WarSclerotic

‘CIA, MI6 operations helped kill … JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.

    Iran protested the United States and United Kingdom for their roles in the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan Wednesday, implicating the two nations in the attack, the official Iranian Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported Saturday.

Iran sent a letter to the Swiss embassy in Tehran – the only official diplomatic channel between Iran and the United States in Tehran – saying that CIA-led operations in the Islamic Republic are known, and blaming the US for supporting “terrorist groups against Iran.”

Tehran also sent a letter to the British Foreign Ministry, claiming British intelligence operations aided in the killing of the 32-year-old Roshan in a car bomb.

The letter cited a quote by Foreign Intelligence Service Head (MI6) John Sawers, who said that the UK was beginning intelligence operations against Iran, according to IRNA.

Iran demanded a response from both governments.

The Islamic Republic has blamed the violent death of Roshan on the CIA, Israel and now MI6. US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton summarily denied the charges and Israeli President Shimon Peres said that Israel had no role in the attack, to the best of his knowledge.

Roshan is the fourth Iranian scientist to be killed since 2007.

IDF Chief of General Staff Benny Gantz said Tuesday that 2012 would be a critical year regarding Iran and that there may be more “unnatural” events that happen to them.

“2012 will be a critical year in the connection between Iran gaining nuclear power, changes in leadership, continuing pressure from the international community and events that happen unnaturally,” he said.

Iranian ships taunt US Navy vessels in Persian Gulf | Herald Sun.

Iranian navy speed boats attend a drill in the sea of Oman. AP

The incidents in the strait, one of the world’s most important oil routes, occurred in early January and involved the USS New Orleans, an amphibious transport dock, and the Coast Guard Cutter Adak, the military said as it released videos of the incident.

Iranian speed boats are seen in one of the videos approaching the USS New Orleans within about 500 yards last Friday.

“The Iranian boats did not respond to whistle signal or voice queries from the New Orleans, disregarding standard maritime protocols,” Central Command said.

In the incident involving the Adak, “communications were established with a larger Iranian ship operating in the area and the speed boats ceased their harassment”.

One senior defense official told FOX News that the Iranians “intended to be harassing” but it did not go much beyond that. No shots were fired.

Iran, which recently held war games in the area, has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz if provoked, and it has warned US Navy ships to steer clear.

The rising tensions coincide with increased pressure on Iran over its nuclear program, which the West fears is merely a front for Iran’s clandestine work on developing nuclear weapons

Israel uses risky ‘hits’ in deadly shadow war with Iran – Politics & Economics – ArabianBusiness.com.

Israel’s secret service Mossad has denied killing Iranian scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan

If Mossad assassins were behind the killing of an Iranian nuclear scientist on Wednesday, it would be the latest chapter in a long history of Israeli covert action against foes best not confronted with full force.

As always, Israeli officials declined any comment on the death of Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, who was blown up in his car, while Iran itself immediately pinned the blame on Israel.

Cold-eyed calculus guides what Israeli officials call “precision thwarting”, a euphemism that strives to focus blame on those marked for death while conveying reluctance to escalate the shadow war.

Critics condemn all such attacks on moral grounds, and also question the long-term efficiency of targeted killings, but Israeli officials believe they play a vital role in defending the state.

When it comes to Iran, whose uranium enrichment and ballistic missile projects have suffered a surge of spectacular and often bloody mishaps in recent months, Israel measures the gains in terms of the delays they cause.

“They are not keeping to the schedules they would like to keep to,” former Mossad spymaster Meir Dagan said in a recent television interview, crediting the apparent sabotage spree to “God, who controls everything”.

The daylight killings of atomic technicians such as Ahmadi-Roshan – who, like others before him, fell victim to an explosive device attached to his car by a passing motorcyclist – obviously deplete Iran’s pool of nuclear experts.

It also provokes panic in surviving colleagues, said an Israel official, generating a phenomenon that Mossad veterans dub “virtual defection”.

“It’s not that we’ve been seeing mass resignations, but rather a sense of spreading paranoia given the degree to which their security has been compromised,” said the official, who has extensive Iran expertise.

“It means they have to take more precautions, including, perhaps, being a little less keen to stand out for excellence in their nuclear work. That slows things down.”

The activation this week of an Iranian enrichment plant deep in a mountain drew condemnation from world powers which, along with many Gulf Arabs, see bomb-making potential in a nuclear programme that Tehran insists is for peaceful energy needs.

Ahmadi-Roshan was at least the third expert linked to Iran’s nuclear programme to be killed in the last two years.

Happy to deflect the blame, Israeli officials say many people have an interest in sabotaging Iranian operations.

“I think several players, not only Israel, are active [in Iran],” former Mossad deputy director Ilan Mizrahi said. “It’s not only countries, it is movements. You have the Iranian opposition, which is very strong. They have their own capabilities inside Iran.”

Yet Israel has an admitted history of state-sponsored assassination and intimidation, from letter-bombs it sent German scientists serving Egypt’s missile programme in the 1960s to the Mossad hunt, using guns and booby-traps, for Palestinians involved in killing 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics.

More recently, Israeli air-launched missiles and special forces picked off Palestinian uprising leaders. In 1995, motorbike-borne gunmen killed Islamic Jihad chief Fathi Shiqaqi in Malta, and another suspected Mossad team smothered Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in his Dubai hotel in 2010.

Proponents of such tactics say they stave off more ruinous open war and few voices are raised in Israel in condemnation. Mabhouh had helped smuggle rockets to Palestinians, a threat Israel cited in justifying its 2008-2009 offensive on the Gaza Strip, amid international outcry at the high civilian toll.

“When you are fighting terror, targeting the heads of terror organisations is positive,” Mizrahi said, justifying killings.

Against Iran’s nuclear programme, Israel – like the United States – has hinted it could resort to military force.

But neither is keen to further destabilise the region by opening a new Muslim front, and military experts say Israel alone does not have the firepower to kill off Iran’s nuclear programme in a single swoop.

Assassinations carry their own incalculable risks, as the Mossad learned in 1997 when the men it sent to poison Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Amman bungled the job and were caught.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, then in his first term, had ordered the hit under pressure to retaliate for Hamas suicide bombings. He ended up having to repair ties with Jordan by freeing Hamas’s spiritual mentor, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, from prison- an unexpected boon for Palestinian radicals.

Despite widespread speculation, Iran denied Israeli sabotage was to blame for a blast last November that killed a Revolutionary Guards general. On Wednesday it was swift not only to blame Israel, but also to publish the sensitive nature of the victim’s work at the uranium enrichment facility of Natanz.

“The Iranians are exposing this in order, ultimately, to provide a large degree of rationale and justification, both domestically and abroad, for what they will eventually consider as a reprisal,” said Uzi Rabi, a Middle East expert at Tel Aviv University.

He predicted an “unavoidable showdown”, most likely in the Gulf, where Iran has threatened to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz, with a possible spillover in the form of Israeli and Western air strikes on Iran.

Thai Police Probe Hezbollah Plot – WSJ.com.

BANGKOK—The U.S. Embassy in Thailand warned of possible terrorist attacks in Bangkok and Israel issued a travel warning, amid growing tensions with Iran following the assassination of a nuclear scientist in Tehran.

Police in Bangkok were questioning a Lebanese man with alleged links to Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah on Friday after the U.S. warning was issued.

Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yubamrung said Thai authorities had received a tipoff about a terrorist plot to stage an attack in the Thai capital, one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations.

“At first we were told the Palestinians were behind it, but it turned out to be Hezbollah,” Mr. Chalerm told the Associated Press.

The U.S. Embassy sent an emergency message to U.S. citizens earlier in the day warning of a possible terrorist attack and advising people to stay away from crowded tourist areas, but offered few other details.

Israel cited the arrest by the Thai authorities of an alleged Hezbollah agent in warning Israelis to avoid visiting Bangkok and to stay away from establishments known to be favored by Israeli tourists.

Iran accused Israel and the U.S. of a terror campaign to derail its nuclear program after scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a procurement official at a uranium enrichment facility, was killed by a bomb attached to his car on Wednesday morning. The attack was similar to other assassinations of scientists working on Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday vowed that the perpetrators would be punished.

The U.S. denied involvement in the killing of Mr. Roshan and condemned the attack. Israeli officials have declined to comment, and many security experts and diplomats have said it is likely that Israel was behind the incident as part of its covert campaign to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Asia-based security officials warn that the rising tensions in the Middle East could result in attacks on U.S. or Western targets around the world.

Thai Defense Minister Yuthasak Sasiprapa told reporters that initial intelligence suggested that an attack could occur in Thailand between Friday and Sunday.

He said Thai authorities had kept the alleged plot under wraps in order to avoid damaging the country’s multimillion-dollar tourist industry, but said intelligence reports suggested the plans to attack might have been related to the worsening relations between the U.S. and Iran.

Neither Mr. Chalerm nor Mr. Yuthasak provided any further information on how far the alleged plot had progressed or possible targets.

Mr. Chalerm said Thai police had followed two Lebanese men. One of them was detained for questioning, while the other appeared to have left the country after the U.S. issued its warning.

Mr. Chalerm told the AP that the danger had passed.

“I want to confirm and I am confident that we have the situation under control. And I can guarantee…no terrorist attacks will be allowed to take place. If they have disagreement, go fight somewhere else,” the deputy prime minister said.

—Joshua Mitnick in Tel Aviv contributed to this article.

‘Saudis have enough oil to make up for Ira… JPost – Middle East.

    Saudi Arabia says it has enough oil output capacity to meet global customers’ needs if new sanctions keep Iran from exporting oil, a top US Republican lawmaker said on Friday.

House of Representatives Majority Leader Eric Cantor spoke to Reuters by telephone from Europe after several days of meetings in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia. Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi was among the officials he met.
“The Saudi government indicated that it was ready and able to meet needs of its customers,” Cantor told Reuters. Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest oil exporter. Its top customers include the United States, Japan, China and South Korea.

Cantor was addressing concerns that oil shortages may arise from new sanctions in the offing against Iran by the United States and European Union, aimed at discouraging Tehran’s nuclear program.

The United States has long embargoed Iranian crude, but has just approved new sanctions targeting Iran’s Central Bank, the main conduit for its oil revenues. The European Union, which collectively buys about 500,000 bpd of Iranian oil, is expected to soon impose an embargo halting imports.

The goal of the West’s increased pressure on Tehran is to stop the Islamic republic from building a nuclear weapon. Iran says its nuclear work is for peaceful purposes.

Cantor is the number two Republican in the Republican-majority House of Representatives, after Speaker John Boehner.

During his tour of the Gulf region with several other US lawmakers, Cantor also met officials from Turkey, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

“They also expressed the ability to have excess capacity coming on line later this year, as well as the capacity it has online now,” Cantor said of oil producer UAE.

“I think the consensus is that there is enough capacity in the region to meet the needs of customers, excluding the exports of Iran,” he said.

Further sanctions in the works

Cantor said he would push for the speedy implementation of the new US sanctions on Iran’s central bank, and he favored Congress passing further measures to penalize Tehran if it does not stop its nuclear program.

“We don’t have time” to delay, he said.

The measures Obama signed into law on New Year’s Eve would allow the president to sanction foreign banks that do business with Iran’s central bank. But they do not kick in for several months, and give Obama wide latitude to pull his punches and avoid imposing penalties.

As soon as the central bank sanctions passed Congress in December, the US House of Representatives passed another piece of legislation that would close some loopholes in existing sanctions and further choke off trade with Tehran.

The House bill included a provision that would deny entry to the United States of any ship that has recently visited a port in Iran, North Korea or Syria.

Similar legislation has been introduced in the Senate. A bipartisan sanctions bill could be considered in committee soon after senators return to work from a winter recess later this month, a Senate aide said on Friday.

Some officials in the Middle East shared his sense of urgency about the need to stop Iran from getting the capacity to build nuclear weapons, Cantor said. “I think that the consensus is, no one wants Iran to be a nuclear power,” Cantor said.

However, some officials in the region “believe you can’t stop Iran from doing it, because the regime has nothing to lose,” Cantor said.

“What that tells me is everything has got to be on the table,” said Cantor, a hawk on defense issues, using language that implies the willingness to use military force as an option to deny Iran the means of developing an atomic bomb. The Obama administration has said there are no options “off” the table.

‘Iran arming Assad to suppress protests’ – JPost – Middle East.

    A recent visit of the heads of the Quds force to Syria is the “strongest indication yet” that Iran is supplying the Assad regime with weapons, AFP quoted a senior US official as saying Saturday.

Major-General Qasem Soleimani, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds force, visited Syria this month, AFP reported. “We think this relates to Iranian support for the Syrian government’s attempts to suppress its people,” the senior US official said.

“We are confident that he was received at the highest levels of the Syrian government, including by President Assad,” the official said on condition of anonymity. “The US government believes Iran has supplied Syria with munitions” for use in the military crackdown.

The United States has long suspected Iran of supplying Damascus with weapons as Assad struggles to cope with mass protests against his rule.

Earlier in the week, Turkish customs officials intercepted four trucks suspected of carrying military equipment from Iran to Syria.

Iran officially denied reports about arms shipments to Syria. A statement by the Iranian embassy in Turkey obtained by CNN Friday stated: “We deny such claims and we would like to state that the Islamic Republic of Iran sees people’s demands to be paid attention to as a way of providing domestic security and stability and believes that dialogue between the Syrian government and the opposition is the way out from the current situation.”

The United Nations has said that more than 5,000 civilians have been killed in the unrest which erupted in March, inspired by Arab revolts elsewhere. Authorities accuse armed Islamist militants of killing 2,000 members of the security forces.

The crackdown against protest has been ongoing despite an Arab League monitoring mission, now about 165 strong, which began work on December 26. Its task is to verify if Syria is complying with an agreement to halt the crackdown. Some reports indicate that the killing of protesters has actually increased since the arrival of the League monitors.

‘US prepping Mideast facilities … JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

    The United States has begun taking measures to plan for an Israeli strike on Iran in order to protect US facilities in the region, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

The contingency planning came as a result of concern within the US defense establishment that Israel is planning to attack Iran over the Islamic Republic’s reported nuclear armament program, according to the newspaper.

US President Barack Obama, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, and other senior US officials have reportedly delivered messages through private channels to the Israeli government warning them about the dangerous repercussions of a military strike on Iran.

Washington is concerned that Iraqi Shi’ite militias may attack the US embassy in Baghdad at Iran’s behest. Some 15,000 US diplomats, federal employees and contractors will likely remain in Iraq, the newspaper reported.

Tensions between the Jewish state and the Islamic republic spiked above normal this past week when an Iranian nuclear scientist was blown up in his car in Tehran in an attack that Iranian officials blamed on Israel.

President Shimon Peres, speaking a number of days following the bombing, said that the attack was not carried out by Israel, to the best of his knowledge.

US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had a phone conversation Thursday, discussing “recent Iran-related developments.”

The following day, Netanyahu was quoted by The Australian as saying that new US sanctions on Iran were starting to bite.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 14, 2012, 10:36 AM (GMT+02:00)

Nuclear scientist’s bombed car in Tehran

The bombing attack in Tehran which killed Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan last Wednesday, Jan. 11, generated an angry phone call from US President Barack Obama to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the next day, debkafile‘s Washington and intelligence sources report.  Washington is increasingly concerned, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday, that Israel is preparing to strike Iran’s nuclear sites over US objections and has bolstered the defenses of US facilities in the region in case of a conflict.

Obama, Defense and Secretary Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have been sending private messages to their Israel contacts warning them about the dire consequences of a strike, the paper reports. Top US armed forces chief Gen. Martin Dempsey will visit Israel next week.
debkafile‘s exclusive sources report that the differences between the US and Israel surfaced before the tough Obama-Netanyahu conversation last Thursday. Political, military and intelligence officials privately voiced resentment over the strong and unusual condemnation the White House and Secretary Clinton issued over the death of the Iranian nuclear scientist.

By denying “absolutely” any US involvement in the killing, the administration implicitly pointed the finger at Israel – an unusual act in relations between two friendly governments, especially when both face a common issue as sensitive as a nuclear-armed Iran.
Obama seemed to suspect that Israel staged the killing to torpedo yet another US secret effort to avoid a military confrontation with Iran through back channel contacts with Tehran, while the administration’s extreme condemnation is seen as tying in with its all-out campaign to hold Israel back from a unilateral strike.

As part of this campaign, the Foreign Policy publication ran an “investigative report” Friday, Jan. 13, the point of which was to show that US and Israeli undercover agencies have been at odds for years after what was called a Mossad “false flag” operation. “Two US intelligence officers” are said to have revealed to the publication that in 2007 and 2008, Israeli Mossad officers posing as US intelligence agents with American passports recruited terrorist group Jundallah operatives for covert attacks in Iran.

This Pakistan-based Baluchi extremist group was described as utterly shunned by the CIA.
The weekly’s sources said they were “stunned by the brazenness of Mossad’s recruiting activities…under the nose of US intelligence officers, most notably in London.”

They implied that Jundallah were sure they had been recruited by US intelligence. But so was Tehran. The Israeli “false flag” program was therefore accused of putting American agents at risk.

A “serving US intelligence officer” told the paper that President George W. Bush when informed of this episode “went absolutely ballistic.”

debkafile adds: At the time of this alleged operation, Ehud Olmert was prime minister of Israel and Meir Dagan director of the Mossad. While the Bush administration is not known to have ever taken it up with Israel, Barack Obama decided to cool US intelligence cooperation with Israel on the Iranian issue when he took office in 2009.

Foreign Policy in its tendentious and selective report presents Mossad as the sole recruiter of Jundallah for sabotage and hit operations for defeating Iran’s drive for a nuclear bomb. It omits the slightest mention of the fact that US intelligence started using Jundallah for such operations from early 2005 with ample US-dollar funding approved personally by President Bush.
Our Washington and intelligence sources note that the report appeared two days after the Iranian nuclear scientist was killed and the day after Obama took Netanyahu to task. It had two objective: to show that US is not responsible for all the covert operations of recent months against Iran’s nuclear targets and, secondly, to demonstrate that Washington means to continue harassing and pressuring Israel by every means to hold it back from a military operation against Iran.

Iran To Host UN Nuclear Inspectors Amid Tensions Over Strait Of Hormuz Threat | Fox News.

‘Iran supplying Assad with arms for crackd… JPost – Middle East.

    A recent visit of the heads of the Quds force to Syria is the “strongest indication yet” that Iran is supplying the Assad regime with weapons, AFP quoted a senior US official as saying Saturday.

Major-General Qasem Soleimani, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds force, visited Syria this month, AFP reported. “We think this relates to Iranian support for the Syrian government’s attempts to suppress its people,” the senior US official said.

“We are confident that he was received at the highest levels of the Syrian government, including by President Assad,” the official said on condition of anonymity. “The US government believes Iran has supplied Syria with munitions” for use in the military crackdown.

The United States has long suspected Iran of supplying Damascus with weapons as Assad struggles to cope with mass protests against his rule.

Earlier in the week, Turkish customs officials intercepted four trucks suspected of carrying military equipment from Iran to Syria.

Iran officially denied reports about arms shipments to Syria. A statement by the Iranian embassy in Turkey obtained by CNN Friday stated: “We deny such claims and we would like to state that the Islamic Republic of Iran sees people’s demands to be paid attention to as a way of providing domestic security and stability and believes that dialogue between the Syrian government and the opposition is the way out from the current situation.”

The United Nations has said that more than 5,000 civilians have been killed in the unrest which erupted in March, inspired by Arab revolts elsewhere. Authorities accuse armed Islamist militants of killing 2,000 members of the security forces.

The crackdown against protest has been ongoing despite an Arab League monitoring mission, now about 165 strong, which began work on December 26. Its task is to verify if Syria is complying with an agreement to halt the crackdown. Some reports indicate that the killing of protesters has actually increased since the arrival of the League monitors.