WarSclerotic

Iranian plot included Israeli embassy in Argentina | JTA – Jewish & Israel News.

October 14, 2011

BUENOS AIRES (JTA) — An Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States, thwarted earlier this week, also involved an attack the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Buenos Aires.

American-Iranian Manssor Arbabsiar, arrested Oct. 11in the Saudi ambassador murder plot, was also planning an attack against the embassies of Israel and Saudi Arabia in Buenos Aires, although U.S. officials did not state it specifically, according to reports.

Acting head of the AMIA Jewish Center in Buenos Aires, Ángel Barman, told JTA that “it´s not surprising that Iran is suspected of committing a new attack.”

After hearing the news that FBI broke up a series of terrorist attacks involving Iranian targets in Argentina, AMIA said in a statement that “whoever is unpunished, reoffends.”  The statement refers to the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in which 85 were killed and hundreds injured. Argentina has accused Iran of ordering the bombing, which it says was carried out by the Hezbollah terrorist organization.

“This only shows the impunity with which Iran operates given its current lack of cooperation to clarify the AMIA bombing, a pending task that leaves the possibility of a third attack in Argentina open,” according to the AMIA.

“I’m not surprised by the fact that Iran´s terrorist attack was ready and organized, because they realized that nothing happens, they can kill and do it again.” Barman told Argentinean TV channel C5N.

In a ceremony for the “Argentine Diplomats Day” on Oct. 11,   Foreign Minister, Héctor Timerman highlighted the “openness” of the Argentinean Government toward Iran after Iran announced recently that it would cooperate with Argentina to bring the AMIA bombers to justice.

“I mean the attitude of openness that we chose at the announcement of cooperation from Iran over the AMIA bombing.  … Because the warrants issued by Interpol against of those accused of heinous attack remain firm,” Timerman said hours before Iranian intention of attacking embassies in Argentina was made public.

Sergio Witis, vice-president of DAIA, Argentine Jewry’s primary umbrella organization, said that “this is a matter of concern, because it affects the safety of all Argentineans. It doesn’t surprise us that Iran stands behind this kind of plan,” Witis told  C5N.

The United States reportedly informed the Argentinean government about the Iranian terrorist plan. “Argentina was one of the countries called by the Undersecretary for Political Affairs and Deputy Secretary of State William Burns” to talk about this issue, said a U.S. spokesperson.

At the same time, Clarín Newspaper was told by upper echelon sources that, in parallel, that Charge d’Affaires of the U.S. embassy in Argentina and key man for its diplomatic headquarters, Jefferson Brown, was in Argentina’s Foreign Ministry this week to discuss details of the indictment that the  U.S. Attorney filed against two Iranian citizens.

It was also confirmed through diplomatic sources that Argentina appears in the investigations initiated by the FBI and the DEA, as well as other countries whose names were not revealed. The potential attack on the embassies of Israel and Saudi Arabia in Argentina was mentioned initially by ABC News on Oct. 11, and the following day on the front page of the New York Times.

Contacted by JTA, the spokesperson of Israeli embassy in Argentina would not  comment about the issue. Israel’s embassy in Argentina was attacked on March 17, 1992, leaving 29 civilians dead and 242 additional injured.

Argentina has the largest population of Jews in Latin America.

Obama says U.S. will move to isolate Iran; Khamenei says West spreads ‘Iranophobia’.

Thursday, 13 October 2011

President Barack Obama said the United States would not take any options off the table in dealing with Iran. (Photo by Reuters)

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Evidence links Iran to foiled assassination plot – USATODAY.com.

WASHINGTON – Some of the strongest evidence tying Iran to the alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States is contained in two wire transfers routing the down payment on the proposed killing to a U.S. bank account secretly managed by the FBI, U.S. officials said.

The routing of the payments totaling nearly $100,000 — along with the U.S. suspect’s extensive cooperation with federal agents – is offering investigators important details about the foiled plot and insight into the operations of the elite Quds Force unit of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“The transfer of money was incredibly important,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said in an interview with USA TODAY.

• STORY: U.S. in direct contact with Iran over plot

“It was the first overt act that put this operation in motion,” he said.

Rogers, who has been briefed extensively on the foiled plot, said the wire transfers are “part” of a process that has allegedly linked the operation to Iran and “makes clear” the involvement of the Quds Force.

The money pledged to the project, which U.S. officials estimate to be $5 million (including the proposed $1.5 million for the alleged assassination bombing), legitimized the operation despite critical missteps by Iran’s alleged U.S. operative, Manssor Arbabsiar, Rogers said.

The plot was foiled, according to federal court documents, when Arbabsiar, a Texas used-car salesman, went to Mexico to enlist the assistance of a Mexican drug cartel associate, who was actually working as an informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

“They (the plotters) picked one guy in the Los Zetas crime family who happened to be cooperating” with the U.S. government,” Rogers said.

Following the informant’s recruitment in May, according to court documents, Arbabsiar traveled to Iran where he met with Gholam Shakuri, a Quds Force official, to arrange the down payments. The two $49,960 payments were sent by undisclosed “foreign entities” and routed through a Manhattan bank before arriving in the FBI account.

Rogers declined to elaborate on entities involved in the transfers. But he characterized the payments as part of “a whole series of things to conclude that Iran was behind this.”

President Obama, meanwhile, denounced Iran on Thursday for a “pattern of reckless and dangerous behavior” but stopped short of accusing the Iranian regime’s top leadership of having knowledge of the alleged plot.

In his first public remarks since the Justice Department announced charges against Arbabsiar and Shakuri, Obama called on the international community to continue to tighten pressure on Tehran.

“Even if at the highest levels there was not detailed operational knowledge, there has to be accountability with respect to anybody in the Iranian government engaging in this kind of activity,” Obama said at a news conference with South Korean President Lee Myung Bak, who was visiting Washington.

The criminal complaint released Tuesday accuses the Iranian-born Arbabsiar, 56, of trying to contract a Mexican cartel to carry out the hit at a Washington restaurant. Federal authorities say they have a series of secretly tape-recorded sessions in which Arbabsiar outlined a plan — backed by associates in Iran and elements of the Iranian government — to assassinate the ambassador.

Iran has denied the allegations. Obama stopped short of saying how high up the Iranian government officials who were aware of the plot or suggesting how the administration might respond. But he made clear that he believes the Iranian government should be held accountable.

“For Iran to have been involved in a plot like this indicates the degree to which it has been outside of accepted norms of international behavior for far too long,” Obama said. “This is just one example of a series of steps that they’ve taken to create violence and to behave in a way that you don’t see other countries doing.”

On Thursday, David Cohen, undersecretary of Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, told the Senate Banking Committee that Iran is “facing unprecedented levels of financial and commercial isolation” as fewer international banks are willing to do business with it.

DEBKA.

Netanyahu Hangs Back from Striking Iranian Red Sea Warships

In mid-September, the United States quietly gave Israel a green light for its navy to attack Iranian warships and submarines sailing in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. This is reported exclusively by DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s military sources.
In a secret message, the Obama administration advised Israel to go for an Iranian submarine with one of its Dolphin-class subs rather than striking a surface vessel because then Iran could if it chose keep quiet about losing a sea battle to Israel.
Aware that this action carried the high risk of a retaliatory missile attack by Iran, Obama sought to win Israel over into embarking on this course by approving the handover of 55f bunker-busting GBU-37 bombs which would be ideal for destroying Tehran’s deeply dug-in nuclear facilities and which Israel has for years been asking for.
Washington leaked word of the bombs release to Israel on Sept. 23, the same day that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas applied to the UN for state recognition. He and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu then presented their respective cases to the UN General Assembly.
Focused on those speeches, the media did not ask why Obama chose to arm Israel with smart bombs capable of striking subterranean Iranian sites just hours before the UN session held a critical session on the Palestinian question.
Obama reverses course, favors limited Israeli military action against Iran
Eleven days later, on October 3, the White House signaled its impatience with Israel’s reluctance to go after Iranian warships in the Red Sea. It was relayed by US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta who criticized Israel to correspondents aboard the plane taking him to Israel: “It is not enough to maintain a military edge if you’re (Israel) isolating yourself in the diplomatic arena. Real security can only be achieved by both a strong diplomatic effort as well as a strong effort to project your military strength,” he said.
Although Panetta’s remarks have been interpreted in many ways, most Western and Israeli analysts conclude he was referring to Israel’s rocky relations with Egypt, Turkey and Syria.
But according to DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s sources, the defense secretary was talking chiefly about Israeli shilly-shallying on attacking the Iranian warships proliferating in the Red Sea in recent months.
In his talks with Israeli military and government leaders in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Panetta promised that if Israel suffered Iranian retribution, Washington would step up with all the military aid needed to repel such an attack.
This is a striking reversal of standard administration policy.
For four years, Washington adamantly objected to any direct Israeli military action against Iran’s nuclear installations or any other Iranian target. This line was led by Robert Gates, the defense secretary the Obama administration inherited from President George W. Bush.
The new approach which encourages Israel to go after Iranian naval vessels – though not its nuclear facilities – is down to the new US defense secretary. It is his most important strategic policy decision since taking over at the Pentagon on July 1.
Our sources report that Panetta talked the president round to this fundamental revision of policy by five arguments:
Iran’s naval buildup on the Red Sea is cause for unease
1. The US and the West are compelled by radical regional events to re-center their most vital security and strategic concerns on the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. He enumerated the expanding war in Yemen and Al Qaida’s growing strength there, the bogging down of the Somali crisis and the Shiite ferment in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain.
2. Neither the West nor any Gulf emirate has taken aim at Iran’s meddling hands in these conflicts – even as Iranian arms flow to the rebellious Yemeni Houthis arms and its agents stir up Shiite unrest in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. This inaction has boosted Tehran’s self-confidence to the point of certainty that it can get away with grabbing new ground and subverting victims without hindrance for as long as it likes.
3. Iran’s continuous naval buildup in the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea and the Suez Canal has indeed gone forward unchallenged since February. Its fleet has reached proportions sizeable enough to menace the region’s oil fields and pipelines and counter the Western military presence in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the Red Sea’s southern outlet, the Suez Canal outlet to the Mediterranean and the Strait of Hormuz chokepoint on the world’s main oil export highway out of the Persian Gulf.
4. The 1,400-mile long Red Sea is not only plagued by Somali pirates but is especially sensitive in terms of maritime security as the link between the Mediterranean in the north and the Indian Ocean at the point where the Bab el-Mandeb Straits connect to the Gulf of Aden. The 3.3 million barrels of Persian Gulf oil passing through this strait every day on their way to Suez and Europe float by these days under the watchful eyes of the Iranian navy.
Israel concentrates naval and air strength in the Red Sea
5. On the Red Sea, Israel maintains a fleet of missile corvettes and Dolphin submarines for monitoring the movements of Iranian warships and submarines. They are on standby for orders to sail northwest towards the Suez Canal or on to the Mediterranean if needed. Israel has concentrated a substantial air reconnaissance fleet over these waters to scan them for weapons smugglers plying the Red Sea routes to Egypt and Sinai.
Defense Secretary Panetta explained to Obama that an Israeli strike against Iranian naval forces in the Mediterranean would be just the ticket for redressing America’s strategic imbalance with Iran on that part of the world.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s military sources report that Panetta managed to win the president round to his view. Obama decided to use his arguments as the cue for a fundamental rethink of America’s policy on Iran.
Up until now the United States shunned military action despite Iran’s many provocations, including its hand in attacking and killing American troops in Iraq. Washington also held Israel and Saudi Arabia back from hitting Iran’s nuclear sites and other targets arguing that multinational diplomatic engagement and sanctions were the answer.
Leon Panetta has turned this policy on its head. (See the article opening this issue)
But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are as yet reluctant to take advantage of the new go-ahead from Washington for two reasons:
First, Israel’s hands are tied against any confrontation with Iran before the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is home and safe as a result of the prisoner exchange deal with Hamas brokered by the US and Egypt this week to rescue him from more than five years in captivity.
(Read how the Shalit deal was integral to the US gambit against Iran in a separate article of this issue)
Iran reacts by flaunting its fleet
That is what Netanyahu meant when he asked the ministers convened in Jerusalem Tuesday night, Oct. 11 to endorse the deal because it was “a window of opportunity” for freeing Shalit which might be closed forever by the storms buffeting the region. If that happens, “we may never get to see him alive.”
Behind his words was that knowledge that a fight with Iran while the soldier was still in Hamas’ hands might lead to his captors executing him as an act of retaliation in Iran’s name.
The deal was indeed endorsed by a majority of 26 ministers to three.
Second, although Shalit’s release expected to take place in the middle of next week would free Israeli hands to challenge Iran. Netanyahu and Barak need first to gauge the depth of the Obama administration’s commitment to standing firm against the Islamic Republic before sticking Israel’s neck out.
They are anxious to avoid having Washington pull the rug out from under them in mid-operation. More than once during Obama’s tenure, Israel discovered at a delicate moment of certain covert or military operations, that the administration had used them as a springboard for renewing Washington’s dialogue with Tehran.
Alert to the prospect of an Israeli attack on its Red Sea naval vessels – but also alive to Israel’s uncertainties – DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Iranian sources report that Tehran embarked on two steps:
The Iranian fleet flaunted its presence in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea in open defiance of any plans of attack.
Sunday, Oct. 9, the Iranian 15^th Naval Group returned to port at Bandar Abbas, fleet headquarters of the Revolutionary Guards Navy, after 83 days at sea in the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea.
The group was comprised of Alvand and Bushehr destroyers.
A few hours after the ceremonial welcome for ships returning to home port, the 16^th Naval Group, comprising the Jamaran destroyer and Bandar Abbas frigate, set sail from the same port for the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea.
More Iranian bravado
Iran knows that a two-vessel flotilla is vulnerable and can’t defend itself against attack, even if the submarines heavily concealed nearby join the battle. It has always been Revolutionary Iran’s way to shift its responses and reprisals to arenas where it enjoys a tactical advantage.
In a show of bravado aimed at the United States, Iran’s naval commander Admiral Habibullah Siyari on Sept. 27 announced his ships would soon deploy in the Atlantic Ocean near US territorial waters. They would be armed with long-range Noor cruise missiles so that “just as the US has a military presence near Iran’s naval border, it will have a powerful presence of naval forces near America’s naval border.”
On October 2, an Iranian web site charted the route the Iranian flotilla would follow on its way to America: through the Suez Canal, past the Strait of Gibraltar into the Atlantic Ocean and up to the shores of Cuba and Central and South America.
The site described the mission as feasible although never before have Iranian vessels operated as far as 15,000 kilometers from their borders.

DEBKA.

Adel al Jubei

Ostensibly, there was nothing to connect the two affairs that exploded on the same day, Tuesday, Oct. 11, in Washington, Riyadh, Jerusalem and Cairo: One was tidings of an Egyptian-brokered deal for Israel and Hamas to swap 1,027 Palestinian prisoners for Gilad Shalit; the other, exposure of an Iranian-directed plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington.
But they had this in common: They both opened up two new fronts of action against Iran with key roles for the US, Israel and Egypt.
As Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu pushed the prisoner deal through a full cabinet session in Jerusalem – contentious because it would set free 287 Palestinian multiple killers serving life, US Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI Director Robert Mueller stood up in Washington to publicly accuse New York resident, the Iranian-American Mansour Arbabsiar, 56, of plotting as an undercover agent of the Iranian al Qods Brigades to assassinate Ambassador Adel al Jubei. He was caught handing a US DEA agent posing as a Mexican drugs cartel member a down payment of $100,000 for the job with a pledge from Tehran of another $1.5 million.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanded that Iran be held accountable for “a flagrant violation of international and US law.” And by portraying Iran as an outlaw state that threatens global security, the US laid the groundwork for much more than multilateral sanctions; it provided legitimacy for war action against the Islamic Republic.
Breaking the Shalit impasse was part of a bigger US picture
The prisoner deal with Hamas, stalled for five years, suddenly sailed through as both sides showed exceptional willingness to let go of long-withheld concessions. The deal became possible, DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Washington sources report, because it was part of a bigger picture, namely, President Barack Obama‘s decision to take advantage of the seven-month civil war in Syria for whisking the radical Palestinian Hamas’s political command out of its Damascus haven.
If the prisoner swap goes through next week as expected in Israel, Syria, Iran and Hizballah stand to lose control of their prime lever of influence in the Palestinian camp.
Tuesday night, debkafile broke the story that US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, in his previous post as CIA Director, secretly established contact with Hamas political chief Khaled Meshaal earlier this year, after hearing through intelligence channels that Meshaal and his bureau were anxious to shake the dust of Damascus off their shoes to avoid being drawn into supporting the brutal crackdown pursued by their host and patron, President Bashar Assad, against civilian protesters.
The US official and Hamas leader stayed in touch and finally clinched a deal that was sealed during Panetta’s visits to Israel and Egypt Sept. 3-4
Breaking the Shalit impasse opened a corridor for Washington to advance on four strategic objectives:
Obama’s opening to the Muslim Brotherhood is jumped forward
1. As a subsidiary of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Meshal must seek its approval on matters of importance such as releasing the Israeli soldier confined in the Gaza Strip and establishing ties with the United States where Hamas is listed as a terrorist organization.
Panetta’s secret communications with Meshaal were instrumental in opening the Obama administration’s door to the Brotherhood in Cairo.
2. Because the Supreme Council of Armed Forces was very active in the negotiations for Shalit’s release, mostly through Egyptian intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Murad Mowafi, the process broadened out into a three-way dialogue between the US, Hamas and Egypt’s military rulers, and so helped jump forward Obama’s plan for bringing the Muslim Brotherhood into government in Egypt.
(More about this in a separate article in this issue.)
3. In his quiet exchanges with US officials, Meshaal agreed to downgrade his organization’s ties with Iran in stages adjusted to the rising levels of American support. Reducing the Palestinian group’s dependence on Tehran would open new policy vistas for the Obama administration: Already, for the first time since Iran snatched control of Lebanon in 2010, Washington was able to put a spoke in Tehran’s rolling expansion across the Middle East. And Hamas’ removal from the Syrian orbit would further weaken its ruler, robbing him of his Palestinian instrument for affecting the course of events in the region.
Military teeth for the diplomatic pressure on Tehran and Damascus
4. The understanding forged between Washington, Cairo, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Palestinian Hamas has also diminished the rival Palestinian Fatah and its leader, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. On this new stage, Abbas’ bid for UN recognition of Palestinian statehood within 1967 borders in defiance of US objections looks not just hopeless but irrelevant.
Whereas in Hosni Mubarak’s day, Egypt was virtually his only reliable Arab sponsor, US diplomacy has turned his rival Hamas into Cairo’s reigning Palestinian favorite. To stay afloat, the PA chairman must scramble to line up with the new setup shaped by Washington and Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.
So when he joined Hamas in Cairo Thursday, Oct. 13, for the umpteenth round of talks on reconciliation and power-sharing, he sat on a lower chair than his rival.
To add salt to his wounds, Hillary Clinton remarked Wednesday that turning to the United Nations would not give the Palestinians a state.
Whereas the Shalit deal gave the Obama administration a jumping-off point for its next Middle East gambit, exposure of the foiled Iranian bid to assassinate the Saudi diplomat gave Washington legitimacy for military action to sharpen the edge of the heavy diplomatic pressure the West is already bringing to bear on Tehran and Damascus, DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s sources report.
Although no administration official has said so in plain language, dozens of CIA and FBI officers have pointed out in interviews that had the Iranian-engineered plot succeeded in murdering the Saudi ambassador in a Washington restaurant as planned, the US government would have treated it as an act of war.
In the view of some of those officers, evidence that Mansour Arbabsiar and his accomplice Gholam Shakuri were acting for the Al Qods Brigades, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ external terrorist arm, was in itself tantamount to a declaration of war on the United States.
New Obama policy to back regional military strikes against Iran
Highlighting the war option was not meant to indicate that Washington was about to go to war on Iran. It was rather intended to bring home to Saudi Arabia, the party most injured in this episode, that the time had come to flex its military muscles against Iran and not just talk tough. The Obama administration was also letting Riyadh know that it can count on a US air and naval umbrella as well as all the missile defenses it needs if Saudi Arabia does indeed embark on a military reprisal against the Islamic Republic.
To underline this message, Washington went public on the assassination plot just days after Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef warned rioting Shiites in the oil-rich Qatif province against acting “at the behest of a foreign country” (coded reference to Iran). He threatened to “strike with an iron fist” to preserve the kingdom’s security and stability.
If the iron fist was applicable to the unruly Shiite minority, how much more deserving of punishment was Iran for plotting the murder of a close adviser of King Abdullah himself? This was Obama administration thinking in its bid to egg Saudi Arabia’s royal rulers on to carry out a punitive strike against Iran and thereby generate the circumstances for US and Saudi leaders to bury the hatchet.
The Obama administration’s switch to a policy for promoting military action against Iran by regional powers with US support was also evident in the proposition the US Defense Secretary brought to Jerusalem on Oct. 3 for an Israeli strike against the Iranian naval vessels cruising the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden (as outlined in the next article in this issue).

DEBKA.

Mansour Arbabsiar

Exposure of an Iran-engineered plot to assassinate Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir in Washington has been widely greeted with more perplexity than shock. Although it was discovered and foiled last spring, only Tuesday, Oct. 11 did US Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI Director Robert Mueller see fit to reveal the evidence filed in court that the elite Al Qods Brigades, Iran’s external covert operations arm, had tried to hire a Mexican cartel drug hit-man for the job.
Their revelations though sensational were economical and left the experts and media buzzing with at least five primary questions:

1. Why did the al Qods commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who runs one of the most efficient and disciplined covert agencies in the clandestine world, turn to a Mexican drug cartel for a highly sensitive hit in Washington?
2. The same question applies to his agent, the Iranian-American Mansour Arbabsiar, a failed New York business jack-of-all trades, who was already on the FBI and the DEA’s radar for seeking a way into the drug business. Arbabsiar went about hiring the Mexican killer so ineptly that he was nailed with the incriminating evidence by a DEA plant.
3. Why would Iran, deep in domestic crisis and international isolation, at a time when Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi was working hard to ease high tensions with Saudi Arabia and even the United States and President Mahmoud Ahmadinjejad was trying to reduce areas of hostility with Washington, shoot itself in the foot by manufacturing an unnecessary crisis with both those powers? Iran even went so far as to stop threatening Saudi Arabia over its military intervention on March 14 to save the Bahraini throne.
   If that was Iran’s official policy, would the Al Qods and its commanders have dared defy their masters to carry out a rogue operation? Not likely.

How high up did the plot go in Tehran and who stood to gain?

4. DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s intelligence and counter-terror sources have a question of their own. Why did the attorney general and FBI director throw out the name of Gholam Shakouri as an accomplice in the assassination plot still at large in Iran without identifying him?
   Shakouri, in contrast to Arbabsiar, is none other than the deputy chief of Al Qods Brigades with the rank of general and a mile-long record of high accomplishment in his nefarious trade.
   Our Iranians sources report that Gen. Gholam Shakouri serves as senior operational planner of Al Qods’ overseas attacks. He gained his expertise in Iraq where for five years between 2003 and 2008 he engineered the deaths of scores of American soldiers.
   During one of his tours of duty in Iraq, he was nabbed by Iraqi security forces but minutes before they handed him over to the Americans, he managed to get away and slip across the border into Iran.
   His latest venture, foiled by Saudi Arabia, was to stir up Bahrain’s Shiite community to overthrow the royal house by rioting designed to spread into Saudi Arabia’s Shiite-dominated oil regions.
5. By Thursday, Oct. 13, US officials and intelligence chiefs, having decided the assassination plot against the Saudi ambassador was real and supported by evidence, sought to establish how high up it went in Iran’s ruling hierarchy.
   If top policy-makers in Tehran were involved, they wanted to know what the ayatollahs expected to gain from it.

The plot came directly from the top
So much for the questions; DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Iranian and intelligence sources have some answers.
Saudi Ambassador al-Jubeir was to have been killed at Café Milano, one of his favorite restaurants in Georgetown, on orders from Iran’s top authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Two factions of the Iranian regime have been working to undo the policies led by Ahmadenejad, Ali Akbar Velayati and others to lower tensions with the United States and Saudi Arabia.
One of those factions is the top command of the Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) led by Al Qods chief Gen. Soleimani. The other is led intriguingly by the Supreme Leader’s son and designated successor Mojtaba Khamenei, 42, who runs the leader’s bureau and is in a position to shape his father’s key international policy decisions.
Soleimani and Mojtaba, both of whom enjoy unrestricted access to Khamenei, were able to win his endorsement for the assassination plot.
Our Iranian sources have obtained the details of how the scheme was conceived by the two conspirators to unfold into a grand plan, which in fact was kicked off last week by a fresh flare-up of rioting in Bahrain and Shiite disturbances in the Saudi oil region of Qatif.
The next part was to send many thousands of pilgrims to Mecca for Umrah, the “little pilgrimage,” which starts on Nov. 4. Al Qods officers have already split the pilgrims up into groups for networking with the Shiite pilgrims from various countries and directing them to stage disturbances upon their return home. They will also start riots in Mecca and Medina which was to have been combined with the assassination of the Saudi ambassador in Washington, to cause widespread security turbulence in the kingdom and send shock waves against the royal house in Riyadh.
A military clash with the US would serve six goals
Soleimani and Mojtaba took into account that the threat to the Saudi throne and oil regions, combined with the assassination in Washington of the top Saudi diplomat, would probably have brought the Americans running to save the day by launching a limited military attack on Iran.
The pair sought US military intervention in the belief it would serve six goals:

• It would shift the focus away from the unrest in Syria which they fear will before long spill over into Iran. Mojtaba hopes to ward off this threat before it is time for him to step into his father’s shoes.
• The people need a distraction from their economic hardships, deepening poverty and runaway inflation. Embroiling the country in an armed conflict would take their minds off their misery and also give the regime a good pretext for stamping hard on protest and dissent.
• The IRGC’s leaders have indicated to Mojtaba that an open clash with the United States would provide the pretext for expanding their grip on the country. He would be rewarded with the appointment of Acting Supreme Leader, an act which his father would not be able to contest.
• A limited armed conflict would generate a regional crisis grave enough to make people forget about Iran’s controversial nuclear program.
• It would also add force to the IRGC’s claim that Iran must have a “nuclear defense” against American aggression.
• The threat of an armed clash with America would support the IRGC’s demands for bigger budgets, which have been cut back by reduced oil revenues. To boost their income, the IRGC took over two big power stations and certain profitable enterprises, but are still short.

Low-grade operatives are the standard for assassins
The question about Al Qods, highly expert in terminations and other violence, resorting to a Mexican drugs cartel for a hit-team to assassinate the Saudi ambassador is easily answered.
Iran’s Lebanese surrogate Hizballah, has financed its clandestine operations for at least two decades by drug trafficking, gunrunning and fencing stolen goods. Today, Hizballah controls the most important drug cartels in Latin America and Africa, much as the Taliban subsists on the heroin trade in Afghanistan.
Hizballah’s criminal activities are no secret and are pretty well known. It is only surprising to find how short Western memories are.
As to how the high-flying Al Qods came to employ a bungling loser like Arbabsiar for a high-profile operation, our sources offer two answers: One – the most proficient undercover agencies often use low-grade foot soldiers for dirty operations – unlike the high-IQ superspies of film and fiction. Two – he was the best operative 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 their active agents are by and large of the same standard as Arbabsiar.
Washington and Tehran swap insults and threats
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Iranian sources report that the regime in Tehran is in an uproar over the failed assassination, with accusations hurled back and forth among the rival camps over responsibility for the calamitous episode.
Mojtaba was summoned by his father and asked for an explanation although no such summonses have gone out so far to the two Al Qods commanders, Generals Soleimani and Shakouri.
Ahmadinejad tried to find out what was going on but was told by the IRGC to butt out. Its commanders asked the foreign minister to issue a sharp anti-American statement. Instead of denying the American accusation of an assassination plot, he was to deflect it by accusing Washington of intriguing against the regime.
Wednesday, this is what Salehi had to say: “If they (the Americans) have the power to throw a punch, we have the power to smack them so that they will not be able to stand up.”
The Guards are devising propaganda stunts to show the Americans up as liars and schemers and have sent Gen. Shakouri to Mashhad in northeastern Iran to prepare spectacular attacks on US troops in the Herat province of Afghanistan where Iran maintains a heavy concentration of agents. They may even attempt to snatch an American soldier as hostage for the release of Arbabsiar by the United States.
All in all, the IRGC and especially al Qods, are on the warpath and looking for an excuse to get into a fight with America.
They are not deterred by the escalating rhetoric from Washington where day by day one senior official after another accuses the government in Tehran of direct complicity in the “outrageous” assassination plot.
Thursday, President Barak Obama said 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.”
“This is part of a pattern of dangerous and reckless behavior by the Iranian government,” he said.