The Iranian Regime Efforts to Buy Nuclear Bombs

The Washington Post /

The father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program has written an official account that details an Iranian attempt to buy atomic bombs from Pakistan at the end of the 1980s. Bombmaker Abdul Qadeer Khan states in documents obtained by The Washington Post that in lieu of weapons, Pakistan gave Iran bomb-related drawings, parts for centrifuges to purify uranium and a secret worldwide list of suppliers. Iran's centrifuges, which are viewed as building blocks for a nuclear arsenal, are largely based on models and designs obtained from Pakistan. Khan's narrative calls into question Iran's long-standing stance that it has not sought nuclear arms. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last month that "we won't do that because we don't believe in having them." The account also conflicts with the Pakistani government's assertion that Khan proliferated nuclear know-how without government approval. Pakistan has never disclosed Khan's written account. A summary of interrogations of Khan and four others in 2004, conducted by Pakistan's intelligence service and later provided to U.S. and allied intelligence officials, omitted mention of the attempt to buy a nuclear bomb. But Pakistan's former top military official in 2006 publicly hinted at it.

In interviews, two military officers whom Khan links to the bargaining with Iran denied that finished nuclear weapons were ever on the table. Spokesmen for Iran's mission to the United Nations and the Pakistani Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests to comment. However, a top Pakistani government official at the time said Ali Shamkhani, the senior Iranian military officer named by Khan, came to Islamabad, Pakistan, seeking help on nuclear weapons. The former official also said Khan, acting with the knowledge of other top officials, then accelerated a secret stream of aid. The U.S. ambassador to Pakistan at the time, Robert Oakley, separately said in an interview that he thinks Pakistan's top military officer urged and approved Khan's bomb-related assistance to Iran. Khan is a controversial figure, and he has complained bitterly about long-standing restrictions on his movements by Pakistan's government, which says it seeks to ensure he does not restart his nuclear dealings. Several U.S. experts have noted that as a result, Khan is eager to depict others as more culpable than he was in those dealings. Most observers now think Khan's work for Iran was directed by "senior elements of Pakistan's military, if not by its political leaders," said Leonard S. Spector, director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. "Khan is clearly out to vindicate his reputation, but the issues remain murky enough that you can't be certain when he is telling the truth and when he is embellishing." (Read more...)

Human Rights Abuses in Iran are Severe

Rooz Online English /

Joe Stork is deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa division. Before joining Human Rights Watch in 1996, Mr. Stork co-founded the Middle East Research & Information Project (MERIP) and served as chief editor of Middle East Report. Rooz had talked with Joe Stork about the current situation of human rights in Iran.

Fariba Amini (Amini): Having been in this position for a number of years, how do you assess the current human rights situation in Iran?

Joe Stork (Stork): I think the situation is terrible. Looking back, the state of human rights in Iran has been a problem for many years, a real crisis, even dating back to the Shah’s time. But I think the situation today is particularly bad because we are seeing the level of confrontation between the state, the government, and the very large sectors of population; it is quite severe. So I would say the scale of arbitrary arrests, though not unprecedented, is certainly bad. I don’t think we have seen certain phenomenon, such as show trials and so forth, stand out. They are similar to the 1980s when show trials were pretty common in the Islamic republic. The fact that we are seeing it again is very worrying.

Amini: Why do you think the regime is using such violent tactics? It seems to me the tactics are similar those used in the early days of the Islamic Republic. Then there were systematic mass executions and now the torture and killings seem somewhat random.

Stork: Well we can’t and should not compare the two periods. If you look at the different periods, (and I have worked for HR Watch since 1996, more or less coinciding with Mohammad Khatami's presidency) the situation today is very serious, the worst it has been. There have not been mass executions; there have been a number of unexplained deaths of demonstrators in the streets, as well as people who have been in custody and unaccounted for. We are probably talking about several dozen in total, as compared to hundreds in the 1980s, so I am not sure whether it is correct to make the comparison. In terms of killings, yes, it was a lot of worse, but that is no comfort today when you have this severe oppression going on and you have people challenging the regime, unlike 20 years ago. Iranians are challenging the abuses on a massive scale. (Read more...)

The Iranian Regime's Efforts Keep Region Tense

The Jerusalem Post /

Despite Iranian influence and pressure on Assad, current assessments in Israel are that both Hizbullah and Syria are deterred from war, each for its own reasons. March 8 was a day of celebrations in Syria, marking the anniversary of the coup d’etat that brought the Ba’ath Party to power in 1963. President Bashar Assad received a number of congratulatory cables from Arab and Muslim leaders from across the Middle East. King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, the leader of Bahrain, for example, wished Assad “good health” and that the Syrian people should continue to progress under Assad’s “wise leadership.” The cable from Bahrain was especially interesting in light of tense ties the tiny Gulf state has with the Iranian-led axis in the region, of whichSyria is a prominent member – a fact demonstrated by the recent terror summit in Damascus consisting of Assad, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hizbullah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah. Bahrain, home to the United States Navy’s 5th Fleet, is a country made up of two-thirds Shi’ites and ruled by Sunnis, and has been marked as one of the first countries that could fall with the right amount of Iranian pressure. Israel, of course, did not send a cable to Syria on Monday, although it has been sending some clear messages to its northern neighbor in recent weeks in an effort to avoid a conflict that the defense establishment believes neither country really wants, but into which they could be lured by Iran.

While the IDF has taken action – for example, refraining from drafting reserves during a recent exercise in the North – and the political establishment has made the right remarks – Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said last week that he would be willing to meet Assad “any time and any place” – the tension along the border has yet to be totally defused. The main reason is Iranian efforts to escalate the situation among Israel, Syria and Hizbullah in an effort to thwart additional sanctions by the international community. If war were to erupt in the North, for example, a new round of sanctions would be postponed indefinitely. For this reason, Israel carefully scrutinized every public statement made by Nasrallah, Assad and Ahmadinejad two weeks ago during their meeting in Damascus, on the sidelines of whichSyria and Iran signed a number of new defense pacts. While the agreements do not bind Syria to defend Iran if it is attacked by Israel or the United States, the continued alliance between the countries is of major concern for the Israeli defense establishment, primarily considering that at the same time that Assad sat down for dinner with Ahmadinejad, the Obama administration announced that it had decided to return its ambassador to Damascus. This seemingly allows Assad to continue being part of the Iranian axis on the one hand, and to improve ties with the West on the other. (Read more...)

Implications of the Economic Sanctions on Iran

IranPressNews.com /

The international sanctions are affecting various sectors of the Iranian economy, and as time goes by, the serious implications are evident. This is mainly because of the sharp drop in oil prices that will probably result in a loss of 50 billion dollars in oil revenues in the current fiscal Iranian year (March 2009-March 2010) over the previous year.With regard to foreign trade, the sanctions have caused difficulties in Iran’s financial activities vis-a-vis Europe and some of the banks in Asia and the Gulf region. Many European banks have severed their financial ties with Iranian banks, and Chinese and Gulf banks have reduced (under heavy western pressure) the scope of financial activity opposite Iran. In addition, Iran’s banks are having difficulties carrying out financial activity in USD and even opposite Europe; they are finding it hard to carry out financial activity in Euro, especially with regard to issuing letters of credit, which are a condition for any internationally mediated transaction. Moreover, the banking system in Iran is experiencing significant financial difficulties and requires 10-I5billion USD in government aid due to the destructive combination of sanctions on the one hand and Iran’s failing economic policy on the other.

There is a decrease in foreign investments in the field of energy in Iran. A number of large European energy corporations decided to freeze their investments in new projects in Iran. Among the companies are Shell, Stat oil, Hydro, ENI and Repsol which decided to refrain from making new investments in the Iranian energy sector.For the time being they are maintaining "symbolic" ties with Iran - unrealized investment negotiations, continuing with existing projects, etc.Iran is also experiencing difficulties in gas development, mainly the gas export, for two main reasons. The first reason is the difficulty in obtaining liquefaction technology required for exporting gas in tankers, because Western companies who have this technology are not supplying it to Iran. The second reason is the obstacles to signing gas export contracts using pipes leading to Europe (through Turkey), and the IPI pipeline to India and Pakistan.

Investment in Iran's energy sector is problematic both because of the sanctions and because of the drop in oil prices. In this sphere:

1. The director of Iran's gas company NIGC announced that sanctions have led to an increase of 10-20% in the cost of gas projects, and they would need over 10billion dollars investment yearly to read Iran's gas production targets.
2. The director of Petrofars announced that 80% of the projects in the South Fars area were delayed/shut down because of the drop in oil prices.

The effects of sanctions are also felt in lran's electricity sector. There is a lack of spare parts in Iran's power stations, and there is no foreign investment in this sector. This has led to an electricity shortage in Iran since last summer and consequently to electricity outages.

Another significant effect, stemming from both the sanctions and the global economic crisis, is the serious decrease in lran’s export revenue, due to its almost total reliance on revenues from oil and oil product exports (comprising 85% of its exports), after oil prices dropped drastically by over 70%,. At the same time, Iran does not have sufficient capabilities for refining oil, therefore it has to import a large part of its fuel consumption, and it pays a high price for this because fuel prices dropped by only20%. The disproportionate reductions in oil and fuel prices increases lran’s budget deficit.In addition, the sanctions led to a sharp increase in Iran’s import costs (more than 10billion dollars) and export costs. Moreover, the subsidies on imported food have increased. In light of the above, Iran needs to use a large part of its foreign currency reserves (which according to [ran amount to some 82 billion dollars) rather than keeping them for times of low oil prices, such as the present. Inflation and shortages - the sanctions are causing shortages in Western products and on tribute to Iran’s growing inflation (which is also because of the regime's spendthrift policy), and the need to import products via Gulf countries and to pay higher prices for imported products due to the sanctions, The estimated rate of the inflation is around 15%.

The sanctions are also causing certain difficulties for Iran’s vehicle industry,especially with regard to the supply of spare parts. However, it seems as if at least some of the European companies have not withdrawn from the Iranian market, and Chinese companies are increasing their activities in this industry, Aviation and shipping - the UN Security Council (in a non-binding manner) called for checking cargo shipments to and from Iran carried by Iran Air and IRISL, and lran’s aviation companies are being harmed by the shortage of imported spare parts.This call had been adopted by the European Union and its member countries.The average person also feels the impact of the sanctions and the regime’s mismanagement of the situation. Iranian citizens are starting to experience deterioration in living conditions (high inflation, erosion of purchasing power,difficulties in paying workers’ salaries, electric power outages and long lines at gas stations). As part of the regime’s dealing with the heavy economic price exacted by the sanctions, the Iranian government has so far increased withdrawals from the Oil Stabilization Fund (OSF), which according to different reports in Iran contains reserves estimated at tens of billions of dollars. According to these reports, during the current Iranian year (1387) Iran has already withdrawn more than 50% of the fund, In this context, Majles member Musa Ali Reza, who is responsible for the Majles Budget and Planning Commission, said that only 7 billion dollars remained in the fund, incomparison with December 2007, when the fund’s balance was I0 billion dollars(according to the then CBI governor Tahmasb Mazaheri). lran’s concerns about the OSF's dwindling foreign currency reserves is expressed in one of Rafsanjani’s statements that Iran needed to bolster its foreign currency reserves and the OSF in order to deal with the global economic crisis, the decrease in its oil revenues and the effects of the above on the Iranian economy.

In light of the above and in order to "keep its head above the water", Iran is trying to raise capital using alternative methods. In this framework, on 19 November 2008, the CBI governor, Hossein Qazavi said Iran plans to approach international credit markets. In order to raise a billion dollars by issuing government bonds (it is doubtful whether this move will take place due to the global economic crisis and the credit crunch experienced by many international companies). This unusual move, which Iran has not made in the past six years, and has been used only once (in 2002) in the 30 years since the revolution, reflects 1ran‘s credit difficulties as a result of the decrease in global oil prices. This decrease has led to a loss of revenue of around a quarter of a billion dollars a day, and an annual loss of 90 billion dollars, in comparison with the record oil prices of July 2008. Another move intended to increase state revenues, which have been significantly harmed by the economic sanctions imposed on Iran and the global economic crisis,was the government decision issued on 22 September, 2008 to impose 3% VAT for the first time ever.

The VAT announcement led to demonstrations and shutdowns by merchants and shop owners in lran’s large cities (Tehran, Tabriz, Esfahan and Mashhad). On 8 October 2008, during the protests, shop owners and merchants,mainly gold and textile merchants, shut their stores, locked the entrance gate to the Esfahan bazaar and thousands went out to demonstrate outside municipal buildings.Security forces forced the merchants, mainly in Esfahan, to open their shops. As a result, the government announced it was postponing the application of VAT. The closure of the bazaars in the large cities, especially the shutdown in Tehran, is unusual, and according to Iranian officials, this has not taken place in Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. These unusual events reflect the explosive potential among the Iranian public on the economic issue and the regime’s great "sensitivity" to this subject.

In a wider context, these events express the frustration of the bazaar merchants - who were previously a major economic and political sector in Iran, and who had close ties to the religious establishment. This is in light of the ongoing erosion of their economic status for several years (along with the increase in the status of the industrialists) and the major decline in their influence on the political system. This has took place parallel to the rise in the influence of the IRGC, which provided the IRGC with many economic opportunities, including receiving many franchises. In summary, despite the public threats made by Iran against the West and action to limit the sanction damages, the top Iranian leadership is very apprehensive about the economic sanctions, which in effect greatly affect Iran’s foreign ties and its routine on a daily basis. An illustration of the effects of sanctions was the unusual letter sent on29 November 2008, by senior religious clerics in Tehran to the Leader Khamenei,criticizing the conduct of Ahmadinejad's government. They protested the economic pressure on Iran’s citizens, rising prices, and "the unacceptable conduct of the government against cultural and revolutionary values". The letter cautioned that the governments conduct could harm the image of the Leader and the regime itself.

Expanding the sanctions against Iran, especially in light of the deepening global economic crisis, is certainly exacerbating the challenge for the Iranian leadership.This is because it increasingly emphasizes the futility of its economic policy(especially that of Ahamdinejad) and its inability to meet the ambitious economic targets it set for himself. International pressure is a factor that Iranian officials regards significant and as such the leadership would have to take it into consideration at some stage or another, or pay a hefty price for ignoring it, even before drastic measure have been taken, such as a ban on exporting spare parts to Iran, the Achilles heel of its economy. The implications of the sanctions and their success may be an effective tool, even at the expense of more radical options. For the time being, even thought four Security Council resolutions have been imposed on Iran and despite the harsh implications of the sanctions on Lran's economy, it still has not changed its policy regarding its nuclear program. Moreover, it seems that up until now Iran did nothing but to accelerate its efforts in achieving nuclear weapon and in keeping on its defiance towards the West, Thus, the international community should take into consideration to widen the sanctions and the political pressure on Iran, and even to consider some more dramatic measures against it.

Drug Triangle Smuggles Exceedingly into Europe

IranPressNews.com /

How the new drug triangle "Venezuela-Iran-Hezbollah" is smuggling vast quantities of drugs into Europe. A tripartite agreement had been signed in Caracas in late 2009 between an Iran Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) official, a senior Hezbollah official, and a Venezuela government representative. The purpose of this agreement is to smuggle drugs originating in Venezuela into European countries, via Iran and Lebanon. The agreement outlined a cooperation, that the sides termed as "the winning triangle".The agreement in question is a special kind of agreement based on Venezuela's government's undertaking to transfer to Iran the drugs (cocaine and marijuana from Colombia) which it had confiscated from the drug lords in Venezuela, at 70% of their value. Iran will transfer to Hezbollah the entire amount of drugs it receives from Venezuela. Furthermore, the drugs (heroin, cocaine and opium) that reach Iran from Afghanistan, Pakistan and China, and which lran's authorities confiscate, are also to be transferred to Hezbollah, for further distribution. Apparently, Iran and Venezuela are operating according to the same modus operandi which has already yielded considerable profits this year. The agreement, which bypasses narco-terrorism laws, has been called "Win-Win" by its partakers, because they each have something to gain from it. For Iran, it is an excellent way of blurring the fact that Iran is the source of the drugs (collected in the country) it is transferring to Hezbollah. For Iran, which views drugs as a means of making payments to Hezbollah, in addition to the aid money it grants Hezbollah, the Shiite organization is a convenient and highly motivated drug distributing factor,ostensibly without Iran‘s direct involvement. For Hezbollah, the drugs are an ongoingsource of income. Hezbollah's profits from drugs are estimated at approximately tens of millions USD a year. Moreover, Hezbollah is giving drug trafficking an ideological aspect, because it views drugs as a new weapon with an enormous damage potential for the West.

Venezuela‘s government, for its part, is earning enormous sums of money from the drugs it is confiscating from the country's drug lords and selling to Iran, and is saved the inconvenience of having to get rid of the drugs, to say nothing of the public support it is winning for its unrelenting war against the drug lords in Venezuela and the region, In addition, the agreement is also giving Venezuela the opportunity to infiltrate drugs into Europe without being directly involved in the matter. Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nassrallah, who wished to exploit the tightening relations between Iran and Venezuela, urged the signing of the agreement. According to him,Venezuela is opening a back door for Hezbollah to settle down in the region and find alternative channels for increasing its financial independence. Just as Hezbollah settled down in Lebanon and accumulated a great deal of power there, it is possible that with the agreement in question, Iran is increasing Hezbollah's strength politically and strategically, as well as organizationally, militarily and in terms of its infrastructure.For quite some time, Hezbollah's top echelon has been giving drug trafficking a special treatment. This is due to the religious support that that drug trafficking has been given because it is viewed as a means of fighting against the West. The support is inherent in the statements made by high-ranking Hezbollah officials on the use of drugs as a weapon: "We are making these drugs for Satan - America and the Jews. If we cannot kill them with guns, we will kill them with drugs."

It was learnt that the cocaine and marijuana are being transferred directly from Venezuela to Iran, under the supervision of an IRGC representative permanently stationed in Caracas, at Iran's behest. The drugs are transferred on the regular flights of the Venezuelan airline company, Conviasa. From Iran, the drugs are transferred to Syria on the civilian flights of this airline, along with weapon shipments and from Syria, they are transferred to Lebanon. The drugs reach their final destination in Europe on the Venezuelan airline. It is known that a small number of Hezbollah members are stationed at Damascus and Beirut airports to handle all matters pertaining to bills of lading before the shipments are sent to their European destinations. It was learnt that very high bribes are being discreetly paid to Lebanon and Syria's customs. Hezbollah members call the bribes "gorgeta," which means "tip" in Brazilian Portuguese.Another source of Hezbollah's drugs is the drugs that are seized (about 45%) when smuggled into Iran from opium and heroin supplying countries, such as China,Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Several tons of drugs of various kinds are thus smuggled into Iran. We have no details on the understandings, if any, between Iran's internal security forces, which confiscate hundreds of kilos of drugs a month from drug dealers around Iran, and the IRGC personnel in Iran, who are in charge of sending the drug shipments from Iran and transferring them to Hezbollah in Lebanon. According to the agreement, most of the confiscated drugs are amassed in Tehran and transferred in containers, along with weapon shipments destined for Hezbollah in Lebanon, from where they are transferred to Europe.

The background to the signing of the tripartite agreement is the double blow Hezbollah sustained over the past year because of the large number of drug dealers detained in Lebanon and Colombia in late 2008. In October 2008, Hezbollah member, Shukry Harb, a Lebanese who lives in Colombia, and who is considered one of that country’s largest drug lords, was detained. In the aftermath of the wave of detentions in Colombia, part of the Colombian infrastructure was moved to Venezuela and the Venezuelan channel became the hub of smuggling activities. In addition, in December2008, the involvement of the Lebanese Zeaiter family that is associated with Hezbollah, was exposed when a Lebanese Army unit foiled an attempt to transfer several trucks containing about ten tons of hashish and a hundred kilos of cocaine from Bekaa to Beirut, and several members of the Zeaiter family were detained. The drugs were to have been exported to Europe.

Appendix:

ln the U.S. and other countries, the activity described above is referred to as narco-terrorism(*), namely, engaging in drug dealing with the purpose of funding terror activities, combining the modus operandi of terror organizations with drug smuggling Internationally, law enforcement bodies engaged in preventing drug traffic king cooperate closely with each other in their struggle against organized crime. They coordinate their activities in the framework of the United Nations' Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which is responsible for implementing the United Nations' Convention's resolution against transnational organized crime. The UNODC has initiated international cooperation to promote the enforcement of the resolution in various contexts, including narco-terrorism, which it identifies as a fairly new development in global drug trafficking, and intends to take stronger measures to enforce the law against anyone who engages in it.

(*)Originally, the term was coined to describe the activity of the drug organizations in terms that are reminiscent of terror organizations, but narco-terrorism has since acquired some additional meanings.

The issue of increasing law enforcement measures against narco-terrorism also came up at the meeting between the war against drugs apparatuses heads, initiated by the UNODC in Vienna in 2005, where it was decided to tighten law enforcement measures to contend with narco-terrorism,The country leading the war against narco-terrorism is the U.S. In l998, the U,S.approved the International Crime Control Strategy (ICCS), which set national objectives to the war against organized crime and made recommendations about incorporating all the law enforcement bodies in the U.S. that are involved in this issue. ICCS identifies the main areas in which organized crime is active in the U.S.These include drug and people trafficking, gambling, violating copyrights and money laundering. ICCS is also engaged in combating the integration of crime and terror organizations and in the tenor organizations' criminal acts.

9/11 and the realization that terror funding was critical for the terror organizations' existence, and that terror organizations were using crime to fund their terror activities, led to a step up in the war against narco-terrorism, the terror organizations’ organized crime. The Patriot Act allows the authorities to use the most aggressive investigation means in cases where criminal activity is suspected of being carried out by terror organizations, especially in the case of foreign nationals.In the testimony he gave to the Senate Commission in 2003, Steven W. Casleel, the DEA's assistant for intelligence affairs, said that the combination of drug dealing and terror funding was explosive and dangerous because extensive drug dealing activity required the use of terrorist methods and the capability of activating an armed force.Such methods and capabilities were inherent to terror organizations. Furthermore,those organizations needed funding in order to carry out their activities. The DEA currently defines narco-terrorism as the activity of "an organized group that engages in drug dealing and smuggling for the purpose of funding the activities whose objectives are to promote a political agenda by intimidating the public or the government." In his testimony, mention was made of Hezbollah and Hamas‘s activity in the Paraguay- Argentina-Brazil border triangle, an activity that is known to have considerably expanded to other Latin American countries.

Khamenei to Support Hezbollah Despite of Ezzedin's Case

IranPressNews.com /

Iran’s Leader Ali Khamenei stated: "Iran will continue to support Hezbollah despite the case of Salah Ezzedin", and despite Internal Economic Problems. An emergency meeting was held in the Leader Ali Khamenei's bureau, at the firstweek of Jan. 2010, on a demand of Hezbollah leader Nassrallah. The meeting was held after few delays and an urgent demand from Nassrallah, who complained that Iran is not assisting its strategic ally in its economic crises. The background for the demand is that Hezbollah had incurred huge financial losses because of the bankruptcy of Lebanese businessperson, Salah Ezzedin, a fact that became known few months ago. The meeting's (that was summoned by a request of the Intelligence minister) purpose was to evaluate Iran's policy and framework as well as safeguard regarding the future financial assistance to Hezbollah. The meeting was attended by the intelligence minister Khidar Mahdavi; a representative of Iran‘s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) Quds Force commander, Hassan Mahdvi; the head of the Iranian Shahid Foundation(*) Hussein Dehqan; and Mahdi Ali Kanbari, who is in charge of the Iranian Shahid Foundation's international relations.

At the meeting, Khamenei ordered the participants to thoroughly investigate the embarrassing loss of money that had come from Iranian funding, mostly allocated through the Shahid Foundation. The loss is estimated at approximately 700 million USD. The money was to have been channeled to several areas, including the funding of Hezbollah's routine activities, renting and buying houses and warehouses forHezbollah's military activity in southern Lebanon. It was also to have covered the cost of the compensation paid to the families of the Shahids in the Lebanon War in 2006 and to the Bekaa residents who incurred damage to their property, were wounded, or lost members of their family. Khamenei ordered the participants to compile a report for him and submit it to his bureau within 14 days. The report is to include explanations for what had happened,especially for the two following issues. The first is why the money Iran transferred to Hezbollah was invested in risky channels, such as the businessman Salah Ezzedin,without lran's knowledge or involvement. The second is why the private money of senior Hezbollah and Iranian officials in Lebanon was put into the same basket as money coming from Iran. (Note: At the meeting, Khamenei hinted that senior Hezbollah officials were involved in corruption, but did not say this outright.However, he stressed that he believed in the integrity of senior Hezbollah officials despite the reports on the casein the Arab media).

As previously mentioned, the meeting was held by a request of the Intelligence Minister after Nassrallah's demand. The Intelligence Minister demanded that the responsibility to the strategic connection with Hezbollah, will be returned to his office. He said that the IRGC officers that gradually took over the intelligence ministry ties with the organization do not tit to run a sensitive military and political connection like this. However, the Leader decided that the IRGC would be the body which keeps on running the connection with Hezbollah. Furthermore, at the meeting, Khamenei decided that the organization would get another 100 Million dollars, in several payments, despite what he referred to as "the embarrassing case", which demanded a thorough investigation of Hezbollah. He said that Iran would continue to support the organization financially, operationally and morally. Moreover, Khamenei said that despite the economic difficulties with which Iran was contending because of the damage caused by the sanctions and the possibility of further sanctions, extra money (added to the 100 millions) would be added to Hezbollah‘s budget, that will enable the organization go on working on its"holly mission in Iran's name". Khamenei said, "Iran will maintain its financial support of the resistance, even at the cost to its citizens."

However, Khamenei instructed that at this stage, and until the case of Salah Ezzedin became clear, Iran's financial support of Hezbollah will be closely monitored. As part of this monitoring, in the coming days, an organized monitoring plan would be submitted to him written by a special financial team, directly subordinate to his bureau. The team would be responsible for Hezbollah's budget. Following are the main points of the monitoring plan:

A. Hassan Mahdvi will be the only person responsible on Hezbollah's behalf for transferring money from Iran to Hezbollah and for continuing to invest the money in Lebanon whenever necessary.
B. Mahdvi will be responsible for remaining in direct contact with representatives of the Iranian foundations directly subordinate to Khamenei's bureau (including the Shahid Foundation) and to update them on every financial activity made with the money transferred from Iran (such as investing the money in commercial channels).
C. Every quarter, Mahdvi is to submit a financial report to Iran, summarizing Hezbollah's expenses, its various investments, and financial reserves and whenever possible, predict its future expenses.
D. Towards the end of each year, there is to be an organized meeting in Khamenei's bureau, in which Mahdvi will present reports that sum up Hezbollah's expenses over the year, any financial investments made and expenses to be made in the course of the following year.
E. Iran retains the right to send representatives on its behalf to the assistance foundations and/or senior IRGC officers involved in funding Hezbollah for ad hoc checks and for monitoring the routine funding of Hezbo1lah's activities.

(*) The Shahid Foundation supports terror organizations whose activities serve the interests of Iran's regime. Hamas and Hezbollah are the two key bodies supported by the Shahid Foundation. In October 2007, the Shahid Foundation was designated by the U,S. Treasury. As part of the designation, the Foundation's Lebanon branches and the Goodwill Charitable Organization in the U.S. were also designated.Attachment: Salah Ezzedin According to recent Arab media reports, Hezbollah has suffered losses estimated at about 700 million USD, as a result of the bankruptcy of the Lebanese businessman Salah Ezzadin, who had invested the organizations money in different financial channels. He organized pilgrimages to Mecca, ran a major Beirut publishing house and a children’s television station, held major investments in east European oil and iron conglomerates, and - much more to the point- was a close personal friend of very senior leaders of the Hezbollah. Mr Ezzedine turns out to be an "Abu Madoff", declaring himself bankrupt, after promising his trusting investors an astonishing 40 percent interest on their deposits - which, according to judicial officials in Lebanon, he eventually could not pay.

It now appears that Mr Ezzedine‘s tinancial collapse became inevitable after he wrotea $200,000 cheque to Hussein Haj Hassan, one of Nasrallah‘s closest political advisers and a Hezbollah member of parliament. The cheque bounced. The response to this within Hezbollah's bunkers can only be imagined. Many Muslims believe that bank interest is un-Islamic, which is why the Lebanese Shia put their money in businesses run by Salah Ezzedine, who was known as a "pious" man - an optional extra for all friends of the Hezbollah - and whose Haj pilgrimages had become an essential element of that fixed part of the Muslim calendar in Lebanon. Ezzadin, who acted as the investment manager of I l thousand citizens for a high monthly interest, managed to arrange his own and his family’s escape out of Lebanon.However, he secretly returned alone, while his family remained abroad, awaiting developments. Hezbollah's security apparatus, in cooperation with the Communication Ministry and with the help of databases, succeeded in locating him in the southern neighborhood, and at the end of the process he was detained, questioned,and then handed over to the Lebanese legal system.

Obama Has Failed on Iran

By Richard Grenell, Newsmax /

Let’s face it; President Barack Obama’s hope for a dialogue with dictators was a naïve gamble to begin with. Even many people in his own party thought it was an academic exercise from an inexperienced law professor that wasn’t rooted in reality. But during the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama was on one side of the argument of what to do about Iran, and Hillary Clinton and John McCain were on the other. Obama championed the idea that he could rally the international community to do more to isolate the government of Iran and that he could sit down with its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to convince him that he should give up the illegal pursuit of a nuclear bomb. Clinton and McCain, however, advocated for a tougher approach that included immediate new sanctions, using the White House bully pulpit and possible military action. While Obama believed that he could convince Ahmadinejad of the error of his ways through direct dialogue, Clinton and McCain warned that it was a waste of precious time. One year later Obama has single-handedly allowed the Iranians more than a year of unfettered progress toward a nuclear weapon with less pressure and inquiry from the international community. Even the slow-moving, state-the-obvious International Atomic Energy Agency announced this week that it fears Iran is working toward a nuclear warhead to go along with its undisclosed uranium enrichment activities. And although the United States has been negotiating with Iran for more than 30 years, Obama has been acting like this nation has never tried diplomacy.

Recently, the president has been trying something "new." “The next step is sanctions,” President Obama said on Feb. 9. The problem with the president’s latest pronouncement is that the next step was sanctions — 14 months ago. Over the last 14 months, the U.S. should have been enforcing the existing U.N. sanctions, ratcheting up the pressure with new penalties, urging the Europeans to abide by the current financial restrictions, and supporting the opposition inside Iran. Now, a new round of sanctions and the inevitable protracted process getting to a U.N. vote may play into the Iranian’s hopes for more time. U.N. sanctions will take months of consistent pressure. To begin a U.N. sanctions process now will only compound the dangerous mistakes Obama has already made. And his U.N. ambassador, Susan Rice, may be too weak to negotiate a Security Council resolution on Iran. Shockingly, Obama and Rice haven’t produced a single U.N. Security Council resolution on Iran since they’ve been in office. Putting Rice up against the Iranians or even the Chinese or Europeans should give every American a cause for concern. This past year, Rice has spent more time in Washington looking to trip up Hillary and take her job than she has spent working the halls of the U.N. negotiating a resolution on Iran. And like Obama, she has not paid attention to the priority issues. While Rice claims that her Cabinet-level job requires more D.C. face time, in fact, U.S. Mission employees have confirmed that Rice isn’t leading the Iran negotiations from New York or Washington. (Read more...)

Support Human Rights for Iranians

The Centre Daily Times /

I felt a sense of deja vu as I watched televised scenes of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad exhorting a huge crowd last week on the 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution. Members of Iran’s “Green” opposition were hardly visible, leading many to conclude that the protest movement had been crushed.Yet my mind flashed back to 1990, when I stood on a Moscow reviewing stand and watched Mikhail Gorbachev address a huge crowd in Red Square during May Day celebrations. Who could have imagined that, 20 months later, the Soviet government would cease to exist? Could it be that, one or two years hence, Iran’s Islamic Republic will meet the same fate? Of course, the differences between Iran and the then-fading Soviet Union are many, and I’ll discuss them. But first, let’s consider the similarities that make the comparison apt. The huge crowd in Tehran’s Azadi Square included tens of thousands of government workers bused to the scene. Compulsory attendance was combined with a free lunch and a workers’ holiday, just as with the old May Day parades in Moscow — not exactly a good measure of the regime’s strength. Members of the opposition, which arose after rigged presidential elections in June, were kept out of the square by a massive police presence, augmented by armed militia goons who blocked streets for miles and beat and arrested demonstrators. For good measure, the government also shut down the Internet.

“If people were allowed to freely assemble, there would have been crowds upward of 5 million in Tehran, and millions more in places like Isfahan, Shiraz, Mashad and Tabriz,” the Carnegie Endowment’s Karim Sadjadpour said. To repeat, you can’t judge the government’s popularity by the number of people in Azadi Square on Feb. 11 (or in Red Square in May 1990, where the military was everywhere). Nor could you judge the Iranian government’s strength by Ahmadinejad’s boasts about Tehran’s military prowess, or by his inflated claims that Iran was already a “nuclear power” and had enriched uranium to 20 percent — a serious step toward the 90 percent enrichment required for weapons. (Iran insists, implausibly, that its enrichment program is only for energy purposes). Independent nuclear experts said last week that Iran’s nuclear program had suffered serious technical setbacks, which could delay, though not halt, the program. Moreover, Ahmadinejad never mentioned his serious economic problems at home. On his watch, inflation has soared and foreign investment has dropped under the pressure of international sanctions. Lower oil prices have revealed the fecklessness of his widespread use of food and fuel subsidies that he must now cut — which risks alienating large segments of the public. All this is reminiscent of the last days of the Soviet Union, whose economic problems brought on its demise. (Read more...)

22 Bahman Protest Yields New Lessons for Opposition

The Los Angeles Times /

This picture by Italian photographer Pietro Masturzo was named World Press Photo's 2009 Photo of the Year on Friday in Amsterdam. It shows women in Tehran, Iran, shouting from a rooftop in protest on June 24, 2009. Agence France-Presse photographer Olivier Laban-Mattei's pictures from Tehran were also recognized, as was a still from a YouTube video showing the death of Neda-Agha Soltan. Many in Iran's opposition are licking their wounds this weekend after failing to derail the official agenda during the country's 31st anniversary celebrations in Iran. But some, including one female Iranian journalist who gave her detailed account of the protests to the Times, are taking the time to reflect on the future of the green movement born out of Iran's disputed June presidential elections. "So many of the greens were sad and disappointed," she said on condition of anonymity for her own protection. "But I myself believe that we gained something." Though the experience was a tough blow for the opposition, a close review also yielded lessons for both the protesters and government, the journalist said. Hundreds were arrested around the country in the weeks before the rally. "There were lots of threatening activities from the government these recent days to just prevent people from attending," the journalist said. "They scared people a lot by executing them, arresting them."

The government managed to flood Tehran's Azadi square with huge numbers of supporters, using buses to bring them in from the both the capital and outlying areas. Witnesses could spot them arriving on buses with the names of villages and towns outside the capital, such as Shahriar or Hosseinabad. "For some of the government supporters this was the first time they saw any greens!" the journalist said. "And they were very surprised that someone beside them wouldn't repeat the slogans on the loudspeakers." Though they were unable to fill the entire square, as this satellite photo suggests, cameras were positioned (below) to show limitless crowds. The few foreign journalists who were in attendance were brought in on buses to the square, and they only had permission to quote the speech of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Basiji militiamen and police as well as plainclothes security officials filled the streets between Enghelab Square to Azadi Square. They were positioned at the intersections of all the side streets along the march route who would arrest anyone holding green ribbons or banners. "Some of the Basijis would strike even government supporters because they couldn't tell who was who," the journalist said. Near Enghelab Square, they grabbed 20 to 30 people and dragged them to the side streets nearby, where police vans were waiting. "If the Basijis had suspicions about you they would approach you and they would want you to take a 'souvenir' picture with them and in this way they had a picture of you," said the journalist. "If you argued they would start getting aggressive. They would search you and if they found any green paraphernalia they would arrest you." (Read more...)

Seven Myths About the Iranian Regime

The Wall Street Journal/

"We have been trying to negotiate [with the Iranians] for five, six years. We've tried everything. We have met every Iranian. We have tried to open every possible channel. We've had new ideas and the result is this: nothing." Thus did a senior Western diplomat recently describe to me his country's efforts to reach a negotiated settlement with Tehran over its nuclear programs. In doing so, he also finally disposed of the myth, nearly a decade in the making, that Iran was ready to abandon those programs in exchange for a "grand bargain" with the West. Let's dispose of a few other myths - and hope it doesn't take years for the lesson to stick:

(1) Military strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities would accomplish nothing. That's the argument made by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who last year told a Senate Committee that "a military attack will only buy us time and send the program deeper and more covert." Maybe so, but what's wrong with buying time? Israel's 1981 attack on Iraq's Osirak reactor also bought time while driving Saddam's nuclear programs underground. But it ensured that it was a non-nuclear Iraq that invaded Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabia nine years later, a point recognized by then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney when he thanked the Israeli commander of the Osirak operation for making "our job much easier in Desert Storm."

(2) A strike would rally Iranians to the side of the regime. The case would be more persuasive if the regime had any remaining claims on Iranian patriotism. It no longer does, if it ever did. It also would be more persuasive if the nuclear program were as broadly popular as some of the regime's apologists claim. On the contrary, one of the more popular chants of the demonstrators goes, "Iran is green and fertile, it doesn't need nukes." Yet even if the nuclear program enjoyed widespread support, it isn't clear how Iranians would react in the event of military strikes. Argentine dictator Leopoldo Galtieri whooped up a nationalist fervor when he invaded the Falklands in 1982, but was ousted from office just a week after Port Stanley fell to the British. When a regime gambles its prestige on a single controversial enterprise, it cannot afford to lose it.

(3) Sanctions don't work, and usually wind up strengthening the regime at the expense of its own people. That's only true when the sanctioned regimes have strong internal controls, relatively pliant populations, and zero interest in international respectability. It's also true that sanctions alone are never a silver bullet. But as Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies points out, they can be "silver shrapnel," particularly when the target country is as politically vulnerable as Iran is now, and when it is also critically reliant on the consumption of imported gasoline. That's why the House was right when it overwhelmingly approved the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act in December, and when the Senate unanimously passed a similar bill (against the administration's objections) last Thursday. Over time, the regime will surely find ways to skirt the sanctions, which prohibit companies that do business in Iran's energy sector from also doing business in the U.S. But in the critical short term, these sanctions might provoke the kind of mass unrest that could tip the scales against the regime.

(4) The world can live with a nuclear Iran, just as we live with other nasty nuclear powers. Assume that's true. (I don't.) Can we also live with nuclear Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey? The problem with the "realist" view is that it fails to take account of the fears a nuclear Iran inspires among the status quo regimes in its neighborhood. Containment was complicated enough during the Cold War. Now imagine a four- or five-way standoff among Arabs, Persians, Turks and Israelis, some religiously fanatic, in the world's most volatile neighborhood.

(5) The Iranian regime is headed for the ash heap of history. The best policy is to do as little as possible until it crumbles from within. Communist regimes were also destined for the ash heap. Unfortunately, it took them decades to get there, during which they murdered tens of millions of people. It matters a great deal to Iran's people, and its neighbors, that the regime go quietly. But it also matters that it go quickly, and waiting on events is not a policy.

(6) The more support we show Iran's demonstrators, the more we hurt their cause. This was the administration's view after the June 12 election, as it walked on tiptoes to avoid the perception of "meddling." The regime accused the U.S. of meddling all the same. But protest movements like Iran's (or Poland's, or South Africa's) are sustained by a sense of moral legitimacy that global support uniquely conveys. When will American liberals get behind Iranian rights, as they have, say, Tibetan ones? Maybe when President Obama tells them to.

(7) Israel will ultimately dispose of Iran's nuclear facilities. The more policy makers fall for the first six myths, the less mythical the seventh one becomes.

The Time Has Come

Independent Media Review and Analysis (IMRA)

If its domestic situation were not so serious, Iran's government could bevery happy indeed. Iran managed to gain another crucial year in its questfor a nuclear weapons capability, and every passing day brings it closer toits ultimate goal: having the potential to produce deliverable nuclearweapons in short order, if it so decides. It successfully delayed the Westfrom pursuing a more severe sanctions regime, and the West is behaving as ifit has all the time in the world. It does not.How did this come about? Several factors combined to achieve the net result,most of them not of Iran's doing: the election of a new US president whobelieved in engagement as the sole way to resolve conflicts (and may stillwant to believe this); the unwillingness, for years, of the IAEA toacknowledge Iran's ultimate goal; the (unclassified) 2007 US NationalIntelligence Estimate (NIE) that raised the possibility that Iran abandonedits quest for nuclear weapons; the reluctance of the US to assume the leadrole in confronting Iran, and letting the EU-3 deal, albeit ineffectively,with the situation; the contrary attitude of Russia and China, which arewatching the West struggle to find a solution while throwing it a bone fromtime to time in supporting some sanctions resolutions that are not achievingtheir aim; and the exceptional spanner in the works embedded in the quiteunproductive suggestion to transfer some of Iran's low enriched uranium(LEU) outside the country and return it as medium enriched uranium fuel forits Tehran Research Reactor. This last statement needs some explanation.On October 1, 2009, the P5 +1 (the five permanent Security Council membersplus Germany) and Iran began talks in Geneva that were supposed to deal witha host of issues, including the suspension of Iran's uranium enrichmentactivities.

Meantime, the US proposed the said uranium transfer idea. Therationale was, apparently, to remove the major portion of the LEU from Iran,thus delaying Iran's potential to produce the core of its first nuclearexplosive device. The talks were then postponed for more than a month, theIAEA produced a text of an agreement accepted by the Russian, US, andIranian delegations, and the Iranians went home to obtain the approval ofthe agreement by their government. The government probably never had anyintention of approving this. The deadline for an Iranian reply came and wentand nothing happened. Meanwhile, Iran continued to enrich uranium.Evaluating the proposal objectively, little would have been achieved, evenif the Iranians had agreed to it. The LEU stockpile would have been reduced,and its quantity would be below what is needed for a complete nuclear weaponcore, but this would remain so for a short time only, since enrichment wouldcontinue. Thus, the uranium transfer proposal bought precious time for theIranians, and no uranium enrichment suspension was even discussed.Meanwhile, the end of the 2009 deadline set by the US for resolving theIranian nuclear issue also came and went, and nothing happened. The Iraniansare enriching, the US is hesitating, and the East seems to be quite happywith the situation. The US year's end deadline proved to be devoid ofsubstance. The US administration apparently had no fallback plan to dealwith such a situation, and if it had, it did not execute it. Although Iranformally rejected the above plan, the IAEA director general was quoted assaying that the plan was still on the table. One wonders what this wouldachieve if it were now accepted by the Iranians, except for a further delayof a comprehensive solution to the issue and a continuing enrichment ofuranium by Iran. (Read more...)

Merkel Warns I.R. Iran May Face Sanctions

Der Spiegel & The Jerusalem Post

German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned Iran Monday evening that it may face new sanctions if it doesn't cooperate with the West over its nuclear program. Merkel told diplomats in Berlin that "time is running out" for Iran. She said additional sanctions would be a "tragedy for the Iranian people." Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim that it was evident that "Iran, which has large stocks of gas and oil, is not developing a nuclear capability for peaceful purposes." Lieberman said the missiles Iran was developing were not intended to spread nuclear energy for the good of mankind. Lieberman told his Brazilian colleague that Iran was the world's number one sponsor of terrorism, ruled by a government that denies the Holocaust and Israel's right to exist. He also referred to the regime's crackdown on opposition activists, saying "we have seen how the Iranians took care of civilians after the elections [there]." Lieberman and Merkel made their comments just hours after Der Spiegel reported that new intelligence acquired by Germany's BND conclusively shows that Iran's nuclear program has an advanced military offshoot which answers to the country's defense establishment. The report said the information was being reviewed in Germany, Israel, the US and the UN's nuclear agency in Vienna. Aside from exposing the existence of a clandestine weapons development program, the document apparently shows that Teheran is in possession of advanced blueprints for producing a nuclear bomb. Such documents, as well as information passed on to Western intelligence agencies by Iranian defectors and sources within Iran, are causing growing alarm among US and European leaders.

In its report, Der Spiegel assessed that the White House may consequently raise threat levels from yellow to red. World leaders and even the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the newspaper, are beginning to understand that rumors of Iranian defiance, noncompliance and warmongering are neither Israeli propaganda nor a figment of the imagination. The intelligence document raises questions pertinent to the nature of Iran's nuclear program, which the Islamic republic claims is meant solely for peaceful energy production in a climate of dwindling natural resources, including oil. However, its evasive tactics, spiteful rhetoric and lack of transparency with Western bodies looking to halt the spread of nuclear weapons have caused world leaders to be concerned - and increasingly skeptical. Reports which have surfaced in recent years hint that Iran's National Energy Council may not be the only body to which its nuclear scientists answer. In fact, according to Der Spiegel, Iranian Science, Research and Technology Minister Kamran Daneshjoo - a close ally of the country's hard-line president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - worked for several years at a Teheranresearch and development center devoted to military technology. This government -sponsored scientific body is believed by Western intelligence agencies to have become subservient to Iran's defense ministry. Vague estimates state that the body, headed by 48-year-old Revolutionary Guard officer Mohsen Fahrizadeh, now deals in "high technology" in a manner that differs greatly from that of the country's energy council. (Read more...)

To Obama's Pile of Woes, Add a Failing Iran Policy

TIME.COM / Massimo Calabresi

As if President Barack Obama didn't have his hands full at home with his party's loss of Ted Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts, the collapse of health care reform and a disorganized war against the banks, he now faces a major foreign policy setback. Since the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama has promised to curtail Iran's nuclear program by simultaneously offering talks and threatening sanctions. After a year of trying, both approaches appear on the verge of failure. The President has given Iran two deadlines to demonstrate good faith. Last spring, his Administration told reporters that if Iran didn't show willingness to engage in talks by September, sanctions would follow. Then, in September, when Iran hinted that it might possibly talk, Obama delivered another deadline, this time the end of 2009. Iran's response to these deadlines has been repeated delays and obfuscation. First, in the spring it delivered a lengthy manifesto about global peace irrelevant to the issues at hand. The summer months were taken up with Iran's election turmoil, but following talks with the U.S. and its international partners in the fall, Iran hinted that it might be willing to accept a deal under which it would export most of its enriched-uranium stockpile to be converted into reactor fuel — and then quickly backpedaled as the proposed deal came under a hail of criticism from across Iran's political spectrum. In recent weeks, Iran has made a counteroffer to export its uranium in small parcels over a longer time period that State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley described as "clearly an inadequate response." The idea behind Obama's engagement effort, though, was that if Iran kept stalling, countries previously opposed to sanctions, such as Russia, China and Germany, could be persuaded to support new punitive measures aimed at forcing Iran to cooperate.

"We actually believe that by following the diplomatic path we are on, we gain credibility and influence with a number of nations who would have to participate in order to make the sanctions regime as tight and as crippling as we would want it to be," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the House Foreign Affairs Committee in last April. So, how's that working? Not very well, by all indications. True, with Iran stalling, the Germans seem to be playing along, although earlier in the year they said they'd only support sanctions if approved by the U.N. And while senior American officials and European diplomats say Russia has come around to supporting sanctions, nothing that has happened publicly has confirmed that claim — and the signals from Moscow remain mixed. But where Russia had previously taken the lead in blocking sanctions efforts, that role has now fallen to China, which has a rapidly growing stake in Iran's energy sector. Beijing believes that while Iran must be brought into compliance with the international nonproliferation regime, its nuclear program does not represent an imminent danger of producing nuclear weapons and diplomacy should therefore be given a lot more time. Beijing has bluntly opposed any effort to introduce new punitive measures against Iran, and last weekend China's Deputy Foreign Minister snubbed his counterparts from the U.S., Britain, France, Russia and Germany and sent only a low-level official to a meeting called to discuss new efforts to pressure Tehran. "The meeting we had last weekend was not great," says a European diplomat. "The Chinese sent someone along who said, 'I can't make any decisions.' " Worse, the Chinese have become allergic to the very mention of sanctions. (Read more...)

Is I.R. Iran Losing the Intelligence War?

guardian.co.uk / Meir Javedanfar

At 10:13 am this morning, the Tehran-based Fars news agency reported that Masoud Ali Mohammadi, a prominent physics lecturer, had been killed by a "terrorist act". According to the report, he was killed by a remote control bomb placed in a motorcycle. The bomb exploded as he left his house in the semi-upmarket Gheytariye neighborhood of Tehran. One hour and nine minutes later, at 11:22 am Tehran time, the same news agency, this time quoting Tehran's chief prosecutor, declared that the victim was in fact a nuclear scientist. According to the same report, the booby-trapped motorcycle which killed him was placed next to his car. The blast was strong enough to smash nearby windows. The news was subsequently picked up by the Tehran-based Press TV. Masoud Ali Mohammadi was a well known lecturer at Tehran University. He specialised in quantum physics and had received his PhD in 1992 from the prestigious Sharif University. This morning the offices of the Oghab-2 counter intelligence bureau must have been be buzzing with questions, and concerns. This bureau was specifically established in December 2005 to prevent information regarding Iran's nuclear programme, its scientists and installations, from falling in the hands of foreign intelligence agencies and domestic opposition groups.

The probability that Mohammadi was assassinated by an Iranian opposition group such as the People's Mujahideen (MKO) may be small. However it can not be dismissed. The MKO have assassinated senior military officials in broad daylight before. A famous example was the assassination of General Ali Seyyed Shirazi, the chief of staff of the Iranian army, on his doorstep in April 1999. Although normally they would have a lot to gain by targeting a political figure, such as a senior politician, assassinating a nuclear scientist could also be beneficial to them. Such people would be highly prized targets, and their elimination a severe embarrassment for Ahmadinejad government. It would also send a strong message to Tehran's government about the increasing intelligence-gathering capabilities of the group. It is also possible that Mohammadi was assassinated by a foreign intelligence agency. Should that be the case, this recent incident comes amid a series of setbacks for the Oghab- 2 counter intelligence bureau. First was the mysterious death of Ardeshir Hassanpour, a nuclear scientist in January 2007. According to the Times of London, he was assassinated. This was followed by the disappearance of General Ali Reza Asgari in March 2007. Some believe that he defected to the US. And this year Shahram Amiri, a nuclear scientist, disappeared during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. Some believe he defected, while other reports talk about his kidnapping. Either scenario does not bode well for Iran's intelligence community. This was then followed by the exposure of the secret nuclear site in Fordo, near Qom, by President Obama. (Read more...)