WarSclerotic

Iranian Diplomats Cased Landmarks, Police Official Says – Bloomberg.

Iranian diplomats may have carried out “hostile reconnaissance” of New York City as many as six times, a warning sign the city could be targeted for terrorist attack, according to a New York Police Department official.

The incidents, which occurred between 2002 and 2010, involved videotaping or photographing New York landmarks, subways and bridges, said Mitchell Silber, director of the department’s intelligence analysis unit.

Hezbollah, a militant group allied with Iran that has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, also has ties to the New York region, he said.

“The city remains the most likely venue for global tensions with Iran to spill over onto American soil,” Silber told the House Homeland Security Committee in testimony prepared for a hearing in Washington today on the threat from Iran and Hezbollah.

Silber gave new details on the alleged Iranian reconnaissance efforts as tensions increase over the Islamic republic’s unwillingness to scale back its nuclear program in the face of opposition from the U.S. and Israel.

Last month, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said she was concerned that Hezbollah would attempt a terrorist attack on American soil and that she had been in touch with U.S. Jewish groups. Napolitano said she wasn’t aware of any specific threats to the groups or other U.S. targets.

Surveillance Criticized

The New York police themselves have come under criticism for conducting surveillance of Muslim communities. The New York- based Human Rights Watch yesterday requested in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder that the Justice Department formally investigate the city department’s actions.

The U.S. and Europe have piled additional economic sanctions on Iran since a Nov. 8 United Nations atomic inspectors’ report raised questions about Iran’s nuclear program. The sanctions are meant to pressure Iran’s leaders to abandon any weapons-related work and head off conflict in the Persian Gulf region that holds more than half the world’s oil reserves.

The Iranian surveillance has been going on for some time, Silber said. In February 2010, federal air marshals found four people who said they worked for the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting Co. videotaping and photographing the Wall Street heliport, he said. One person held a camera at waist level, focusing on the structure and not the helicopters in the air, he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jeff Bliss in Washington at jbliss@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Steven Komarow at skomarow1@bloomberg.net

This entry was posted on March 21, 2012 at 4:34 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.