I guess the reports of the regime’s growing paranoia weren’t exaggerating.

Godspeed, Nibbles, godspeed:

According to IRNA, the official Islamic Republic news agency, the national Police chief has implicitly verified the news about the confiscation of a number of squirrels, equipped with eavesdropping devices, on the Iranian borders. He has declined to give any more details, but, reportedly, when asked about the confiscation of 14 spy squirrels, he stated, “I have heard about it, but I do not have precise information”. IRNA adds, “These squirrels were equipped by foreign intelligence services, but were captured two weeks ago by the Police”.

You’ll be surprised to learn this morning that the stooge appointed by the UN to prevent an attack on Iran at all costs has surfaced to say that enrichment work at Natanz is slowing — even while satellite photos show construction work in the area is picking up. What can it all mean?

The sudden flurry of digging seen in recent satellite photos of a mountainside in central Iran might have passed for ordinary road tunneling. But the site is the back yard of Iran’s most ambitious and controversial nuclear facility, leading U.S. officials and independent experts to reach another conclusion: It appears to be the start of a major tunnel complex inside the mountain… As a result, photos of the site are being studied by governments, intelligence agencies and nuclear experts, all asking the same question: Is Iran attempting to thwart future military strikes against its nuclear facility by placing key parts of it in underground bunkers?… The intended use of the Natanz tunnel cannot be ascertained from the photos. But “such a tunnel inside a mountain would offer excellent protection from an aerial attack,” said the report by ISIS, which produces technical assessments of nuclear programs. “This new facility would be ideal for safely storing” natural and enriched uranium and the specialized equipment needed to make it, ISIS said. A less likely possibility, according to the ISIS report, is that Iran might seek to use the tunnels to house centrifuges used in uranium enrichment.

According to a U.S. source who spoke with Yedioth Aharanoth, the missing Iranian general who allegedly defected to the west and probably doesn’t know much about the nuclear program has told western intel that they’re building a third, secret nuclear plant at Natanz to accompany the enrichment facility there. Which makes an already too-convenient story a tiny bit more too convenient.

Deep Digger, where are you when we need you?