I spy, with my little eye...

Roman_K · Mar 12, 2007

Elite Iranian general defects with Hezbollah’s arms secrets-News-World-Middle East-TimesOnline

Three days old, but still. Things just got interesting...

TamyraMcG · Mar 12, 2007

Very interesting, I hope there are more like him. Maybe the world has a chance yet to experience peace, I'll not be holding my breath just yet, though.

Roman_K · Mar 13, 2007

I'm trying to find out more about this guy, but so far all I have is unconfirmed rumors that he's currently being debriefed in a European country, possibly Germany, that he was raised from forced retirement a few years back (the forced retirement was due to uncovering some corruption cases that some Iranian higher-ups didn't want revealed) only to decide on spying and defection in 2003.

If this is true then the guys who brought him back from retirement are in deep... trouble.

Some of this was possibly relayed by an official US intelligence source to the Washington Post.

Roman_K · Mar 14, 2007

Found the relevant article on the Washington Post.

Former Iranian Defense Official Talks to Western Intelligence

By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 8, 2007; Page A16

A former Iranian deputy defense minister who once commanded the Revolutionary Guard has left his country and is cooperating with Western intelligence agencies, providing information on Hezbollah and Iran's ties to the organization, according to a senior U.S. official.

Ali Rez Asgari disappeared last month during a visit to Turkey. Iranian officials suggested yesterday that he may have been kidnapped by Israel or the United States. The U.S. official said Asgari is willingly cooperating. He did not divulge Asgari's whereabouts or specify who is questioning him, but made clear that the information Asgari is offering is fully available to U.S. intelligence.

Asgari served in the Iranian government until early 2005 under then-President Mohammad Khatami. Asgari's background suggests that he would have deep knowledge of Iran's national security infrastructure, conventional weapons arsenal and ties to Hezbollah in south Lebanon. Iranian officials said he was not involved in the country's nuclear program, and the senior U.S. official said Asgari is not being questioned about it. Former officers with Israel's Mossad spy agency said yesterday that Asgari had been instrumental in the founding of Hezbollah in the 1980s, around the time of the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut.

Iran's official news agency, IRNA, quoted the country's top police chief, Brig. Gen. Esmaeil Ahmadi-Moqaddam, as saying that Asgari was probably kidnapped by agents working for Western intelligence agencies. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Asgari was in the United States. Another U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, denied that report and suggested that Asgari's disappearance was voluntary and orchestrated by the Israelis. A spokesman for President Bush's National Security Council did not return a call for comment.
The Israeli government denied any connection to Asgari. "To my knowledge, Israel is not involved in any way in this disappearance," said Mark Regev, the spokesman for Israel's foreign ministry.

An Iranian official, who agreed to discuss Asgari on the condition of anonymity, said that Iranian intelligence is unsure of Asgari's whereabouts but that he may have been offered money, probably by Israel, to leave the country. The Iranian official said Asgari was thought to be in Europe. "He has been out of the loop for four or five years now," the official said.

Israeli and Turkish newspapers reported yesterday that Asgari disappeared in Istanbul shortly after he arrived there on Feb. 7. Iran sent a delegation to Turkey to investigate his disappearance and requested help from Interpol in locating him.
Former Mossad director Danny Yatom, who is now a member of Israel's parliament, said he believes Asgari defected to the West. "He is very high-caliber," Yatom said. "He held a very, very senior position for many long years in Lebanon. He was in effect commander of the Revolutionary Guards" there.

Ram Igra, a former Mossad officer, said Asgari spent much of the 1980s and 1990s overseeing Iran's efforts to support, finance, arm and train Hezbollah. The State Department lists the Shiite Lebanese group as a terrorist organization.
"He lived in Lebanon and, in effect, was the man who built, promoted and founded Hezbollah in those years," Igra told Israeli state radio. "If he has something to give the West, it is in this context of terrorism and Hezbollah's network in Lebanon."
The organization, led by Hasan Nasrallah, is believed to have been behind several attacks against U.S., Jewish and Israeli interests worldwide, including the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 Americans, and the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed more than 80 people.

Israel fought a bloody, month-long war with Hezbollah last summer in south Lebanon after the group seized two Israeli soldiers. The soldiers have not been returned and their fate is unknown. Other Israeli soldiers have vanished in Lebanon during decades of conflict along the countries' shared border, most notably an Israeli airman named Ron Arad. Yatom said it is possible Asgari "knows quite a lot about Ron Arad."

In a January briefing to Congress, then-Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte described Hezbollah as a growing threat to U.S. interests. "As a result of last summer's hostilities, Hezbollah's self-confidence and hostility toward the United States as a supporter of Israel could cause the group to increase its contingency planning against United States interests," Negroponte said.
U.S. intelligence officials said they had no evidence that Hezbollah was actively planning attacks but noted that the organization has the capacity to do so if it feels threatened.

Correspondents Scott Wilson in Jerusalem and Anthony Shadid in Beirut and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

Roman_K · Mar 25, 2007

Iranians seize 15 UK Marines in Gulf -News-UK-TimesOnline
Iran ‘to try Britons for espionage’-News-World-Middle East-TimesOnline

This is a bad development, to say the least.

Tephlon · Mar 25, 2007

yay, finally a "reason" to invade Iran!

Oh wait, when did anyone need a reason?

Roman_K · Mar 25, 2007

No, and I daresay Iran gaining an active nuclear arsenal is reason enough. This is just cutthroat politics, Middle-Eastern style. Iran will pressure to get back its arrested personnel who were detained in rather compromising circumstances in Iraq, or even demand General Asgari back, who in the Iranian media is said to have been kidnapped by Western intelligence.

My guess? The general knew enough to get some people to panic. So far, Iran was playing its nuclear project fairly smart, stalling continuously, not getting any painful sanctions, playing invisible games of supporting this or that resistance without truly revealing itself as the puppeteer.

Then you get this. Someone panicked and went for the old-fashioned pressure method. No one will go to war over this if the Iranians keep the sailors alive. But if some moron there goes through with the threatened trial for espionage, which will have the all too expected results...

Well, I daresay that some people in the UK will get a little angry. It will most likely not lead to a war still, something along the lines of a naval blockade maybe.

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