Why Israelis aren’t surprised by the alleged Iranian plot – Global Public Square – CNN.com Blogs.

Editor’s Note: Yossi Melman is a feature writer and columnist for Haaretz, specializing in strategic issues. He writes about Israel’s intelligence community, nuclear matters and terrorism.

By Yossi Melman – Special to CNN

With the dramatic news of the prisoner swap with Hamas due to take place next Tuesday (where one Israeli soldier will be exchanged for 1027 convicted Palestinian terrorists), Israeli media, politicians, security officials and the public at large barely noticed the news from Washington about the alleged Iranian plot.

According to the U.S. Administration and media reports, the Iranian government was behind the plan to kill the Saudi Ambassador to the United States and to attack Israeli embassies in Washington DC and Buenos Aires.

The conspiracy involved the Al Quds Force – a super secretive arm within Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) – a force which is responsible for maintaining contacts with pro-Iranian (usually Shiite) groups around the globe.

The 15,000 Al Quds force, led by Major General Qassem Suliemani is practically an army within an army. It is trained to conduct special operations. Its cadre of operatives train and supply weapons and explosives to the Lebanese Hezbollah and to Shiite groups in Iraq.  Al Quds has been involved in building secret networks in the Gulf Emirates, Sudan, Somalia, West Africa, the Far East and South America, especially Venezuela.

Therefore, for those Israelis who were paying attention, the news of the alleged Iranian plot did not come as much of a surprise. Israel has been a target of repeated Iranian efforts and failed conspiracies to bomb its embassies and installations abroad. Thus, Israelis, unlike many in the USA who shed doubts whether Iran was indeed behind the plot because of its amateurish nature, tend to think the accusations are believable.

In 1992, the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), acting via its Hezbollah proxy, approved a bomb plot against the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires.  More than two years later, it approved another plot to destroy Amia, the Jewish community center in the Argentinean capital, killing 86 people and wounding dozens more.  This was Iranian-Hezbollah retaliation for the Israeli assassination of the Hezbollah Secretary General.

The cold but violent war between Israel and the Iranian mullahs has intensified in the last five years. In June 2006, Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers. Israel responded by invading Lebanon and conducting a 35-day military campaign against Hezbollah. The Shiite organization retaliated by launching 4,000 Iranian-made and supplied rockets and missiles against Israeli towns and villages.

Less than two years later, Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah’s “Defense Minister” was assassinated by a powerful bomb in Damascus in February 2008, in an operation attributed to the Israeli spy service, Mossad. Hezbollah and Iran swore to avenge his killing. Since then, Israeli intelligence uncovered several plots against Israeli embassies and other targets in Azerbaijan, Egypt and a West African nation.

So a plan to attack the Israeli embassy in Washington DC is not a farfetched idea. It even makes sense. Such a plan could have had a few advantages for Iran. First, it could have avenged the killing of Hezbollah’s number two, who maintained close links with the Al Quds force. It would also have embarrassed the Obama administration and showed Israel that it can’t find a safe haven even in its closest strategic ally.

The same advantages could accrue from an Iranian attack on the Saudi Ambassador. The two countries are already waging a cold war of harsh words and behind-the-scenes secret operations. The rivalry between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia has accelerated in recent years. Iran, via Al Quds intelligence officers, is stirring trouble for the Saudis in the Gulf Emirates, especially in Bahrain and in Yemen. Saudi Arabia countered Iran by sending its tanks to defend the Sunni ruling family of Bahrain.  Its army and intelligence also rushed to support the Yemeni regime. Riyadh is very much concerned about Tehran having nuclear weapons and senior Saudi officials were cited in U.S. diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks as expressing their desire that either the U.S. or Israel attack and destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Publicly, however, Saudi officials are very cautious. The Kingdom’s officials said Thursday that they are still considering their response to the reports. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal was more forthcoming, saying during his visit to Austria,”We hold them [Iran] accountable for any action they take against us…. Any action they take against us will have a measured response from Saudi Arabia.” He also noted that this was not the first time Iran had been suspected of similar operations.

Nevertheless, it is hard to explain why Iran acted so foolishly and amateurishly. In many prior incidents, Iran did a better job concealing its finger prints. But, over the past two decades, Iranian agents and officials with established links to MOIS and/or Al Quds were caught red handed in Berlin, Vienna and other European capitals. In fact, the poorly planned and executed plot could indicate that Iran was desperate to carry out the operation but lacked a suitable infrastructure in the United States.  Without this, Iran lacks credible deniability.

‘Strong’ IAEA report may increas… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

    VIENNA, Oct 14 (Reuters) – The UN nuclear watchdog is expected to raise international pressure on Iran with a report next month likely to heighten suspicions about the Islamic state’s atomic ambitions, Western diplomats said on Friday.

But they said it was unclear whether the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would go as far as to make a firm assessment on whether it believes Iran is working to develop a nuclear missile, as Tehran’s Western foes want the agency to.

RELATED:
Israel fears Iran will copy its policy of nuclear ambiguity
Analysis: Easing concerns and looking for assurances

The diplomats voiced skepticism about an article in France’s Le Figaro paper, which said the IAEA was preparing to denounce “the military nature of this program aimed at providing Iran with the bomb”. Figaro did not name its sources.

Any conclusion by the UN agency, in a quarterly inspection report on Iran due early next month, giving independent backing to Western fears about Iran’s aims could strengthen the US case for further punitive measures against Tehran.

French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said in Paris: “This (IAEA) report has not been communicated yet … and as far as we know there is still some way to go before it is being finalized.”

US President Barack Obama warned Iran on Thursday it would face the toughest possible sanctions for an alleged plot to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington, as Treasury officials eyed action against the Iranian central bank.

Iran has dismissed the plot accusations as a fabrication designed to stir tensions in its ties with its Arab neighbors.

It also rejects Western allegations that its nuclear program is a disguised bid to develop nuclear arms capability.

But the report by the IAEA, tasked with preventing the spread of nuclear arms in the world, is expected to spell out in greater detail the reasons why it said last month it is “increasingly concerned” about Iran’s nuclear program.

The document is being drafted by agency experts ahead of a Nov. 17-18 meeting of the IAEA’s 35-nation governing board, which has the power to report states to the UN Security Council if they violate non-proliferation rules.

The United States and its allies have urged IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano to declare plainly whether he believes that there are military aspects to Tehran’s nuclear activities.

“The indications right now are that it will be a very strong report offering a good amount of detail on possible military dimensions,” one Western diplomat said.

IAEA ‘on the horns of a dilemma’

Another envoy painted a similar picture, saying he expected the IAEA to make a fuller analysis on the basis of the information it has at its disposal about possible military aspects to its nuclear activities.

The IAEA has said in previous reports that the data it has received about such issues is extensive and comprehensive, and also “broadly consistent and credible” in terms of technical detail and the time frame.

But diplomats and analysts expressed doubt that Amano would make a conclusion regarding Iran as clear-cut as one about Syria in a report in May, when he said a facility bombed by Israel in 2007 was “very likely” to have been a secret nuclear reactor.

“To come to a Syria-type conclusion is going to be difficult,” one nuclear proliferation expert said.

For several years the IAEA has been investigating Western intelligence reports indicating Iran has melded efforts to process uranium, test explosives at high altitude and revamp a ballistic missile cone to accommodate a nuclear warhead.

Iran, the world’s No. 5 oil producer, says those allegations are forged and that it enriches uranium, activity that can have both civilian and military purposes, solely as an alternative source of electricity for a growing population.

But its history of concealing sensitive nuclear activity and its refusal to suspend work that also can also yield atomic bombs have drawn four rounds of UN sanctions, as well as separate US and European punitive steps.

Ali Vaez of the Federation of American Scientists, a Washington-based think tank, said he believed Amano has found himself “on the horns of a dilemma” in preparing his report.

“If he publishes classified documents of a member state, in the absence of a smoking gun, he could undermine the agency’s credibility,” Vaez said.

“If he simply lists a few issues of concern without hard evidence, Iran could reject the allegations out of hand and further reduce its cooperation with the agency.”

Sources: US Gives Israel Green Light For Iran Strike | Before It’s News.

(Mainstream sources have described Alex Jones as a right-wing conspiracy theorist.  Given the strangeness of the current situation, I felt my readers should have another analysis. – JW)

Paul Joseph Watson
Fabricated terror plot provides pretext for intervention following Panetta’s October 3 Tel Aviv visit

The Obama administration’s fabricated terror plot blamed on Iran represents the green light for an Israeli attack on Iran set to take place within the next two weeks, according to confidential military sources who spoke with Alex Jones.

Israel is concerned that major powers like Germany are moving closer to smoothing relations with Iran and allowing Iran to continue its nuclear enrichment program unimpeded. A two month window has been allocated during which Israel has the opportunity to launch a military assault, waiting until winter when the attack will be more difficult to pull off is not an option.

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s October 3 Tel Aviv visit was used by Israeli hawks to convince the United States that it should green light the attack. Less than 10 days later, a fanciful terror plot involving a used car salesman was invented to implicate Iran and create the pretext for a military assault.

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“In recent weeks, intense discussions have taken place in Israeli military and intelligence circles about whether or not to launch a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Apparently, the key question in the debate was how to ensure that the United States took part in the attack or, at the very least, intervened on Israel’s side if the initial strike triggered a wider war,” writes Patrick Seale of Gulf News.

That intervention has now been mandated by the announcement of the fabricated terror plot, which was actually concocted last month but only made public now.

While U.S. intelligence officials prepare to release claims about a “chain” of plots that will be blamed on Iran, Time Magazine reports that the Obama administration is preparing to use the accusations to take action beyond mere isolation tactics.

“If the Administration fails to win support for a significant escalation of sanctions or other forms of punishment for the Tehran regime after presenting evidence of the latest allegations of Iranian malfeasance, the ball will land back in Obama’s court,” writes Tony Karon. “Having made the case that Iran has crossed a red line, he will be under growing pressure to act — or risk entering a highly polarized election season haunted by a “soft on Iran” charge.”

With neo-cons rushing to support aggressive measures against Iran, Obama will now be given right cover to pursue yet another act of regime change. As we postulated back in February last year, Obama is being blackmailed into supporting an attack on Iran as the only way to save his presidency. We also speculated that an assassination attempt would be used as the pretext to implicate Iran.

Geopolitical experts have been consistent in their warnings that Israel was preparing to strike Iran this fall.

Back in July, 21-year CIA veteran Robert Baer told KPFK Los Angeles that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was planning an attack on Iran in September to coincide with the Palestine bid for UN membership.

Speaking with the Alex Jones Show today, former State Department official Steve Pieczenik, who has numerous inside intelligence sources having worked in several sensitive positions during the course of his career, also indicated that the terror plot was completely fabricated and that it would be used a pretext to justify a military strike against Iran.

Pieczenik also pointed out that Israel had recently taken delivery of a large amount of bunker buster missiles.

As we have documented, the alleged assassination plot against Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir, which is now being cited by everyone from John Kerry to John McCain as a justification for a potential military strike, is a complete fantasy.

Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer has revealed that an FBI insider with a high security clearance told him no records whatsoever detailing the plot existed within DOJ channels, clearly indicating the whole episode was manufactured.

It has also now emerged that the alleged “mastermind” behind the plot was a drunk pothead who liked to frequent with prostitutes and was described by those who know him as a “joke”.

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show.

Analysis: Iran assassination plot borders on war | Ya Libnan | World News Live from Lebanon.

Ambassador plot spotlights Iran’s strike force.

  Vahid SalemiIn this Sept. 22, 2011 photo, members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard march in front of the mausoleum of the late Iranian revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, just outside Tehran, Iran, during armed an forces parade marking the 31st anniversary of the start of the Iraq-Iran war. Among the many mysteries inside Iran’s ruling hierarchy, the Quds Force, which sits atop the vast military and industrial network of the Revolutionary Guard, has a special place in the shadows. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Iran could try to sabotage Gilad Shalit swap deal, mediator says – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Speaking reporters, top German intelligences officials laud prisoner exchange deal, warning, however, that the situation was still ‘fragile.’

Iran could still try and sabotage a prisoner exchange deal between Israel Hamas that would set Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit free, top German intelligence officials said on Friday, adding that the situation continued to remain “fragile” until Shalit arrives in Israel.

The comments were made by the German mediator to Shalit talks Gerhard Conrad and the head of German intelligence Ernst Uhrlau, who had aided Israel in talks geared at retrieving former IDF officer Elhanan Tannenbaum from Hezbollah captivity in 2004.

	From left: Hamas chief Khaled Meshal, captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
	Photo by: Emil Salman and AP

Speaking to reporters in the Berlin headquarters of German intelligence (Bundesnachrichtendienst, or BND), the officials expressed their satisfaction from the completed deal, and from their contribution to its completion, adding, however that the situations was still “fragile” until the terms of the deal take place on the ground.

The German officials especially stressed their fear of an Iranian move to sabotage the deal’s execution, claiming that Iran, who wields significant influence on Hamas, was not happy about the Israel-Hamas agreement.

In addition, Conrad and Uhrlau emphasized recent tensions with Tehran over the exposure of an alleged Iranian plot to attack the Israeli embassy in Washington, as well as assassinate the Saudi envoy the United States.

The intelligence officials told reporters they had been optimistic as to the chances of striking a deal by the end of last year, saying, however, that talks fell through, a fact which they attributed to turmoil in the Arab world, and especially in Egypt.

It should be noted that Israeli sources estimated that one of the reasons a deal was not achieved six months ago was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s unwillingness to make the required concessions, to which he agreed in the deal signed recently. That refusal also brought on the retirement of Shalit talks envoy Haggai Hadas, who was replaced by David Meidan.

Even though Conrad and Uhrlau did not indicate so directly, the impression they gave was that the Arab Spring and the Egyptian crisis severely damaged German intelligence ties with the old Egyptian regime, especially with the head of Egyptian intelligence, the General Omar Suleiman.

In this context, they half admitted that lines of communication were disrupted, a fact which scaled down their part in Shalit negotiations, leaving the stage for Egypt to supervise the prisoner swap talks.

Conrad, a man in the middle of his 50s, is a veteran intelligence officer, which a rank equivalent to that of a colonel, and represents the Middle East wing of the BND.

However, as far as Shalit negotiations were concerned, he was considered a “freelancer” of sorts, working in behalf of the BND, in order to prevent a direct link between his official role in German intelligence and his job as mediator.

He has been working in the Mideast for the last five years, following 2006’s Second Lebanon War, and mediated talks between Israel and Hezbollah which led to the 2008 swap deal that brought Israel back the bodies of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser.

Conrad was not involved at the time in Shalit talks, while they were run then Israeli envoy Ofer Dekel, but was brought in to those negotiations once Dekel was replaced by former Mossad man Haggai Hadas.

U.S. can win U.N. over Iran with evidence of terror plot against Saudi envoy.

Al Arabiya

Friday, 14 October 2011

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced on Oct. 11 that a plot was foiled involving men allegedly linked to the Iranian government to kill the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. and to bomb the embassies of Saudi Arabia and Israel in Washington. (Photo by Reuters)

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DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report October 14, 2011, 2:17 PM (GMT+02:00)

Cafe Milano – intended assassination scene

The motivation for the foiled Iranian-instigated plot to murder the Saudi ambassador to Washington at his favorite eatery, Café Milano in Georgetown, is revealed by debkafile‘s Iranian sources as a bid by a super-radical faction at the top of the Iranian regime to draw the United States into a limited military clash. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei approved the plot when his son and heir Mojtaba, 42, and the Al Qods Brigades commander Gen. Qassem Soleimanipresented him with their “grand plan.”
US President Barack Obama said Thursday, Oct. 13 that a person charged with plotting to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s US ambassador “had direct links, was paid by” and “directed by individuals in the Iranian government.  He also said he would not take any options off the table in dealing with Tehran.

The American UN ambassador Susan Rice later met with her Iranian counterpart about the plot. The contents of their conversation were not revealed.
debkafile‘s Iranian sources disclose how the “grand plan” was intended to unfold. The first stage was kicked off last week with the flare-up of new Shiite-led riots in Bahrain which Iranian agents helped to expand into the neighboring Qatif oil region of eastern Saudi Arabia.

This week, Revolutionary Guards and Al Qods experts in mayhem organized pilgrims heading for the Umrah, the little pilgrimage, in Mecca starting on Nov. 4, as agents provocateur for stirring up riots among the massed pilgrims. The first batch of 20,000 Iranian pilgrims is already in the shrine cities of Mecca and Medina.

Ambassador Adel Al-Jubeir’s assassination was planned to coincide with riots in the holy cities and disturbances in the oil regions and so cause a breakdown in national security and shake the throne to its foundations.

The Americans would then come running to save the kingdom, Mojtaba (picture on the left) and Soleimani figured, and head straight into a limited armed clash with Iran. This is what the pair was aiming for to further the following objectives:
1. To head off the spread of unrest in Syria into the Iranian Republic. The downtrodden ethnic and religious minorities which make up 60 percent of the population would not venture to rise up against the minority Persian rulers at a time of war for fear of being punished as traitors.

2.  To push the controversial Iranian nuclear program down to the bottom of the international agenda and stop in its tracks the US-led campaign to halt its development.
3.  To win international Muslim acclaim for diverting the military focus of the West away from Syria and saving President Bashar Assad’s regime.

4.  By sacrificing a few of Iran’s warships and planes in a limited clash, Tehran would win support from Russia and China, which are both strongly opposed to Western military intervention in Syria or any other part of the Middle East.

5.  They would produce a Tehran-led anti-American Muslim military line-up to stand up against the pro-American Sunni Muslim military bloc sponsored by the West, which Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan is assembling.

debkafile‘s intelligence sources say there is nothing paradoxical about the super-efficient professional Al-Qods Brigades enlisting a Mexican drug cartel for a hit squad to assassinate Ambassador al-Jubeir. For at least 20 years, Iran’s Lebanese proxy Hizballah has kept itself in funds by drug trafficking, gunrunning and fencing stolen goods and today controls entire networks in Latin America and Africa.
This fact is well known, fully recorded and easily available to anyone interested.

The most competent clandestine organizations often use inept losers like the Iranian-born New York American Mansour Arbabsiar for “dirty operations.” They tend to be a far cry from the high-IQ superspies of film and fiction. In this case, he may have been the best foot soldier available. Al Qods maintains small sleeper cells among the 900,000 Iranian expatriates living in the United States, more than half of them in California and Texas. But its active agents are by and large of the same substandard caliber as Arbabsiar.

There is another possibility: His Al Qods controllers expected the plot to be foiled. They knew Arbabsiar was under FBI surveillance after an unsuccessful attempt to enter the drug market, and watched him walk into a trap when he tried to hire a DEA agent posing as a member of the Mexican drug cartel.

Had the assassination taken place, it would have been treated as an act of war by the United States, Saudi Arabia and Israel. (The Saudi and Israeli embassies were to be bombed at the same time in Buenos Aires.)

Mojtaba and Soleimani did not intend to go that far or provoke a full-blown war. A foiled plot was to be the cue for a limited armed confrontation which was all their “grand plan” required – and that result appears to be building up.

‘Egypt intercepts Libyan surface-to-air mi… JPost – Middle East.

    Egypt security officers said they intercepted surface-to-air missiles smuggled from Libya through the Sinai peninsula, the Washington Post reported, a day after Egypt reportedly flew fighter jets over certain areas of Sinai without requisite permission from Israel.

According to the Washington Post report, an Egyptian source said that Palestinians in Gaza had likely struck a deal over the weapons with contacts in Libya.

Such weapons pose a serious threat to Israel, which regularly patrols the strip with “helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft,” the Washington Post reported. It is the second time in a month that Egyptian security forces announced they had intercepted smuggled weapons in Sinai.

Egyptian security sources said that weapons smuggling through Sinai has boosted the black market there.

Weapons smuggling from Libya has increased since the fall of former Libyan despot Muammar Gaddafi, who held weapons caches throughout the country.

Smugglers have taken advantage of the situation to increase their business, running weapons from Libya through Egypt and into Sinai, destined for the smuggling tunnels between the peninsula and the Gaza Strip.

“Weapons are available in Libya as a result of the unstable situation there, and Hamas has exploited it to buy weapons from Libyan smugglers,” Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon told foreign journalists in July during a briefing, without elaborating on the kind of munitions involved.

According to The Media Line, no one knows exactly what weapons remain in Libya, or where they are stored though Russia reportedly sold Gaddafi an unknown number of its Igla-S, a man-portable infrared homing surface-to-air missile popular with militant groups.

Egypt raised eyebrows on Thursday as reports circulated that the Egyptian Air Force was flying fighter jets over areas of Sinai designated by the peace accords with Israel to require permission from Jerusalem.

“Half of the Sinai Peninsula is our territory, and we do not need authorization to increase our power in the region,” an Egyptian air force officer told MENA, stressing that the overflights were a response to increased terror activity in Sinai since the fall of the Mubarak regime.

Israel agreed to allow Egypt to increase the number of troops it deploys in Sinai after a terror attack was carried out from Egyptian territory.

The US has also put pressure on Egypt to beef up security in what has become regarded as a somewhat lawless territory, where terrorists have also blown up the natural gas pipeline running from Egypt to Israel and Jordan six times just since the ousting of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

Reuters and the Media Line contributed to this report.

Argentina was advised of possible Iran attacks-source | Reuters.

* Saudis told Argentina of Iranian plot four months ago

* Information passed along at U.S. request – source

By Guido Nejamkis

MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina, Oct 13 (Reuters) – Saudi officials advised Argentina four months ago of an alleged Iran-backed plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington and possibly attack the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Buenos Aires, an Argentine diplomatic source said on Thursday.

Argentina is home to Latin America’s largest Jewish population and a 1992 bombing at the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires killed 29 people. Another 85 people died two years later in an attack on the AMIA Jewish community center, which Argentina has accused Iran of helping to plan.

“The Saudis advised us four months ago, at the request of the United States,” the Argentine source told Reuters on condition of anonymity, without providing further details.

U.S. authorities announced on Tuesday that they had thwarted an alleged plot backed by Iran to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s envoy to the United States. Iran called it a fabrication designed to create tensions with its neighbors.

Washington slapped economic sanctions on five Iranians, including four senior members of the Quds Force, the covert arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, for planning possible attacks in the United States and “another country.”

The U.S. ambassador to Argentina, Vilma Martinez, declined to comment on the case when queried by Reuters on Thursday at a business seminar in the coastal city of Mar del Plata.

The Argentine government has made no official statement either, despite U.S. media reports this week that the South American country was the other nation targeted.

President Barack Obama was briefed in June about the alleged plot, soon after U.S. law enforcement agents were tipped off by a paid informant, according to court documents.

Argentina has secured international arrest warrants against former and current Iranian officials it suspects were involved in the attack that leveled the AMIA building in 1994, which Israel has long pinned on Hezbollah guerrillas backed by Iran.

Last month, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez publicly urged Iran to make good on its offer to help investigate the bombing, even though Tehran insists it played no role in the terrorist attack.(Writing by Hilary Burke; editing by Anthony Boadle)