Category Archives: Espionage

Al-Qaeda, Espionage, Middle East Nuclear

Iranian Illusions and an Alleged American Spy………..

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“U.S. sought to prevent Iran from being a model in Mideast……. “The U.S. intended to bankrupt Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) through gaining control over Iraq’s oil wells and to do something so that oil would be traded only in dollars and that the U.S. power would be greater than that of China and Russia. One of the reasons behind the U.S. military presence in Iraq was to have presence in the Middle East and to infiltrate Muslim people through infiltrating into Islamic groups and cause deviation (in them). Another objective of the U.S. was to keep a rein on the Middle East(ern) (countries), including Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Bahrain, and even Tunisia to prevent the Islamic Republic from becoming a model for these countries…….……“

The part about “U.S. sought to prevent Iran from being a model in Mideast” makes little sense to me. The Iranian ruling mullahs often did their best to keep their country from becoming a model theocracy for the region. There was no need to the Americans to do much, even though they probably did what they could. The repressive policies of the Iranian regime itself and the fierce sectarian campaign by the vast Saudi propaganda machine together did an excellent job in repelling many Arabs from wanting an Iranian model regime.
Much of what this young man said in his ‘confession’ fits in with the usual Iranian media claims and propaganda. It sounds suspicious to me, whether this man was an American spy or not. It sounds almost as suspicious as some ridiculous American claims of an Iranian- al Qaeda- Hezbollah-Colombian-Mexican-Texan-West African plot to take over the Middle East then the whole wide world.
Cheers
mhg


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CIA, Espionage, Iran, War on Iran

Iranian American Tit for Tat Continues………….

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“Iran’s state TV broadcast video of a young man Sunday it claimed was a CIA spy who sought to infiltrate Iran’s secret services. The TV identified the man, apparently in his late 20s, as Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, an American-Iranian who received special training and served at U.S. military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan before heading to Iran for his alleged intelligence mission. “Their (US intelligence) plan was to initially burn some valuable information, to give it free so that (Iran’s) Intelligence Ministry would see the good things and then would contact me,” said in a part of the confession that was broadcast. The voice of an unnamed announcer on the video said U.S. intelligence was certain that Iran’s secret services would not ignore the data. Therefore, they provided a mix of correct and false information to mislead Iran’s intelligence but tempt it at the same time..……..”

Whether this young man was truly a CIA agent or just a feint to confuse the Iranians or just an innocent visitor to his homeland, he is now part of an ongoing Iranian-American war. It is a war that is intensifying and getting weirder by the day. It may culminate in the whole field of GOP candidates storming the Iranian border, along with Netanyahu.
Now if Messrs Gingrich and Romney and Santorum take my advice and take a hike along the Iraq-Iran border…..
Cheers
mhg


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Espionage, Iran, Israel, Terrorism

Prisoners in Foreign Lands: Alireza Asgari and Tony Blair……

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“The director of the armed forces’ Bureau for Strategic Studies says that former Iranian deputy defense minister Alireza Asgari is still alive in a Mossad prison in Israel and strongly enduring its appalling conditions. In fact, after the Zionists kidnapped the Iranian official, they tried to create the impression that figures like Asgari, who are ready to die for Islam, are not loyal to the Islamic Revolution any longer, but the truth is entirely different, Shamkhani told reporters on Thursday. Shamkhani, defense minister during the Khatami administration, said Asgari will never seek asylum in Israel because he is not such a personality, and if anyone doubts the fact, his is somehow linked with Mossad. He went on to say that Asgari, who was definitely kidnapped by the Zionist regime with the help of arrogant powers, is strongly resisting against the pressure and will not succumb because he is not a person to betray his country……..”

Mr. Asgari very likely has caused the Israelis some grief in the past, or so they think. Or maybe they are just trying to milk him for all the information he has, about Iran and Lebanon.


Interesting terms the Iranians use: “arrogant powers”. But they may be right in this case, the term may apply. There have been reports from within Israel corroborating that Ali Asgari has been held a prisoner without charges or conviction. Almost certainly the former Iranian deputy minister is being held in Israel against his will. Otherwise why not show him in public? If there has been no international case against Asgari and no international warrant for him, holding him is an act of piracy and against international law. It is the same as holding, say, Tony Blair a prisoner (there are no warrants for his arrest either, although I am not sure why).

No doubt in my mind that if the Iranians were holding a former high Israeli official, the UN Security Council would have met to take action against Iran.

Cheers
mhg


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Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, Arab Counterrevoltion, Espionage, Finance, Hezbollah, Iraq, Latin America, Lebanon, nuclear Iran, Saudi Arabia, Terrorism, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy, WTF

Mel Brooks and Oliver Stone of Persia: a Taliban-Hezbollah-Colombian-Iranian-alQaeda-Mexican-Texan-African Network………

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“The court action, filed in Manhattan federal court, seeks nearly half a billion dollars in penalties from three Lebanese financial organizations — the now-defunct Lebanese Canadian Bank and two Beirut-based money exchange houses — and 30 auto dealers in the United States. The $480 million in penalties is the sum of the drug proceeds that are alleged to have been laundered; the government is also seeking to freeze and seize assets traceable to those companies………… Thursday’s complaint offers fresh details about the workings of what it says was a scheme to launder South American cocaine cash and Hezbollah’s own money, naming the American-based auto dealers and people it says were Hezbollah operatives. For example, the action charges that Oussama Salhab was a Hezbollah operative in Togo who ran a network that transported cash from cars sold in Benin on flights to Beirut. Prosecutors say he worked with Maroun Saade — suspected of being a member of the Free Patriotic Movement, a Lebanese Christian political party allied with Hezbollah — who has been charged in a separate case with aiding the Taliban………”

I wonder what Mel Brooks is up to these days? Is he teaming up with Oliver Stone? Could those two be working on something like this, this topic of my piece here?
Is it just the holiday season or is the world going crazy around me? At least from my current perspective in the Pacific Northwest it seems like many heretofore otherwise sensible people are going mad. Look at all this:

  • Hezbollah alliance with the Taliban (across fourteen centuries of separation, across five nations of separation)?
  • Iranian alliance with al-Qaeda which is the mortal Wahhabi enemy of the Shi’as (including Iranians and Iraqis and Lebanese and Bahrainis and Pakistanis and all others)?
  • Iranian and al-Qaeda alliance allegedly but ridiculously improbably going way back to the 1990s, mostly via the good offices and miraculous guesswork of Judge John D. Bates of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia?
  • Iranian-Mexican Drug Cartel-Texan Nutcase alliance to blow up a restaurant in Georgetown and its famous clients just because it serves mediocre food to smug bureaucrats and charges too much? This last one allegedly courtesy of the DEA and the U.S. Department of Justice, and possibly Mujahideen-e-Khalq, among others.
  • Iraqi-Iranian-Syrian (wtf?)-Lebanese alliance to conquer Bahrain as a prelude to conquering the rest of the world and forcing Rick Santorum and Rick Perry to become Muslims and make the Hajj to Mecca?
  • Lebanese-Columbian-Taliban-Hezbollah-Maronite Christian plot to make money from a new triangular trade but without the rum and the African slaves.
  • Hezbollah-IRGC-Wehrmacht-Goldman Sachs…….. oh zut, sorry. Got carried away.


WTF is going on here? Is everyone going paranoid or are all of these plots real? Should we start looking under our beds each night for Iranian mullahs and Lebanese Shi’as? Are the Wahhabi princes now financing the hated Shi’a militants as well? Or is it just that the ‘plots’ are thickening?
Cheers
mhg


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Bahrain, Espionage, Iran, Kuwait

Iranian General Killed in Explosion, Unlikely Spies in Abadan, Bahrain……………

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“A commander of the Revolutionary Guard killed in an explosion at an ammunition depot west of Tehran was a key figure in Iran’s missile programme, the elite military force said. General Hasan Moghaddam was killed alongside 16 guard members on Saturday at a military site 25 miles south-west of Tehran. The Revolutionary Guard said the accident occurred while military personnel were transporting munitions……..”

Time Magazine reports, quoting intelligence reports, that the Israelis were behind the explosion.
Meanwhile, the tit-for-tit of espionage and arrests continue. Bahrain has announced yet another of their weekly Iranian plots. I think soon they will start discovering Iranian plots on a daily basis (maybe even more often if Hezbollah is thrown in as well).
WTF of the week: Iranian authorities have arrested an Iranian who reports for the BBC. They must consider correspondents for foreign media as spies now. The shocker is that the Iranians also claim they have arrested two Kuwaitis (reportedly journalists for a Kuwait TV network) who they claim were spying in the oil center city of Abadan on Shatt al-Arab. It is hard to believe: Kuwaiti spies? Highly unlikely. The charge is almost as ridiculous as the weekly (soon to be daily) Bahrain regime claims.
Cheers
mhg


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cyber war, Espionage, Iran, Israel, MEK, Mujahideen Khalq, nuclear Iran, Terrorism

Duqu Hits Iran: Virus Du Jour beats a Shooting War……….

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“Iran has developed a software program that can “control” the newly discovered Duqu spyware, the director of Iran’s Passive Defense Organization has announced. “The software, capable of controlling this virus (Duqu), has been provided to organizations and institutions,” IRNA quoted Brigadier General Gholamreza Jalali as saying on Sunday. Duqu, discovered on September 1, 2011, is a sophisticated Trojan which acts as a backdoor into a system and facilitates the theft of private intelligence. Security software manufacturer Symantec says parts of the Duqu code base are nearly identical to the infamous Stuxnet worm, “but with a completely different purpose.” The Duqu malware has reportedly infected a number of systems in Iran. “All of the centers and apparatuses suspected of being infected with the virus are under control,” Jalali said, adding that countering and cleansing processes have been carried out at the infected institutions. Stuxnet, first indentified by Iranian officials in June 2010, is a malware designed to infect computers using supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems made by the German company Siemens …………..”

This Duqu in a new one. Duqu, Stuxnet, Stars, WTF, why not? Let them come: that is a clean war, better than the bloody alternative that some regional absolute potentates are hoping to goad the West into. Anything beats a shooting destructive war, or a war of terror street assassinations that kills civilians, or any war on behalf of absolute kleptocratic tribal princes.
Cheers
mhg


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Espionage, Israel, Palestine

In Old Palestine: British Boys, Jewish Girls, Arab Girls, Zionists, Spies………

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“The Zionist battle to wrest control of the country from the British and establish a Jewish homeland was led politically by the Jewish Agency and militarily by guerrilla organisations such as the Haganah and Irgun. “The Jewish Agency set up special clubs for the purpose of propaganda,” said Motti Golani, a historian of the British Mandate at Haifa University. “There were dancing parties, clubs with lectures, dinners. The Agency pushed young girls, of around 18 or 20, to have relationships with British soldiers. It was a kind of spying.” The Jewish Agency’s message was confusing: on the one hand the relationships were encouraged for political purposes, but they were meant to stop short of becoming sexual or permanent. “It was an indecent thing, for a Jewish girl to have a British boyfriend,” Segev told the Observer. “Not because he was British, but mostly because he wasn’t Jewish. It was something a family would hide.”…..… The British did not confine their romances to Jewish women. The highest-profile relationship of the era was between the commander of the British forces in Palestine, General Evelyn Barker, and Katy Antonius, the socialite wife of a prominent Arab. Barker, who was also married, wrote almost 100 passionate letters to his lover …….The Jewish Agency, he added, “had very good information. There were a lot of spies. There were hardly any real secrets. Both the British and Jewish Agency used code names, but they both knew who the other was talking about……...”

Interesting bit of old history of Palestine under the Mandate. Not clear how much is true and how much gossip. I suspect most of it is true. But you get the flavor of the time.
Cheers
mhg


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Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, Espionage, Middle East, Pakistan, Terrorism, US Foreign Policy

Decimating Jihadists: America’s Secret Muslim President Succeeds where Cheney, Talk Radio, and Fox News Failed …………

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“Osama bin Laden, hunted as the mastermind behind the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil, has been killed, President Obama announced tonight……..”

“Same US military unit that got Osama bin laden killed Anwar al-Awlaki. Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born al-Qaeda leader linked to terrorist plots in the UK and US, has been killed in a drone strike in central Yemen, the country’s military has announced…….”

“A senior leader of the militant Haqqani network, Haji Mali Khan, has been captured in Afghanistan, the Nato-led international force Isaf has said. He was detained during an operation by Afghan and coalition forces in Paktia province on Tuesday, Isaf said. He was heavily armed but did not resist, it added……”

So this “Manchurian” American president with a Jewish-sounding first name, an African last name, and a decidedly Muslim middle name has bested Dick Cheney in the war against al-Qaeda. I wonder what the Cheneys are up to these days.
Cheers
mhg


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CIA, Espionage, Iran, Middle East Nuclear, Mossad

Another Unsolved Murder in Iran: Mystery of the Indispensable Nuclear Student………

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““Israel is not responding,” Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said earlier this week when asked if his country had been involved in the latest slaying of an Iranian nuclear scientist. It didn’t exactly sound like a denial, and the smile on his face suggested Israel isn’t too bothered by suspicions that it is responsible for a series of murders of physicists involved in the controversial Iranian nuclear program. There is little doubt in the shadowy world of intelligence agencies that Israel is behind the assassination of Darioush Rezaei. “That was the first serious action taken by the new Mossad chief Tamir Pardo,” an Israeli intelligence source told SPIEGEL ONLINE. On July 23, Rezaei became the latest victim in a mysterious series of attacks over the past 20 months which has seen the virtual decimation of the Islamic republic’s elite physicists. The 35-year-old died after being shot in the throat in front of his daughter’s kindergarten in east Tehran………According to the Associated Press, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna has since confirmed what had already been reported by the Israeli media — namely that the physics student had worked on the development of high-voltage switching systems, a key component that is crucial to setting off the explosions needed to trigger a nuclear warhead…………..”

Barak’s reaction does not necessarily mean the (post-Dubai) Mossad did it. Even the Der Spiegel “contacts” could be, almost certainly are, part of a campaign of misinformation. They Israelis may have been involved, or they may be protecting other Western governments (they have less to lose).
Yet I am not sure about this ‘scientist’. He was reported as an academic, then a scientist, then a student. The latest Iranian report claimed he was a student who was killed by mistake, that they mistook him for a scientist. The Israelis now say he was a student who was crucial for a high-voltage switching system, etc, etc. Maybe he was, maybe not. Both sides, nay all three sides, have an interest in fudging things, misleading everybody else. The Mossad, and the comparable Western services, also have an interest in not looking foolish, killing a student instead of a nuclear scientist (either one would be considered a terrorist action against a civilian in front of his family if committed in Israel or the West).
Cheers
mhg


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CIA, Espionage, Iran

The Iran ‘CIA’ Espionage Plot Thickens……….

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“Government officials were among those netted in an Iranian counterespionage operation that Tehran’s intelligence ministry touted this weekend, a news website reported Sunday. The semi-official Fars news agency (link in Persian) reported “a number of Iranian government managers” were among the 30 arrested on suspicion of having ties with the CIA. Fars quoted “an informed source” as saying a manager of one of Iran’s ministries and a number of other officials employed by government bodies were arrested. One official had worked at one of Iran’s ministries for 25 years and was allegedly gathering information for U.S. intelligence with the aim of immigrating to the West and keeping his son out of military service, the source told Fars. The man allegedly had prepared “a very important package about the activities of this body, which included information on ways to sabotage it.” But he was foiled by intelligence officers “minutes” before he sent it off, the source claimed to Fars. Another official gathered information about “how to blow up and conduct espionage activities” at his employer but was arrested before dispatching the information, Fars said……..”

This is becoming more interesting, if the published report is true (Fars quotes an ‘informed source’ which may indicate a certain degree of accuracy). Now they talk of plans for sabotage and explosions. This now seems to indicate that some higher officials, at least middle-tier managers, were involved. That is the official story. It requires careful reading to try and discern wtf is going on inside Iran’s intelligence community. Is Muslehi (intelligence minister and a mullah) anxious to show his credibility by hurrying arrests? Is he flailing around for culprits? Was there such an extensive network of sabotage? All of the above are possible: Iran has seen some bombings and assassinations of nuclear scientists over the past few years. They also had top scientists and military officers defect and/or kidnapped while outside the country. In this dame, anything is possible
Cheers
mhg


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