group Jundallah to carry out terror strikes in Iran, and as we can read, in part, as reported today by London’s Daily Mail News Service:

“When President Bush heard that this was going on, he ‘went absolutely ballistic,’ one agent said.

After Barack Obama took office, the report claimed, he ‘drastically scaled back joint U.S.-Israel intelligence programs targeting Iran,’ despite Israel’s frequent propositions to carry out covert assassination missions against Iran’s nuclear programme.

One intelligence official told the magazine: ‘Israel is supposed to be working with us, not against us. If they want to shed blood, it would help a lot if it was their blood and not ours.’

‘It’s amazing what the Israelis thought they could get away with,’ a U.S. intelligence officer told Foreign Policy.”

So fearful has the US become about an Israeli attack on Iran, the New York times reported yesterday that President Obama opened a “clandestine communication” with Iran’s Supreme Leader warning that if the Straight of Hormuz was closed he would have no choice but use military force to reopen it.

The Wall Street Journal is further reporting that President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other top US officials have delivered a string of private messages to Israeli leaders warning about the dire consequences of a strike, but at the same time are reported to be “prepping”their Mideast facilities for an Israeli attack on Iran.

With embattled Nigeria, one of the biggest suppliers of oil to the United States, preparing to cease pumping oil on Sunday as it nears outright civil-war, and when coupled with the staggering withdrawal by foreigners of over $85 billion in US debt in the last 6 weeks alone, Russian economists warn that an attack on Iran would literally send the US and EU economies into a “death spiral” as the cost of petrol would reach nearly $15 a gallon.

So dire has this situation become the head of the Kremlin’s Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, warned yesterday that “There is a likelihood of military escalation of the conflict, towards which Israel is pushing the Americans.”

Also, speaking today at a press conference in Brussels, outgoing Russian Ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin warned against a NATO attack on Iran, saying that Russia would view any military attacks as a “direct threat to our security.”

Philip Giraldi, the former counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) warned in his latest column, “What War With Iran Might Look Like,” that an attack by Iran, like the one suspected against the Costa Concordia would, indeed, be the spark that sets off World War III.

Unfortunately for the American people, who are not allowed to know these things by their propaganda media organs, the events described herein that they believe will have no affect on them couldn’t be more mistaken as the fires of this “last global war” will most surely affect us all.

One can only hope these people awaken from their long slumber before all is truly lost.

January 14, 2012 © EU and US all rights reserved. Permission to use this report in its entirety is granted under the condition it is linked back to its original source at WhatDoesItMean.Com. Freebase content licensed under CC-BY and GFDL.