Monday 25th of November 2024
Home » Blogs » John Richardson's blog

tinkers, tailors, soldiers, hypocrites .....

tinkers, tailors, soldiers, hypocrites .....

A multinational investigation into bomb plots targeting Israeli diplomats earlier this year has produced the clearest evidence yet that Iran was involved, illustrating the risks to the west if it fails to reach detente with Tehran over its nuclear weapons programme.

Talks on Iran's nuclear aspirations resume in Moscow on Monday, and western intelligence officials have told the Guardian the price of failure could be high. With Israel refusing to rule out military action if diplomacy fails, intelligence officials fear the volley of attacks carried out by Iranian operatives show Tehran is capable of an asymmetric response. Though the officials admit that predictions are extremely difficult to make, their concerns are based on investigations into plots against Israeli diplomats in India, Thailand and Georgia in February which point to the involvement of Iran.

In India, local agencies told ministers a bomb attack which badly injured the wife of the Israeli military attaché in New Delhi in February was the work of an Iranian "security entity".

Their conclusions have not previously been made public and Indian officials have made significant efforts to avoid blaming Tehran, an ally and oil supplier.

The governments of Georgia and Thailand, which both uncovered bomb plots on the day of the Delhi attack, have also not officially blamed Iran.

European intelligence officials told the Guardian they now found it difficult to judge Tehran's "risk calculus".

"Until recently it was possible to see why they were doing what they have been doing," one intelligence official said. "Now it has become very unpredictable. It's very hard to see the logic behind [the February bombings], other than perhaps demonstrate an ability to cause problems in the event of war or a desire for revenge of some kind."

Tehran, which said the Delhi bombing was a "false flag" operation by enemies hoping to smear Iran, insists its nuclear programme is peaceful. Israel and western countries say Tehran aims to build nuclear weapons and have imposed a series of sets of sanctions over the last five years. Israel has repeatedly threatened military strikes. Expectations of the talks in Moscow on 18 and 19 June are low.

Police evidence, witness statements and court documents seen by the Guardian, plus interviews with local and international law enforcement and security officials, indicate that the attempted triple-bombing on 13 and 14 February was conducted by a well co-ordinated network of about a dozen Iranians and prepared over at least 10 months.

The evidence includes the identification of at least 10 Iranians allegedly involved in the plots, money transfers to key individuals from Iran, the use of Iranian phone connections and the flight following the attacks of conspirators to Iran.

"The question is not was this Iran-backed or Iran-organised but who in Iran was running all this," said one western security official.

The first elements of the plot were put in place in April 2011 when at least five Iranians who have been implicated in the attacks travelled to Thailand and India, apparently on reconnaissance missions, investigators say. Their journeys came around four months after a spike in tension between Iran, Israel and the west following the killing in Tehran of Majid Shahriari, a nuclear scientist, by a bomb stuck to his vehicle by a motorcyclist.

They also followed reports that Israel and the US were to blame for a computer worm called Stuxnet, which infected the operating systems at Iran's uranium enrichment plant in Natanz.

Travel documents, phone records, police inquiries and customs data show how, in a series of trips by key individuals over the summer and autumn of 2011, flats were hired, local helpers recruited, transport arranged, finances organised and surveillance of targets carried out.

Houshang Afshar Irani has been identified by Indian police as the man who attached a magnetic charge to the car of the wife of the Israeli defence attaché in Delhi. Copies of his passport show he first visited the city in April 2011 for 10 days before returning on 29 January this year. At 11.30pm on 13 February, almost seven hours after reaching the Indian capital's main airport 75 minutes after the bomb attack, he flew to Malaysia and then on to Tehran via Dubai.

Analysis by Indian investigators of the type of explosive used in Delhi reveal it to be a variant of TNT. The shell of the bomb was manufactured outside India and magnetic strips used to attach the device to the car in Delhi were identical to those recovered in Bangkok and Tbilisi.

The attack in Bangkok involved at least five people, all Iranians. One, a 31-year-old woman identified as Leila Rohani, visited Thailand twice in 2012 and rented the house off the central Sukhumvit Road that was partly destroyed when 28-year-old Saeed Moradi, also Iranian, appears to have prematurely detonated a device. Moradi, who suffered serious injuries, was arrested. From Bangkok, Rohani travelled to Kuala Lumpur and then on to Tehran, investigators have found.

A second alleged conspirator was detained at the airport, also en route for Tehran. This man, Sedaghatzadeh Masoud, 31, is believed to be the overall co-ordinator of the international operation. Masoud is in custody in Malaysia, pending possible extradition to Thailand.

As in Delhi, a reconnaissance trip also appears to have been conducted in Thailand in April 2011. Members of the cell were pictured with bar girls in the sleazy resort of Pattaya days before the blast.

Details of the Tbilisi plot and its links to the other two attacks are less clear. Indian investigators say the mobile phone number used by Irani, the alleged Delhi bomber, during his 2011 visit to India was also used in June last year in the Georgian capital, linking the two plots.

There are questions about who might be responsible within Iran. One possibility is that the attacks were sub-contracted to the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group. The attack came close to the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, its operations chief, in a car bombing in Damascus.

A team of top Indian police officers has been set to travel to Tehran for several weeks but the trip now appears unlikely to go ahead.

Analysts speculate that one reason India may have been chosen as a location for the attacks is that their perpetrators could count on the desire of Delhi to keep friendly relations with Tehran and to "go easy" on any investigation or prosecution.

"Let's just say the demands of diplomacy and those of police work don't necessarily always coincide," said one senior Indian police officer involved in the investigation.

India has, however, asked Interpol and the Iranian ministry of foreign affairs for assistance in its inquiry.

Investigators are also looking at a possible attack in Baku, Azerbaijan, which apparently involved local criminals with links to Iran targeting Israeli and American officials.

 

Iran Was Behind Bomb Plot Against Israeli diplomats, Investigators Find

 

Of course, it’s OK for Israel to run an assassination program targeting Iranian scientists & its OK for Barack baby to gleefully unleash the latest US war-play-toy, the dreaded drone, on innocent civilians across the middle east & Africa, but how outrageous that those dreadful Iranians might contemplate retaliation!! What is the world coming to?

 

caught in the light .....

The announcement by Iran's intelligence ministry that it has arrested 20 people associated with the terrorist operations in which two of the country's nuclear scientists were assassinated received the Western mainstream media's meaningful silence, but clearly demonstrated the influence and might of Iran's intelligence apparatus, giving a serious warning to the hell-bent enemies of the nation that their further plots and conspiracies can be immediately nipped in the bud.

According to Iran's intelligence ministry, about 20 suspects linked to the assassination of nuclear scientists Majid Shahriari and Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan have been arrested and further details regarding their detainment will be released as soon as the security precautions are lapsed.

In an interview with Young Journalists Club, Iran's intelligence minister Heydar Moslehi said that these suspects, through the soil of a neighbouring country, have frequently travelled back and forth to Israel to receive training, weaponry and ammunition needed to carry out their clandestine operations.

Different analyses have been put forward with regards to the assassination of Iran's nuclear scientists. The common point in all of the political commentators' assessments of the killings is that whether ordered and perpetrated by Israel or the United States, these killings are indicative of a large-scale, multifaceted covert conspiracy aimed at paralysing Iran's nuclear program.

So far, five scientists in connection with Iran's nuclear program have been assassinated. The United States has denied any role in the murders, while Israel has remained silent. On June 14, BBC Persian website published a report in which it alleged that Israel has refused to deny involvement in the killings because it wants to intimidate Iranians and exaggerate the extent of its intelligence authority: "it's not clear whether or not the ambiguous stance of Israel's intelligence entities bespeaks of their actual involvement in the assassination of Iran's nuclear experts or is aimed at intimidating [Iranians] and strengthening this standpoint that these organizations are strikingly capable of carrying out their plans."

The same day and after the announcement of Iran's intelligence ministry that the main elements behind the killing of Dr. Shahriari and Dr. Ahmadi Roshan were arrested, Guardian published a biased report and absurdly claimed that Iran is incapable of protecting its scientists: "embarrassed domestically by the inability to protect its scientists, Iran claims it has launched various sophisticated operations to identify the culprits."

Hasn't the Guardian correspondent really noticed that it's impossible for such a large country as Iran with hundreds of researchers and scholars to designate bodyguards and provide exclusive security for all of its nuclear scientists? This report was resplendent with statements which showed an attempt to underestimate the important achievement of Iran's intelligence ministry.

The Western media did the same when Iran arrested and then executed the assassin of Dr. Masoud Ali Mohammadi, Iranian particle physics expert and a scientist associated with the country's nuclear program. Dr. Ali Mohammadi was killed when a booby-trapped motorbike parked near his car exploded when he was leaving his home to set off for university.

In his confessions, the 24-year-old killer, named Majid Jamali Fashi, revealed that he received USD 120,000 from CIA to assassinate Masoud Alli Mohammadi in a terrorist operation. On March 31, Haaretz cited the Time Magazine as reporting that the Western intelligence agencies have confirmed Fashi's detailed televised confessions as genuine. In his visits to Israel, Jamali Fashi received sophisticated physical and military training, one laptop containing details regarding the location of Dr. Ali Mohammadi's house and detonative boxes to be installed somewhere in the proximity of the victim's residence.

Now, following the conclusion of Moscow nuclear talks between Iran and P5+1 and the detention of 20 people who are said to be Mossad and CIA spies, the world is once again focusing on the Israel-directed operations aimed at delivering a blow to Iran and convincing Tehran to give up its nuclear rights.

Launching recurrent cyber-attacks to smash up Iran's uranium enrichment facilities and spreading dangerous viruses such as Stuxnet which have infected many computers related to the country's nuclear program paralleled with assassinating key figures in Iran's nuclear program, imposing severe financial sanctions and spearheading a pernicious media propaganda to demonize Iran and its people in the eyes of global public are the concerted efforts of the vicious triangle of Israel, the United States and the United Kingdom who have long tried to portray Iran as a threat to international peace and security.

Although Haaretz, in a March 31 story, reported that according to Wikileaks cables, Israel has scaled back its covert operations in Iran, the recent news that Iran has arrested 20 people linked to the assassination of two of its nuclear scientists shows that there are many hands at work which tirelessly make attempts to derail Iran's security and destabilize the country.

In an article published immediately after the assassination of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan on January 12, Jerusalem Post wrote, "eliminating the brains behind Tehran's nuclear program gives more time for diplomacy and sanctions to kick in."

The Israeli paper made a general statement with regard to the death of Dr. Ahmadi Roshan, writing that this assassination marked "another day in the ongoing shadow war between Iran and the Western world," meaning that perhaps it is not Tel Aviv that should be held responsible for the killing, but the other Western countries. This "deliberate ambiguity" is a characteristic policy of Israeli regime. They do the same with regards to their nuclear program. They neither affirm nor deny that they possess nuclear weapons, thus officially making a mockery of the international community.

Although the detention of 20 people connected with the assassination of Iran's nuclear scientists was downplayed by the mainstream media, it was a major intelligence breakthrough and will portend bad days for the intelligence services of Israel and the United States, bringing to light the fact that the ongoing progresses of Iran cannot be hindered by assassinating its scientists.

The arrests made by the intelligence apparatus of Iran renewed hopes that the mischievous and roguish plots of the enemy will not remain unanswered.

We should wait for the confessions of the terrorists to come which will unquestionably unveil many hidden facts behind the painful, heartrending assassination of Iran's nuclear scientists.

Terrorists Arrested - Hopes Renewed

the great game .....

Iranian politicians and military commanders said Wednesday that their country would never relinquish what they called its nuclear rights, a day after talks between Iran and world powers in Moscow failed to make substantive progress in the dispute over Iran's uranium enrichment.

Some commanders even asserted that Iran was not only impervious to Western threats but poised to dominate economically, despite evidence that the accumulation of sanctions on Iran, which are set to intensify in a few weeks, could cripple its ability to sell oil, the country's economic lifeline.

But the higher-ranking Iranian officials who set out the countries policies and whose comments determine the scope of reactions to international events have not yet publicly reflected on the outcome of the Moscow talks.

Besides the Tuesday news conference by Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, in Moscow, who said the talks had been "realistic and serious," there has been no reaction by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei or President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The talks yielded no result other than a lower level technical meeting in two weeks and only the possibility of the top negotiators getting together.

The technical meeting will take place a few days after the European Union's July 1 embargo on Iranian oil and ban on shipping insurance for Iranian oil, which will vastly complicate Iranian oil sales to Asian buyers. Most maritime insurers are based in Europe and they are prohibited from writing policies on any Iranian oil shipped anywhere. South Korean officials on Wednesday told the Korean Yonhap news agency the new sanctions would force them to completely stop buying oil from Iran, even though the country secured an American waiver allowing South Korea to buy some Iranian oil without incurring penalties under a United States law that sanctions Iran. Japan, another major customer of Iranian crude that has secured an American waiver, is taking steps to provide government guarantees on insurance.

A senior member of Iran's parliament, Mohammad Reza Bahonar, in a Wednesday news conference, stressed that the Moscow talks had been positive for Iran as they allowed the country to gauge whether the world powers are serious in the negotiations. "Iran submitted a good proposal to them," he said.

While Iran's leaders initially showed optimism over renewed talks on their nuclear program in April, they became disappointed after what they say was the United States withdrawal of a promise to affirm their right to enrich uranium.

Iran is in violation of a series of United Nations Security Council resolutions demanding that it halt all forms of uranium enrichment. Iran regards the resolutions as illegitimate.

Western powers and Israel have accused Iran of stockpiling enriched uranium as part of an effort to achieve the capability to make nuclear weapons. The Iranians have denied those accusations and say a fatwa, or religious decree, by Ayatollah Khamenei forbids such weapons as against Islam.

Iranian leaders, including President Ahmadinejad, have hinted that if the world powers officially accepted Iran's nuclear energy program, Iran would halt its enrichment of uranium to 20% purity, which is considered a technical step away from weapons grade purity of 90%.

"The world powers should recognize Iran's nuclear rights. Iran will never give up its right to achieve peaceful nuclear technology," Mr Bahonar told the state Islamic Republic News Agency.

The rial, Iran's currency, lost some value against the dollar and euro in the aftermath of the Moscow talks, partly on expectations that the looming new sanctions on Iran would further impair its economy. The rial has lost over half its value relative to the dollar in the past 12 months, which has doubled prices of many imports.

There have been no new calls from Iranian officials telling citizens to be prepare for difficult times, but the commander-in-chief of the voluntary paramilitary forces said Wednesday said that world powers would fail in their coercion efforts.

"Iranian people are ready to prove that the world powers are nothing, which means that they cannot wage a war or put pressure on Iran," the commander, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi, was quoted as saying by the semi-official Fars news agency.

Some said Iran's economy was in its best shape ever and poised to emerge as a world powerhouse.

The commander of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami, said that "60% of the energy of the universe has been secured by Iran," the semi-official Islamic Labour New Agency reported, making Iran ready to "dominate the world economy."

Pressures and sanctions have only made Iran stronger, he concluded. "Today we are witnessing the political funeral of the West," General Salami said.

Iran Officials Assert Defiance Of West In Aftermath of Nuclear Talks