Israel teams with terror group to kill Iran's nuclear
scientists, U.S. officials tell NBC News
Deadly attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists are being carried out by an
Iranian dissident group that is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service, U.S. officials tell NBC News, confirming charges
leveled by Iran’s
leaders.
The group, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, known by various acronyms,
including MEK, MKO and PMI, has long been designated as a terrorist group by
the United States, accused
of killing American servicemen and contractors in the 1970s and supporting the
takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran
before breaking with the Iranian mullahs in 1980.
The attacks, which have killed five Iranian nuclear scientists since
2007 and may have destroyed a missile research and development site, have been
carried out in dramatic fashion, with motorcycle-borne assailants often
attaching small magnetic bombs to the exterior of the victims’ cars.
Mohammad Javad Larijani, a senior aide to Iran's supreme leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, describes what Iranian leaders believe is a close
relationship between Israel's secret service, the Mossad, and the People's
Mujahedin of Iran, or MEK, which is considered a terrorist organization by the
United States.
“The relation is very intricate and close,” said Mohammad Javad
Larijani, a senior aide to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s
supreme leader, speaking of the MEK and Israel. “They (Israelis) are
paying … the Mujahedin. Some of their (MEK) agents … (are) providing Israel with information.
And they recruit and also manage logistical support."
Moreover, he said, the Mossad, the Israeli secret service, is training
MEK members in Israel
on the use of motorcycles and small bombs. In one case, he said, Mossad
agents built a replica of the home of an Iranian nuclear scientist so that the
assassins could familiarize themselves with the layout prior to the attack.
Much of what the Iranian government knows of the attacks and the links
between Israel
and MEK comes from interrogation of an assassin who failed to carry out an
attack in late 2010 and the materials found on him, Larijani said.
Two senior U.S.
officials confirmed for NBC News the MEK’s role in the assassinations,
with one senior official saying, “All your inclinations are correct.”
As it has in the past, Israel’s
Foreign Ministry declined comment. Said a spokesman, "As long as we
can't see all the evidence being claimed by NBC, the Foreign Ministry won't
react to every gossip and report being published worldwide."
For its part, the MEK pointed to a statement calling the
allegations “absolutely false.” Ali Safavi, a long-time representative of
the MEK, underscored the denial after publication of this article.
"There has never been and there is no MEK member in Israel, period," he
said. "The MEK has categorically denied any involvement. The idea that Israel is
training MEK members on its soil borders on perversity. It is absolutely and
completely false."
The sophistication of the attacks supports the Iranian claims that an
experienced intelligence service is involved, experts say. In the most
recent attack, on Jan. 11, 2012, Mostafa Ahamdi Roshan died in a blast in Tehran moments after two
assailants on a motorcycle placed a small magnetic bomb on his vehicle. Roshan
was a deputy director at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility and was
reportedly involved in procurement for the nuclear program, which Iran insists is
not a weapons program.
Previous attacks include the assassination of Massoud Ali-Mohammadi,
killed by a bomb outside his Tehran home in
January 2010, and an explosion in November of that year that took the life of
Majid Shahriari and wounded Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, who is now the head of Iran’s Atomic
Energy Organization.
In the case of Roshan, the bomb appears to have been a shaped charge
that directed all the explosive power inside the vehicle, killing him and his
bodyguard driver but leaving nearby traffic unaffected.
Although Roshan was directly involved in the nuclear program, working at
the huge centrifuge facility between Tehran and Qom, at least one other
scientist who was killed wasn’t linked to the Iranian nuclear program,
according to Larijani.
Speaking of bombing victim Ali-Mohammadi, whom he described as a friend,
Larijani told NBC News, “In fact this guy who was assassinated was not involved
in the nitty-gritty of the situation. He was a scientist, a physicist,
working on the theoretically parts of nuclear energy, which you can teach it in
every university. You can find it in every text.”
“This is an Israeli plot. A dirty plot,” Larijani added angrily.
He also claimed the assassinations are not having an effect on the program and
have only made scientists more resolute in carrying out their mission.
Not so, said Ronen Bergman, an Israeli commentator and author of “Israel’s Secret War with Iran” and an
upcoming book tentatively titled, “Mossad and the Art of Assassination.”
"WHITE DEFECTIONS"
Bergman said the attacks have three purposes, the most obvious being the
removal of high-ranking scientists and their knowledge. The others:
forcing Iran
to increase security for its scientists and facilities and to spur “white
defections.”
He explained the latter this way: “Scientists leaving the project,
afraid that they are going to be next on the assassination list, and say, ‘We
don't want this. Indeed, we get good money, we are promoted, we are
honored by everybody, but we might get killed. It isn't worth it.
Maybe we should go back to teach … in a university.’”
There are unconfirmed reports in the Israeli press and elsewhere that Israel and the MEK were involved in a Nov.
12 explosion that destroyed the Iranian missile research and development site
at Bin Kaneh, 30 miles outside Tehran. Among
those killed was Maj. Gen. Hassan Moghaddam, director of missile development
for the Revolutionary Guard, and a dozen other researchers.
Indeed, there may be other covert operations carried out either by Israel acting
alone or in concert with others, according to Bergman. “Two labs caught fire,”
said Bergman, enumerating the attacks. “Scientists got blown up or
disappeared. A missile base and the R&D base of the Revolutionary
Guard exploded some time ago, with the director of the R&D division of the
Revolutionary Guard being killed along with … his soldiers.” Bergman
added, “So, a long series of … something that was termed by an Israeli
(Cabinet) minister … as ‘mysterious mishaps’ happening and re-happening to the
project.
PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE
Dr. Uzi Rabi, director of the Dayan
Center at Tel
Aviv University,
said the supposed accidents could all be part of “psychological warfare”
conducted against Iran.
“It seems logical. It makes sense,” he said of possible MEK involvement, “and
it’s been done before.”
Rabi, who regularly briefs Israel’s
parliament, the Knesset, on Iran
also said the ultimate goal of the range of covert operations being carried out
by Israel is “to damage the
politics of survivability … to send a message that could strike fear into the
rulers of Iran.”
For the United States,
the alleged role of the MEK is particularly troublesome. In 1997, the
State Department designated it a terrorist group, justifying it with an
unclassified 40-page summary of the organization’s activities going back
more than 25 years. The paper, sent to Congress in 1998, was written by
Wendy Sherman, now undersecretary of state for political affairs
ISRAELI ALLIES KILLED AMERICANS AND FOUGHT FOR SADDAM HUSSEIN
The report, which was obtained by NBC News, was unsparing in its
assessment. “The Mujahedin (MEK) collaborated with Ayatollah Khomeini to
overthrow the former shah of Iran,”
it said. “As part of that struggle, they assassinated at least six American
citizens, supported the takeover of the U.S. embassy, and opposed the
release of the American hostages.” In each case, the paper noted, “Bombs
were the Mujahedin's weapon of choice, which they frequently employed against
American targets.”
“In the post-revolutionary political chaos, however, the Mujahedin lost
political power to Iran's
Islamic clergy. They then applied their dedication to armed struggle and the
use of propaganda against the new Iranian government, launching a violent and
polemical cycle of attack and reprisal."
U.S. officials have
said publicly that the information contained in the report was limited to
unclassified material, but that it also drew on classified
material in making its determination to add the MEK to the U.S. list of
terrorist organizations.
The MEK and its sister organizations have since the beginning been run
by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, a husband-wife team who have maintained tight
control despite assassination threats and internal dissent. Massoud Rajavi, 63,
founded the MEK, but since the U.S.
invasion of Iraq has taken a
backseat to his wife.The State Department report describes the Rajavis as
“fundamentally undemocratic” and “not a viable alternative to the current
government of Iran.”
One reason for that is the MEK’s close relationship with Saddam Hussein,
as demonstrated by a 1986 video showing the late Iraqi dictator meeting with
Massoud Rajavi. Saddam recruited the MEK in much the same way the Israelis
allegedly have, using them to fight Iranian forces during the Iran-Iraq War, a
role they took on proudly. So proudly, they invited NBC News to one of
their military camps outside Baghdad
in 1991.
“The National Liberation Army (MLA), the military wing of the Mujahedin,
conducted raids into Iran
during the latter years of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War,” according to the State
Department report. The NLA's last major offensive reportedly was conducted
against Iraqi Kurds in 1991, when it joined Saddam Hussein's brutal repression
of the Kurdish rebellion. In addition to occasional acts of sabotage, the
Mujahedin are responsible for violent attacks in Iran that victimize civilians.”
“Internally, the Mujahedin run their organization autocratically,
suppressing dissent and eschewing tolerance of differing viewpoints,” it said.
“Rajavi, who heads the Mojahedin’s political and military wings, has fostered a
cult of personality around himself.”
The U.S.
suspicion of the MEK doesn’t end there. Law enforcement officials have told NBC
News that in 1994, the MEK made a pact with terrorist Ramzi Yousef a year after
he masterminded the first attack on the World
Trade Center
in New York City.
According to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Yousef built
an 11-pound bomb that MEK agents placed inside one of Shia Islam’s greatest
shrines in Mashad, Iran, on June 20, 1994. At
least 26 people, mostly women and children, were killed and 200 wounded in the
attack.
In recent years, the MEK has said it has renounced violence, but Iranian
officials say that is not true, that killings of Iranians continue. Still,
through some deft lobbying, the group has been able to get the United Kingdom
and the European Union to remove it from their lists of terrorist groups.
The alleged involvement of the MEK in the assassinations of Iranian
nuclear scientists provides the U.S.
with a cloak of deniability regarding the clandestine killings.
Iranian officials initially accused the Israelis and MEK of being behind
the attacks, but they have since added the CIA to the list. Three days after
the Jan. 11, 2012, bombing in Tehran that killed Roshan, the state news agency
IRNA reported that Iran’s Foreign Ministry had sent a diplomatic letter to the
U.S. claiming to have “evidence and reliable information” that the CIA provided
“guidance, support and planning” to assassins directly involved in the attack.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton immediately denied any
connection to the killings. “I want to categorically deny any United States involvement in any kind of act of
violence inside Iran,” Clinton told reporters on
the day of the attack.
At least two GOP presidential candidates have no problem with the
targeting of nuclear scientists. In a November debate, former House
Speaker Newt Gingrich endorsed “taking out their scientists,” and former
Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum called it, ”a wonderful thing.”
CROSS-SECTION OF U.S.
POLITICIANS AND TOP COPS SUPPORT TERROR GROUP
The MEK’s opposition to the Iranian government also has recently earned
it both plaudits and support from an odd mix of political bedfellows. A group
of former Cabinet-level officials have joined together to support the MEK’s
removal from the official U.S. Foreign Terrorist Organization list, even taking
out a full-page ad last year in the New York Times calling for the removal of
the MEK from the U.S. terrorist list. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean,
former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former U.N. Ambassador John
Bolton; former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former FBI Director Louis
Freeh and former Rep. Patrick Kennedy were among those whose signatures were on
the ad.
“There’s an extraordinary group of bipartisan or even apolitical
leaders, military leaders, diplomats, the United States … the United Kingdom,
the European Union, even a U.S. District Court in Washington, said that this
group that was put on the foreign terrorist organization watch list in 1997
doesn’t deserve to be there,” Tom Ridge said in November on “The Andrea
Mitchell Show” on MSNBC TV.
U.S. politicians also
have been pushing the U.S.
government to protect the 3,400 MEK members and their families at Camp Ashraf
in Iraq, about 35 miles
north of Baghdad.
With the departure of U.S.
troops, the MEK feared that Iraqi forces, with encouragement from Iran, would
attack the camp, leading to a bloodbath. At the last minute, however, agreement
was brokered with the United Nations that would permit the MEK members’
departure for resettlement in unspecified democratic countries. As of
this week, there’s been little movement on the planned resettlement.
The Iranians see what’s happening as terrorism and hypocrisy by the United States.
They have forwarded documents and other evidence to the United Nations – and
directly to the United
States, they say.
Daniel Byman, a professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown
University and also a senior fellow with the Saban Center for Middle East
Policy at the Brookings Institution, said that if the accounts of the
Israeli-MEK assassinations are accurate, the operation borders on terrorism.
“In theory, states cannot be terrorist, but if they hire locals to do
assassinations, that would be state sponsorship,” said Byman, author of the
recent book, “A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli
Counterterrorism.”
“You could argue that they took action not to terrorize the public, the
purpose of terrorism, but only the nuclear community. An argument could
also be made that degrading the program means that you don’t have to take
military action and thus, this is a lower level of violence and that really
these are military targets, where normally terrorist targets are civilians.”
But ultimately, Byman said, there is a “spectrum of
responsibility” and that Israel is
ultimately responsible.
Ronen Bergman, while not speaking on behalf of the Israeli government,
suggests that there is a justification, citing an oft-repeated but disputed
quote in which Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s said that Israel should
be wiped off the face of the earth.
NAZI ANALOGY AS ALIBI FOR ISRAELI TERROR
“Meir Degan, the chief of Mossad, when he was in office, hung a
photograph behind him, behind the chair of the chief of Mossad,” notes the
Israeli commentator. “And in that photograph you see -- an ultra-orthodox
Jew -- long beard, standing on his knees with his-- hands up in the air, and
two Gestapo soldiers standing -- beside him with guns pointed at him. One
of -- one of them is smiling. “And Degan used to say to his people and the
people coming to visit him from CIA, NSA, et cetera, ‘Look at this guy in the
picture. This is my grandfather just seconds before he was killed by the SS,’”
Bergman said. “’… We are here to prevent this from happening again.’"
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