• 'Devastating' quake strikes near Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant, kills dozens

    A magnitude 6.3 earthquake hits near the port city of Bushehr, Iran, raising concerns about the safety of the nuclear power station located 11 miles south. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.

    By Alastair Jamieson and John Newland, NBC News

    A magnitude-6.3 earthquake struck near Iran's only nuclear power station Tuesday, killing at least 37 people and injuring hundreds, according to one report, and generating tremors that were felt on the other side of the Persian Gulf.

    The quake struck about 60 miles southeast of the city of Bushehr on Iran's south coast, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

    "No damage was done to Bushehr power plant," Bushehr provincial governor Fereidoun Hasanvand told state TV, according to The Associated Press. He said 850 people were injured, including 100 who were hospitalized.

    Government news agency IRNA described the quake as "devastating" and reported that the dead were in the villages of Shanbe and Tasouj. One hundred ambulances were being sent to the area from the capital Tehran, it said.

    IRNA said Iran's Red Crescent Society had sent five assessment teams to the area to coordinate rescue operations, and that helicopters from Fars and Khuzestan provinces were airlifting supplies required by rescue teams. 

    One Bushehr resident told Reuters by telephone that her home and her neighbors' homes shook but were not damaged.

    "We could clearly feel the earthquake," said Nikoo, who asked to be identified only by her first name. "The windows and chandeliers all shook."

    The quake was felt in Dubai, Qatar and Bahrain on the other side of the Persian Gulf, according to The Weather Channel. Twitter users in Bahrain and Qatar said buildings there had been evacuated.

    In a preliminary report, the USGS said the magnitude-6.3 quake struck at 6:52 a.m. ET at a depth of just under 8 miles.

    The Iranian Seismological Center at the University of Tehran put the magnitude at a lower 6.1 and said the epicenter was in Kaki, an inland town around 60 miles southeast of Bushehr.

    A series of five aftershocks followed within an hour of the initial temblor, the strongest of which measured at a magnitude of 5.4, the USGS reported.

    On its website, the USGS estimated that only about 3,000 people would have felt most violent shaking from the quake, and said another 80,000 live in areas that would have experienced strong tremors. In the region’s largest city, Shiraz, home to about 1.5 million people, the earthquake would have been felt as light shaking.

    Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announces his country "has gone nuclear" as Iran starts production at two uranium mines and a yellow-cake plant. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.

    The nuclear plant's operations were unaffected, an official with the Russian company that built the facility told Iran's RIA news agency, according to Reuters. "The earthquake in no way affected the normal situation at the reactor, personnel continue to work in the normal regime and radiation levels are fully within the norm,'' RIA quoted an official at Atomstroy as saying.

    Iran insists its nuclear plant at Bushehr is for civilian purposes, but there is international concern that the regime may be building nuclear weapons.

    Western experts and Gulf Arab countries have worried about the plant being in an area with such high seismic activity, but Iran has repeatedly maintained that it is safe.

    Related:

    'Gone nuclear': Iran ramps up uranium production

    Diplomat: Iran, West 'a long way apart'

    Full Iran coverage from NBC News

     

    This story was originally published on Tue Apr 9, 2013 8:52 AM EDT

  • US denies loss of drone after Iran claims it captured one

    Iran's state TV reports that an unmanned American drone was captured over the Persian Gulf but did not give details of exactly when or where it happened. A spokesman for the U.S. Navy says no drones are missing in the area. TODAY's Tamron Hall reports.


    By NBC News staff and wire reports

    Updated at 5:35 a.m. ET: The U.S. Navy said Tuesday that it had not lost any drones over the Persian Gulf recently after Iran claimed to have captured one in its airspace.

    The semi-official Fars and the state-run IRNA news agencies reported that a U.S. ScanEagle drone was gathering information over Gulf waters and had entered Iranian airspace.

    The agencies said the drone was then captured by a naval unit of the Revolutionary Guards force.

    However a spokesman for U.S. Naval Forces Central Command in Bahrain denied the claim.

    "The U.S. Navy has fully accounted for all unmanned air vehicles (UAV) operating in the Middle East region. Our operations in the Gulf are confined to internationally recognized water and air space," the spokesman said. "We have no record that we have lost any ScanEagles recently." 

    Jim Watson / AFP - Getty Images, file

    Insitu's ScanEagle, an autonomous aircraft system, launches during the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) demonstration day at Naval Air Station Pax River Webster Field Annex in St. Inigoes, Md., on Aug. 10, 2009.

    Last month the U.S. said Iranian warplanes shot at a U.S. surveillance drone flying in international airspace. Iran said the aircraft had entered its airspace.

    The ScanEagle is manufactured by Boeing Co. According to the firm's website, the drone is four feet long and has a 10-foot wingspan.

    NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reports Dec. 5, 2011, on the American stealth drone that crashed in Iran and whether it is giving the Iranians access to a wealth of U.S. technology.

    The Fars report, citing a senior naval officer, said Iran's forces had "full intelligence supremacy over the moves of the foreign forces in the Persian Gulf."

    In April, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, who is chief of the aerospace division of the powerful Revolutionary Guards, claimed that his government was copying an American spy drone captured by Iran's armed forces last year.

    Related content:
    Drone that crashed in Iran risks secret US technology
    Iran says it is building a copy of downed US spy drone
    Iranian jets attack US military drone, Pentagon officials say

    Hajizadeh was quoted as saying that Iranian experts were recovering information from the RQ-170 Sentinel captured in December last year in eastern Iran, al Arabiya News reported.

    Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • Mexico arrests 'El Gordo,' alleged leader of Gulf Cartel drug gang

    Yuri Cortez / AFP - Getty Images

    Mario Cardenas Guillen, aka "El M-1" an alleged leader of the Gulf drug cartel, stands during his presentation to the press Tuesday in Mexico City.

     

    By NBC News staff and wire services

    Mexican marines have captured Mario Cardenas Guillen, "El Gordo," the leader of the country's Gulf Cartel, Mexico's attorney general told Telemundo.


    Cardenas, along with Eduardo Costilla, "El Cos," controlled the criminal organization, Telemundo reported. Cardenas is the brother of Osiel Cardenas Guillen, the Gulf Cartel leader arrested in 2003 and extradited to the United States in 2007.

    Mario Cardenas will have his first court appearance Wednesday afternoon, Telemundo said.

    Watch World News videos on NBCNews.com 

    Cardenas' is one of the highest-profile arrests in months in President Felipe Calderon's war on drug gangs, a senior Mexican navy source told Reuters on Tuesday.

    Wearing a blue flak jacket and flip-flops and flanked by two masked marines wielding semiautomatic rifles, the balding Cardenas, also called "Fatso," stood impassively, looking up occasionally, as officials in Mexico City read out details of the operation to capture him.

    An official said he was caught with weapons, ammunition, around $10,000 worth of pesos in cash, and four small envelopes containing a white powder that appeared to be cocaine.

    "The capture was carried out following an infantry operation yesterday in Altamira, Tamaulipas, as (Cardenas) brandished a large weapon in the entrance of a building," Navy spokesman Vice Admiral Jose Luis Vergarathe said.

    Cardenas, who has run the cartel since his brother, former leader Antonio Cardenas or "Tony Tormenta," was killed in a 2010 gunfight with the Mexican government, was captured in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas on Monday, the source told Reuters.

    The Gulf Cartel's power has waned in recent years in a feud with Mexico's most brutal gang, the Zetas, which began life providing protection to the Gulf Cartel's operations in northeastern Mexico.

    Cardenas was arrested and convicted on organized crime charges in 1995. He was first incarcerated in a prison in the city of Matamoros, across the U.S.-Mexico border from Brownsville, Texas, where he was caught organizing large shipments of cocaine and marijuana from inside the prison walls.

    In 2003, he was transferred to the Puente Grande prison in western Mexico, the same facility where Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, head of the Sinaloa cartel and Mexico's most wanted man, escaped in a laundry cart in 2001.

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    Osiel Cardenas was sentenced in 2010 to 25 years in prison during a highly secretive hearing closed to the public to protect the lives of everyone involved, The New York Times reported at the time. The Gulf Cartel controlled much of the cocaine traffic across the border in South Texas, and Osiel Cardenas agreed to cooperate with the federal government, according to a hearing transcript.

    During Calderon's six-year offensive against cartels, there have been more than 55,000 drug-related killings. More than 3,000 police and soldiers have died, although many were involved with the gangs.

    This article includes reporting by Reuters.

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  • 23 bodies found hanging, dumped in Mexico drug cartel war

    By Reuters

    MEXCO CITY -- The bodies of 23 people were found hanging from a bridge or dismembered in ice boxes and garbage bags in northeastern Mexico on Friday, in an escalation of brutal violence involving rival drug gangs on the U.S. border.

    In a first incident, the bodies of five men and four women were found hanging from a bridge in Nuevo Laredo, in Tamaulipas state just across the border from the Texas city of Laredo, police said.

    Police could not confirm who was responsible for the murders but a message seen with the bodies indicated it may have been an attack by the Zetas cartel against the rival Gulf cartel.

    Hours later, police found the dismembered corpses of 14 people in garbage bags and ice boxes dumped near the police station of Nuevo Laredo, police investigators said.

    They said the second massacre could have been an act of revenge for the earlier killings, police said.

    More than 50,000 people have died in drug-related violence in Mexico since President Felipe Calderon launched a crackdown on traffickers after taking office in late 2006 and deployed tens of thousands of federal police and soldiers across Mexico.

    The Zeta cartel was founded by deserters from the Mexican special forces who became Gulf cartel enforcers and later split from their employers.

    The two gangs are now fighting for control of local drug trafficking routes.

    Last month the dismembered remains of 14 men were found stuffed inside a minivan left near Nuevo Laredo's town hall.

    Days later a car exploded outside police headquarters and police said the explosion was caused by a grenade.

    Discontent over the bloody attacks is helping fuel support for the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, ahead of Mexico's July 1 presidential election.

    Opinion polls make the PRI the favorite to regain the presidency they held for most of the past century.

    Turf wars
    The Zetas have also been engaged in hostilities with the powerful Sinaloa cartel, named after the state in northwestern Mexico where violence has surged over the past week.

    Sinaloa is the home turf of Mexico's most wanted drug trafficker, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, who heads the Sinaloa cartel, and analysts say his killing or capture would boost Calderon's embattled conservatives ahead of the presidential vote.

    Calderon cannot seek a second term in office.

    At least 20 suspected drug gang members, one police officer and a soldier have been killed in six confrontations in Sinaloa since April 28, a spokesman for local state prosecutors said.

    He was unable to specify which gangs were thought to be behind the latest violence in Sinaloa.

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  • Slices of life in Iran, where international tension may appear far off

    Slideshow: Everyday life in Iran

    AP

    At schools, in shops, and on the streets of big cities and small towns, daily life plays out in Iran.

    Launch slideshow

    As international tension with Iran mounts over sanctions creating a chokehold on the oil-rich nation's economy, life goes on for Iranians.

    U.S. lawmakers crafted Section 1245 of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2012 to reduce Iran's oil revenue as punishment for what the United States says is a program to develop a nuclear-weapon capability. Among other things, it prohibits financial institutions from dealing with Iran's central bank, which acts as the clearinghouse for OPEC's second-largest oil exporter. 

    Iranian officials earlier this month bluntly warned a U.S. carrier not to return to the Gulf and have threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, spooking oil markets and raising the specter of a U.S.-Iranian confrontation.

    The West accuses Iran of developing nuclear weapons, but government officials claim the research is for peaceful purposes.

    In Iranian cities, international affairs seem to go on far away as students still take music lessons, fishermen go out for their daily catches and canine lovers volunteer at local animal shelters.

    These are a few of the activities shown in an msnbc.om slideshow on slices of life in Iran.

  • US ship saves stricken Iranian sailors

    U.S. Navy

    In this picture issued by the U.S. Navy, the crew of a U.S. Coast Guard vessel provide help to Iranian mariners after their boat started taking on water.

     

    By msnbc.com staff and The Associated Press

    A U.S. Coast Guard ship helped six Iranian sailors Tuesday after their cargo vessel began taking on water, marking the second time in less than a week that the American military has come to the aid of Iranians at sea.

    The patrol boat Monomoy, which is assigned to Task Force 55 in the Persian Gulf (also known as the Arabian Gulf), saw distress flares coming from the dhow Ya-Hussayn during the night early Tuesday, according to a statement issued by the U.S. Fifth Fleet.

    "The dhow's master requested assistance from Monomoy indicating the engine room was flooding and deemed not seaworthy," it added.

    U.S. Navy

    After they were rescued, the Iranian mariners were provided with Halal food in accordance with Islamic custom.

    "Monomoy immediately launched their small boat and approached the Ya-Hussayn. Two persons were rescued from the vessel, and four from a life raft tied off to the dhow's stern," it said.

    The statement said the men were given water, blankets, and Halal meals "in accordance with Islamic law."

    The rescue was another reminder of U.S. efforts to demonstrate the humanitarian value of its naval presence in the Gulf, a strategic waterway that the Iranian government has threatened to close in retaliation for international sanctions over its nuclear program.

    Last Thursday, the U.S. Navy rescued 13 Iranian fishermen who had been held captive by pirates in the northern Arabian Sea, just outside the Gulf, for more than 40 days. That happened just days after Tehran warned the United States to keep its warships out of the Gulf. The fishermen were sent on their way and the 15 pirates were taken aboard the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis.

    Dead 'without your help'
    In its statement, Naval Forces Central Command quoted the dhow's owner, identified as Hakim Hamid-Awi, as telling the Americans, "Without your help, we were dead. Thank you for all that you did for us."

    Iran welcomes US rescue of fisherman from pirates

    One Iranian was treated for injuries that were described as "not serious" and the sailors were later transferred to an Iranian Coast Guard vessel, the statement said.

    U.S. Navy Captain Edward Cashman, Commander of Task Force 55, said Monomoy had "displayed exceptional skill and professionalism during the night time rescue."

    Boatswain Mate 2nd Class Emily Poole, Monomoy's medic, said they were just doing their job.

    "Saving lives is the last thing you expect to do at 0300 while patrolling in the Northern Arabian Gulf, but being in the Coast Guard, that's what we are trained to do," she said, according to the statement.

    A U.S. ship rescued Iranians stranded at sea for the second time in less than a week.

     

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  • Will Iran make good on its threat against US?

    Iran warned U.S. aircraft carrier Stennis not to return to the Persian Gulf, but U.S. officials rejected the threat. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski has more.

    By Sevil Omer, msnbc.com

    Should the United States blink with Iran? Tehran has warned Washington against returning an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf. The White House contends Tehran’s threat is just an attempt to deflect attention from the Islamic republic’s domestic problems and says the Navy will continue operations in the Gulf.

    What happens next?

    We turned to Graham T. Allison, a leading analyst of U.S. national security and defense policy in nuclear weapons and terrorism at Harvard, and Qamar-ul Huda, a scholar of Islam and theology, from the U.S. Institute of Peace. In emails to msnbc.com, they shared some thoughts on Iran's war of words -- and the possibility of an escalation.

    Belfer Center

    Graham T. Allison of the Belfer Center.

    Iran has threatened to take military action if the U.S. keeps sending aircraft carriers into the Gulf. What is the probability Iran would make good on its threat?

    ALLISON: Low. Iran must be aware that the U.S. will continue to send aircraft carriers into international waters regardless of Iranian threats, and that any direct military confrontation would not end well for Tehran. However, we face the risk of unauthorized or low-level skirmishes between U.S. and Iranian naval forces escalating into a broader conflict. 

    HUDA: In March 2007, Iran captured 15 British sailors and marines from the Strait of Hormuz, and the government allowed the British embassy to be ransacked by protesters. Since the November 2011 United Nations report found that Iran has worked and may be working on attaining nuclear weapons, the United States and its allies are pressing harder to enforce sanctions against Iran. Essentially, relations with Iran have gone from bad to worse in a matter of five months.

    Courtesy Qamar-ul Huda

    Qamar-ul Huda of the U.S. Institute of Peace.

    If the recent past is any indicator of events, Iran's threats must be taken seriously. A military attack by Iran against the U.S. would have a devastating strategic consequence for Iran. About less than 25 percent of U.S. imported oil comes from the Gulf region; however, China's oil supplies would be significantly threatened by a military conflict.

    Iran's threats are not only directed at the U.S., but to the already unstable global economy. With the uncertainty of EU financial industry and U.S.'s weak economy, Iran is using this moment to test Western interests in the region.

    What does Iran have to gain from a military confrontation with the U.S.?

    ALLISON: It is certainly not in the rational self-interest of the Iranian state to provoke a confrontation with America, whose military dwarfs that of Iran. However, it is likely that certain elements within the regime would welcome such a confrontation, as they feel that American military action could bolster support for their government and distract the Iranian people from growing economic problems.

    HUDA: Iran's military confrontation with the U.S. allows them to rein in dissenters, reformers and liberals, and embolden the power of the hardliners in Iran, namely the Revolutionary Guard institutions. Iranian hardliners welcome an escalation of conflict with the U.S. and the West because it allows them to consolidate their internal power. The elite of hardliners are still from the 1979 revolution period, and they understand that an anti-Western narrative is their core asset. With the recent shooting down of a U.S. spy drone near the Iran-Afghanistan border, and the capture of an [alleged] Afghan-American spy in Iran, Iranian hardliners in the government are trying to deflect the nuclear issue and simultaneously make a case of preventing a U.S.-led confrontation. Internally, Iran is using recent political events, including the Arab Spring protests, as justification to defend national sovereignty.

    Iran has purchased from the Chinese and Russians sophisticated midget submarines, mobile anti-ship cruise missiles, and a fleet of small fast boats capable of naval warfare. Knowing their asymmetric  military power, and visible soft power in the Middle East, Iran will promptly leverage their power against Western interests.  

    What does the U.S. have to gain from a military confrontation with Iran?

    ALLISON: Although some argue that U.S. military action against Iran would be a relatively painless way to delay its nuclear program and maybe even inspire a popular uprising, my best judgment is that an attack is as likely to advance the date on which Iran tests a bomb as to delay it. A military confrontation with Iran would also overturn the chessboard in the Middle East, making America (and Israel) the issue for most of the people in the street and risk retaliation that could bring about a wider regional war. 

    HUDA: The U.S. maintains that their military exercises are according to international maritime conventions and for the security of the region. By moving forward to counteract Iranian threats, the U.S. reassures their allies of their commitment to the region, and more importantly, it bolsters the U.S.-Gulf states alliance of limiting Iranian aggression. While a military escalation with Iran will lead to a deeper cold war with Iran, there is no other way to ensure that Iran will draw back. 

    Allison is the director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's John F. Kennedy Center of Government. For three decades, he has been a leading analyst of U.S. national security and defense policy with a special interest in nuclear weapons, terrorism and decision-making. He served as assistant secretary for The U.S. Department of Defense in the first Clinton Administration.

    Huda is a senior program officer in the Religion and Peacemaking Center and scholar of Islam at U.S. Institute of Peace. He teaches conflict resolution, Islamic theology, Islam and Western studies at Georgetown University.

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  • Iran warns US carrier to stay out of Persian Gulf

    Iran warned U.S. aircraft carrier Stennis not to return to the Persian Gulf, but U.S. officials rejected the threat. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski has more.

    By msnbc.com news services

    Updated at 1:37 p.m. ET:

    Reuters reports White House officials said Iran's threat to take action if a U.S. aircraft carrier moves into the Gulf showed Tehran was increasingly isolated internationally, faced economic problems from to sanctions and wants to divert attention from its deepening problems.

    "It reflects the fact that Iran is in a position of weakness," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters Tuesday.

    Earlier:

    Iran will take action if a U.S. aircraft carrier which left the area because of Iranian naval exercises returns to the Gulf, the state news agency quoted army chief Ataollah Salehi as saying on Tuesday.

    "Iran will not repeat its warning ... the enemy's carrier has been moved to the Sea of Oman because of our drill. I recommend and emphasize to the American carrier not to return to the Persian Gulf," Salehi told IRNA.

    "I advise, recommend and warn them (the Americans) over the return of this carrier to the Persian Gulf because we are not in the habit of warning more than once," the semi-official Fars news agency quoted Salehi as saying.

    Salehi did not name the aircraft carrier or give details of the action Iran might take if it returned. However, last week a spokeswoman for the U.S. 5th Fleet said the USS John C. Stennis had left the Gulf.

    Iran completed 10 days of naval exercises in the Gulf on Monday, and said during the drills that if foreign powers imposed sanctions on its crude exports it could shut the Strait of Hormuz, through which 40 percent of the world's traded oil is shipped.

    The U.S. Fifth Fleet, which is based in Bahrain, said it would not allow shipping to be disrupted in the strait.

    Iran fires missiles
    Iran said on Monday it had successfully test-fired two long-range missiles during its naval drill, flexing its military muscle in the face of mounting Western pressure over its controversial nuclear program.

    Iran also said it had no intention of closing the Strait of Hormuz but had carried out "mock" exercises on shutting the strategic waterway.

    Iran announces a nuclear fuel breakthrough and test-fires a new surface-to-air missile in the Gulf on Sunday. NBC's Kate Snow reports.

    Tehran denies Western accusations that it is secretly trying to build atomic bombs, saying it needs nuclear technology to generate electricity.

    The United States and Israel have not ruled out military action against Iran if diplomacy fails to resolve the Islamic state's nuclear row with the West.

    The European Union is considering following the United States in banning imports of Iranian crude oil. U.S. President Barack Obama signed new sanctions against Iran into law on Saturday, stepping up the pressure by adding sanctions on financial institutions that deal with Iran's central bank.

     

    Meanwhile, Iran said the new record low of the national currency to the U.S. dollar was not linked to the latest sanctions from the United States targeting the country's central bank.

    Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast on Tuesday insisted there "is no relation" between the two. He said the American sanctions "have yet to be put into practice."

    The Iranian currency's exchange rate hovered late Monday around 18,000 riyals to the dollar, marking a roughly 12 percent slide compared to Sunday's rate of 15,900 riyals to the dollar.

    President Barack Obama on Saturday signed into law a bill targeting Iran's central bank as part of the West's efforts to pressure Tehran over its nuclear program. It goes into effect in six months.

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    Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.