WarSclerotic

Iran: Et Tu Duqu? | Iran | Intelligence | Secrets | Foreign Matters | Sky News Blogs.

The undercover war between Iran and several countries has been going on for decades. It appears to be intensifying.

There are many explanations for why there was an explosion which killed 17 people at a military base near Tehran at the weekend. The base houses missiles, including probably the Shahab 3, which can reach Israel.

The blast may have been caused by munitions exploding whilst being moved. Perhaps the liquid fuel used by the Shahab caught fire. Maybe a test launch went wrong. Or maybe the Israeli’s blew it up.

Maybe, maybe not. Maybe it was the Americans.

Whatever caused the explosion, it killed a Brigadier General in the Revolutionary Guard who was closely involved in Iran’s alleged attempt to aquire nuclear weapons.

There’s no proof of sabotage, but if it was, it fits into a long pattern of covert warfare.

Last year four Iranian nuclear scientists were killed or injured in what looked like professional assassination attempts. In one, two men on a motorcycle drew up along side a car carrying a scientist. A bomb was stuck to the driver’s car window at head height. Fereidoun Abbasi-Davani died as the motorcycle sped off through the Tehran traffic.

2010 also saw the worlds most famous computer attack. The Stuxnet virus wormed its way into the Natanz enrichment plant causing centrifuges to crash and delaying Iran’s attempts to stockpile enriched uranium.

Last month another virus appeared. The Duqu ‘cyber weapon’ was said to be trying to gather information from the Iranian nuclear sites in order to allow a future cyber attack similar to Stuxnet.

The Iranians admitted they had been targeted. What has not been acknowledged, nor proven, are the rumours that Israeli and British intelligence have been involved in ensuring that parts supplied to the Iran nuclear industry were faulty and designed to cause damage.

Last week saw another mysterious incident. Mohsen Rezai is a senior Iranian politician and possible contender for the Presidency. Rezai’s son, Ahmed, was found dead in a hotel room in Dubai. Local reporting mentioned a slit wrist and suicide, the Iranians said he died of an electric shock. Suicide is plausible and the son was not known to be an integral part of Iran’s nuclear drive.

Murder is also a possibility. The father is wanted by Interpol in connection with the bombing of a Jewish cultural centre in Argentina in 1994 which killed 85 people.

The Argentinian incident brings us to the fact that it’s not all one way traffic. Tehran denies any involvement but the attack in Argentina resulted in Interpol issuing Red Notices for 6 Iranians.

Iran has a long reach. It can activate cells all over the world, has strong connections in Gaza, and a proxy army in Lebanon in the shape of Hizbollah.

The Americans suffered hundreds of losses in Lebanon in the 1980’s and the hand of Iran was seen in almost all of them.

More recently the Americans alleged that the Iranian concocted a wild plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador in Washington DC. This week the Bahrain government says it has uncovered an Iranian led plan to murder some of its politicians. Iran says both claims are false.

This is an ongoing war of secrets and spies, secrets and lies. We won’t know all the secrets, and we won’t always know which are the lies. What is clear is that it is happening.

This entry was posted on November 15, 2011 at 1:53 PM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.