Did Hizballah Beat the CIA at Its Own Techno-Surveillance Game? (2011)

The CIA found itself in some rough waters in the Middle East last week. On Thursday, an influential member of Iran’s parliament announced that the Islamic republic had arrested 12 “CIA agents” who had allegedly been targeting Iran’s military and its nuclear program. The lawmaker didn’t give the nationality of the agents, but the presumption is that they were Iranians recruited to spy for the CIA. The agency hasn’t yet commented, but from what I’ve heard it was a serious compromise, one which the CIA is still trying to get to the bottom of.

Even more curious was the flap in Lebanon. In June, Hizballah’s secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah announced that the movement had arrested two of its own members as CIA spies. But it wasn’t until last week that the story got traction in Washington. The CIA confirmed that operations in Beirut had been compromised but declined to offer details. As in the case of the alleged Iranian debacle, it’s no doubt still doing a “damage assessment” — a process that can take years. Even then, it will be difficult to determine exactly what happened.

From what I’ve been able to piece together, Hizballah aggressively went after the CIA in Lebanon using telephone “link analysis.” That’s a form of electronic intelligence gathering that uses software capable of combing through trillions of gigabytes of phone-call data in search of anomalies — prepaid cell phones calling each other, series of brief calls, analysis of a cell-phone company’s GPS tracking. Geeks who do this for a living understand how it works, and I’ll take their word for it.

But it’s not the technology that’s remarkable, as much as the idea that it’s being employed by Hizballah, a militant Islamic organization better known for acts of terror than for electronic counterespionage. That’s another reminder that Hizballah has effectively supplanted the Lebanese state, taking over police and security functions that in other countries are the exclusively the domain of sovereign authority. Indeed, since Nasrallah’s announcement of catching the CIA agents, no Lebanese authority has questioned why Hizballah, rather than Lebanese intelligence, would be responsible for catching alleged spies for foreign powers in Lebanon. Nobody bothers to ask what would be a pointless question; everyone knows that when it comes to military and security functions, Hizballah might as well be the state.

(Watch a video of Hizballah’s theme park.)
Since I served in Beirut during the ’80s, I’ve been struck by the slow but inexorable shift of sovereign power to Hizballah. Not only does the movement have the largest military, with nearly 50,000 rockets pointed at Israel; it has de facto control over Lebanon’s spies, both military and civilian. It green-lights senior appointments. Hizballah also is wired into all the databases, keeping track of who enters the country, who leaves, where they stay, whom they see and call. It’s capable of monitoring every server in the country. It can even tap into broadband communications like Skype. And, of course, it doesn’t bother with such legal niceties as warrants. If foreigners are going to be caught spy in Lebanon, it will be Hizballah that catches them.

I have a feeling last week’s events bodes ill for U.S. intelligence because it suggests that anyone capable from organized crime to terrorist groups can greatly enhance their counterintelligence capability by simply buying off-the-shelf equipment and the know-how to use it. Like a lot of people, I thought it would be easy coasting at the end of the Cold War after the KGB was defanged. Instead, globalization and the rapid spread of sophisticated technologies have opened an espionage Pandora’s box.

By Robert Baer Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011
Find this story at 30 November 2011

© 2016 Time Inc.

The Iranian-Saudi Proxy Wars Come to Mali (2015)

The Iranian-Saudi Proxy Wars Come to Mali
In schools, mosques, and cultural centers, Shiites and Sunnis are battling for African hearts and minds.

BAMAKO, Mali — In a country where two-thirds of the adults are illiterate, it is a privileged few who have the chance to study at the Mustafa International School.

Located in the western suburbs of Bamako, a few blocks from the U.S. Embassy, the college-level seminary has just 180 students — 150 men and 30 women. They engage in an intensive curriculum that encompasses theology, history, philosophy, Arabic, Farsi, and world religions. They work in the school’s computer suite, equipped with 12 desktop computers, and get three meals a day at the seminary’s expense. And they do it all under the watchful eyes of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, former supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, whose likeness gazes down on them from his portrait, which hangs above the bookshelves of the school’s library.

These young students are part of Mali’s tiny Shiite community: a group of about 10,000 families nationally, in a country where the Sunni majority makes up an estimated 95 percent of the population of 15 million.

They’re also the stuff of Saudi nightmares.

Historically, West Africa has had a tolerant approach to religious differences, shunning — at least until recently — the sort of Sunni-Shiite sectarian rivalries that have plagued the Middle East in favor of a patchwork of beliefs that incorporate Sufism, Maliki Islam, and traditional animist practices. But Mali — home to seminaries with ties to Iran, like the Mustafa International School, and where diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks this summer reveal that Saudi Arabia is scrambling to fund its own competing schools, mosques, and cultural projects — provides a case study in how the enmity between Sunni Islam and Shiite Islam may be being spread, via Iranian and Saudi proxies, to places thousands of miles from the Middle East.

Unlike most of Mali’s private schools and universities, which charge hefty fees, the Mustafa International School selects students from outside the capital and gives them free room and board. Few of the students hail from Mali’s elite families; rather, they are selected via tests administered to Shiite youth across the country. The highest achievers are offered the chance to continue their study in Iran.

The school is able to afford such generous support for its students because it is backed by an Iranian university in Qom, a city considered holy by Shiite Muslims and famed for its Islamic learning. The state-run University of Qom provides funding and sets the school’s curriculum, which covers various schools of Islamic thought, as well as Shiite jurisprudence.

“The teaching is very good,” said Adam N’Diaye, a 22-year-old student at the facility who recently converted from Sunnism. He aims to become a teacher when he graduates. A quick survey of his classmates revealed that most of his colleagues are aiming to become imams and missionaries.

It’s unclear how many schools and seminaries in Mali have ties to the Islamic Republic or just how close these ties are. There’s also no direct evidence to indicate that schools like the Mustafa International School are necessarily part of a larger effort by the Iranian government to make Shiite converts. Officials at the Iranian Cultural Center in Bamako declined to give any details about the number of educational institutions to which they have ties; the Saudi-based paper Al Yaum has previously reported that the cultural center runs 10 schools in Mali. Other sources place the number around 13.

Iran and Mali have a warm, if limited, relationship. When Iran’s then-president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, visited Bamako and Timbuktu in 2010, he spoke in glowing terms about solidarity between the two countries and signed a raft of agreements on development aid and Iranian investment in agriculture and extractive industries. The Mustafa International School’s director, Mohamed Diabaté, who studied in Iran and maintains links with clerics there, makes appearances on Malian television to talk about his understanding of Islam. (He argues that the Tidjaniya school of Sufism common across West Africa has roots in Shiite, rather than Sunni, teaching.)

The presence of Shiism here isn’t something Saudi Arabia is taking lightly. Among the nearly 60,000 diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks on June 19 are a slew of documents detailing the kingdom’s fear of a “rising tide of Shiism” resulting from proselytization on the part of Saudi Arabia’s rival in the Middle East, Iran. Cables detailing specific Iranian charities, schools, and media outlets from Kazakhstan to Spain — as well as vague fears of “Shiite activities” elsewhere — show that Saudi diplomats see Shiism not only to be a vile heresy, but a movement inseparably tied to Iranian political clout. And even the smallest Shiite community is considered a threat.

“Despite the Iranian Embassy’s efforts [in Mali], there hasn’t been a lot of uptake, but it is possible that their thinking could spread in the future in a broader way and their Shiite activities could gain a base,” reads a cable from the Saudi Embassy in Bamako to the Foreign Ministry in Riyadh in early 2009. It recommends funding rival projects — mosques, schools, cultural programs, proselytization, and summer courses — to “strengthen the growing position of the [Saudi] kingdom” in Mali and promote Saudi Arabia’s image as “the protector of the noble Islamic faith.” It adds that this should be done “in a way that promotes peaceful coexistence between different ideologies and counters the Shiite spread.”

Mali offers a potentially rich source of converts to Shiism. “People in Mali love the family of the Prophet,” Diabaté said. The Tidjaniya Sufi order, which has a long history throughout West Africa, honors members of the Prophet Mohammed’s family as pure, devout individuals. It’s a small leap from that to the belief, fundamental to Shiism, that members of the Prophet’s family should have taken over leadership of the Islamic community upon his death. It’s a link that has not gone unnoticed in Riyadh.

“Iran is exploiting the Sufis’ love for the family of the Prophet in order to show Iran as a great Islamic nation that is an enemy of the infidels and supports all the Muslims,” reads the cable.

“Many Malians don’t realize the truth of Shiite thinking: fanatical, racist, and the enemy of other Islamic doctrines.”
But though the cables ring of paranoia, the notion that Mali’s tiny Shiite community has outsized political significance and links to Tehran seems to have found traction among some Sunni locals.

“There are not even 1 percent of the population who are Shiite in Mali. But there is a political presence, run by the Iranians,” said Mahmoud Dicko, the president of the High Islamic Council of Mali and one of the country’s most powerful clerics.

Dicko was among 30 senior Malian clerics who signed a 2008 open letter in support of influential Egyptian Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s outspoken stance against Shiite evangelism. The letter warned of “the dangers of the rising tide of Shiism,” which aims to “turn Sunni societies Shiite, undermine their states, and impose Persian hegemony over them.”

Mali has raw memories of religious conflict. In 2012, an alliance of Tuareg separatists and Islamists linked to al Qaeda invaded the country’s northern half and imposed sharia law before being ousted by French forces. But a low-level insurgency has been rumbling on ever since. Militants have targeted the Malian army, U.N. peacekeepers, and foreign aid workers with drive-by shootings and roadside bombs. The extremist group Ansar Dine claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on a popular restaurant in Bamako in March and the killing of three soldiers in a village near the border with Mauritania in June.

Despite this, for most Malians the phenomenon of religious extremism is a foreign imposition. The fighters involved in the events of 2012 were from outside Mali, and the violence was an exception in a long history of religious tolerance here. Across West Africa, Sunni Islam, Sufism, and traditional animist practices have rubbed shoulders in relative peace for centuries.

One of Mali’s most prominent Baptists, Pastor Mohammed Yattara, is open about his apostasy, something that would be unthinkable across the Middle East and North Africa. Yattara converted from Islam to Christianity when he was 16. When he told his family he had become a Christian, his father disowned him and threw him out of the house. Yet the two stayed in touch until his father’s death, and Yattara’s act of leaving his faith has had few consequences for his personal security.

Among the Muslim majority, Sufi traditions and animist rituals remain important elements of religious practice. In poorer communities, few imams speak Arabic or are educated in the finer points of Islamic philosophy. Some fear that by funding schools, mosques, and much-needed infrastructure, foreign powers are creating divisions that once did not exist in this country, on the periphery of the Arab world.

Many in Dicko’s camp see institutions such as the Mustafa International School and the Iranian Cultural Center as a vehicle for Iranian political influence — an accusation Diabaté refuted, despite pictures of Khomeini in the school office, in the library, and on the back of his car.

“We will not accept the politicization of Islam,” he said. But he admitted that Shiites in Mali look to Iran for support in the face of Salafism. “Every state that represents a sect needs to protect its flock.”

Diabaté, sitting in a small office adjacent to the prayer hall and wearing the long brown robe and white turban of a Shiite scholar, explained how he “used to hate Shiites.” But in the late 1980s, he became part of a group of young scholars who participated in debates with Hassan Hambraze, then Iran’s chargé d’affaires in Bamako and son of a prominent Iranian cleric. In 1988, Hambraze was also responsible for sending a group of Malian students to the first Shiite school in West Africa. Diabaté converted and went on to study in Iran. On his return he became a prominent leader within Mali’s nascent Shiite community.

Today, he speaks of the country’s more hard-line Sunni leaders in conspiratorial terms: “The Salafi thinking is well known. They want to get into power and are planning for that. They plan to take control of the Islamic community.” After a pause, he added: “But we are not staying still. Everyone has their methods.”

Those methods seem clear: to proselytize and offer converts access to a good education and opportunities to travel and work in Iran. The Saudi strategy in Mali is more opaque (widespread rumors among Malians include tales of enormous checks coming from the Gulf to fund prominent Salafists). The diplomatic cables have thrown some light on Saudi activities in the country, which include funding for schools and preacher-training courses run by the Islamic University in Madinah and Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh.

Mali’s minister for religious affairs, Thierno Diallo, says he recognizes that Malian governments have long turned a blind eye to foreign-backed religious projects. Despite the country’s deeply religious population, Mali’s secular constitution means that the state has kept mosques at arm’s length. And while the government is aware of large sums of money entering Mali from unknown sources, it has few resources to reliably track them.

“It’s not documented,” he said, “and there’s no transparency. That’s a serious problem.”

Neither Iran nor Saudi Arabia has explicitly promoted violence in Mali. Diabaté, along with his Sunni counterparts, makes it clear that “Shiites, like everyone else, know that extremist groups in the north show no mercy.” Yet the creation of previously nonexistent sectarian identities for political ends leads to divisions that become associated with political agendas.

Imam Baba Diallo, another member of the High Islamic Council of Mali, said he wants to organize interfaith dialogue between the different sects but has yet to find funding. He looks grave as he talks about the potential consequences of inaction.

“If we fail [to heal the divide], the next war will be between Sunni and Shiite,” he said.

(This reporting was supported by funding from the International Reporting Project.)

BY PAUL RAYMOND, JACK WATLINGAUGUST 19, 2015

Find this story at 19 August 2015
Copyright http://foreignpolicy.com

Leak investigation stalls amid fears of confirming U.S.-Israel operation

A sensitive leak investigation of a former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has stalled amid concerns that a prosecution in federal court could force the government to confirm a joint U.S.-Israeli covert operation targeting Iran, according to current and former U.S. officials.

Federal investigators suspect that retired Marine Gen. James E. “Hoss” Cartwright leaked to a New York Times reporter details about a highly classified operation to hobble Iran’s nuclear enrichment capability through cyber-sabotage — an effort not acknowledged by Israel or the United States.

Prosecutors will have to overcome significant national security and diplomatic concerns if they want to move forward, including pitting the Obama administration against Israel if that ally were opposed to any information about the cyber-operation being revealed in court.

The United States could move forward with the case against Israel’s ­wishes, but such a move might further harm relations between two countries, which are already frayed because of a disagreement over how best to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

Administration officials also fear that any revelations could complicate the current negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program.

“There are always legitimate national security reasons for not proceeding in one of these ­cases,” said John L. Martin, who handled many sensitive espionage investigations as a former Justice Department prosecutor.

The case captures the tension between national security concerns and the desire of prosecutors to hold high-ranking officials to account for leaking classified secrets. The Obama administration has been the most aggressive in U.S. history in pursuing those suspected of leaking classified information.

The Justice Department has offered no clues to whether it intends to proceed with a case against Cartwright, who helped design the cyber-campaign against Iran under President George W. Bush and was involved in its escalation under President Obama.

Spokesmen for the Justice Department, the White House and the FBI declined to comment for this article.

Gregory B. Craig, Cartwright’s attorney and a former White House counsel in the Obama administration, said he has had no contact with prosecutors for more than a year.

“General Cartwright has done nothing wrong,” Craig said. “He has devoted his entire life to defending the United States. He would never do anything to weaken our national defense or undermine our national security. Hoss Cartwright is a national treasure, a genuine hero and a great patriot.”

In discussions with the office of the White House counsel, then led by Kathryn Ruemmler, prosecutors sought to determine whether the White House would be willing to declassify material important to the case. Ruemmler was unwilling to provide the documentation, citing security concerns, including those relating to sources­ and methods, said a person familiar with the matter.

Ruemmler, who left the post in June, declined to comment.

“There’s a fundamental tension in cases­­ like this between the needs of a criminal prosecution and the needs of national security,” said Jason Weinstein, a former deputy assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, who was not briefed on the investigation. “Where that comes to a head is when prosecutors want to use evidence in a courtroom that is highly classified and very sensitive.”

It is often the case that the needs of a particular criminal prosecution yield to national security interests. “At the end of the day,” Weinstein said, “if you can’t use the evidence you need in court, you can’t bring the case.”

Details of the joint program, including its code name, Olympic Games, were revealed by Times reporter David E. Sanger in a book and article in June 2012. The sabotage of Iranian nuclear centrifuges by the computer worm dubbed Stuxnet had emerged two years earlier, and security experts speculated that it was the work of the United States and Israel.

Confirmation of the joint authorship set off a political controversy, with congressional Republicans charging that the White House had deliberately leaked information to enhance Obama’s national security credentials as he sought reelection.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. assigned Rod J. Rosenstein, the U.S. attorney for Maryland, to investigate the leak. His office declined to comment.

FBI investigators focused on Cartwright in the fall of 2012, officials said. They interviewed him at least twice, according to people who are familiar with the case and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation. During the first interview, Cartwright had to go to the hospital.

Part of the challenge of preparing a case like this is determining to what extent authorities who control the declassification of information, in this case the White House and the intelligence community, are willing to divulge information.

In the case of a CIA officer who was recently convicted of espionage, the government disclosed sensitive details during the leak trial about a separate operation to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program that occurred more than a decade ago. The CIA even allowed a Russian scientist who had defected and taken part in the highly classified operation to testify.

“The government’s got to make a choice: Is it more important to prosecute a national security leak or more important to preserve relationships with allies and shield sources­ and methods that protect the country?” said one individual familiar with the matter.

The case also poses opportunities for “graymail” — a situation in which defense attorneys exercise leverage that lawyers in ordinary criminal cases­ lack by forcing prosecutors to make tough judgment calls about divulging sensitive or classified information.

Craig might, for instance, push for broad discovery of information aimed at demonstrating that other officials could have been sources­ of the leak. Experts say he also could press to establish the factual basis for the information leaked, which could expose sensitive material.

Cartwright, who retired in 2011, had White House authorization to speak with reporters, according to people familiar with the matter. Craig might try to put the White House’s relationship with reporters and the use of authorized leaks on display, creating a potentially embarrassing distraction for the administration.

The case could remain open beyond the point at which national security and foreign policy concerns are an issue. Under the Espionage Act, one of the statutes that the government probably would use, prosecutors have 10 years from the date of the alleged crime to file charges.

Sari Horwitz contributed to this report.
By Ellen Nakashima and Adam Goldman March 10

Find this story at 10 March 2015

Copyright https://www.washingtonpost.com/

Israelis tried to send arms to Iran via Greece, probe finds

Israeli arms dealers tried to send spare parts for F-4 Phantom aircraft via Greece to Iran in violation of an arms embargo, according to a secret probe by the US government agency Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) carried out in cooperation with the drugs and weapons unit of Greece’s Financial Crimes Squad (SDOE).

According to the probe, which Kathimerini has had access to, the operation was carried out in two phases – one in December 2012 and the second in April 2013. In both cases, officials traced containers packed with the F-4 parts on Greek territory. The cargo had been sent by courier from the Israeli town of Binyamina-Giv’at Ada and had been destined for Iran, which has a large fleet of F-4 aircraft, via a Greek company registered under the name Tassos Karras SA in Votanikos, near central Athens. SDOE officials established that the firm was a ghost company, while the company’s contact number was found to belong to a British national residing in Thessaloniki who could not be located.

According to HSI memos, the cargo appears to have been sent by arms dealers based in Israel, seeking to supply Iran in contravention of an arms embargo, and using Greece as a transit nation.

Last November, an Athens court ruled against the confiscation of the consignments and ordered that they be delivered to US authorities.

The US imposed sanctions against Iran in 1979, after a revolution which overthrew the Shah, extending them in 1995 to include firms dealing with the Iranian government. Several governments and multinationals have since followed suit.

ekathimerini.com , Sunday February 16, 2014 (15:23)

Find this story at 16 February 2014

© 2014, H KAΘHMEPINH

Exclusive: U.S. Fingers Iranian Commandos for Kidnapping Raid Inside Iraq (2013)

U.S. intelligence officials believe that Iranian commandos took part in a deadly attack on a compound of dissidents inside Iraq and then spirited seven members of the group back to Iran, highlighting Tehran’s increasingly free hand inside Iraq in the wake of the U.S withdrawal from the country.

The Sept. 1 attack on a base called Camp Ashraf killed at least 50 members of the Mujahedeen-e Khalq, or MEK, which had disarmed at the request of the U.S. military after the American invasion of Iraq and received explicit promises of protection from senior commanders. Instead, gory videos released by the group showed that many of its members had been shot with their hands tied behind their backs or in one of the camp’s makeshift hospitals. MEK leaders, backed by an array of U.S. lawmakers, said Iraqi security forces carried out the attack.

Baghdad has long denied the charge, and U.S. officials have now concluded that a small number of Iranian paramilitaries from its feared Islamic Revolution Guards Corps helped plan and direct the assault on the camp. Three officials, speaking to Foreign Policy for the first time, said gunmen from two of Tehran’s Iraqi-based proxies, Kitab Hezbollah and Asaib Ahl al-Haq, then carried out the actual attack. The Iranian involvement in the Ashraf massacre hasn’t been reported before.

“Iraqi soldiers didn’t get in the way of what was happening at Ashraf, but they didn’t do the shooting,” a U.S. official briefed on the intelligence community’s assessment of the attack said in an interview. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified information.

U.S. officials say that Iran’s role in the attack didn’t end with the killings of the MEK members at Ashraf. Instead, officials believe that Iranian commandos and fighters from the country’s Iraqi proxies also abducted seven MEK members and smuggled them back to Iran. The missing MEK supporters haven’t been seen or heard from since the attack.

Direct Iranian involvement in the Ashraf assault is one of the clearest signs yet of Tehran’s growing power within Iraq, a dynamic of deep concern to American policymakers. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite government has long maintained close ties with top Iranian leaders, and U.S. officials believe that Tehran prodded Maliki to refuse to sign a bilateral security pact in the fall of 2010 that would have kept some U.S. troops in the country. Perhaps under Iran’s influence, Maliki has alienated Iraq’s sizable Sunni and Kurdish minorities by centralizing power in Baghdad and refusing to share power or fairly divvy up the country’s oil revenues.

The timing of the attack also raises questions about whether Iran’s security services are as committed to finding a rapprochement with Washington as its civilian government appears to be. The assault took place in September, several months after negotiators from the two governments had begun secret nuclear talks in Oman that ultimately led to last month’s landmark nuclear pact between the Obama administration and the government of Iranian President Hasan Rouhani. The deadly attack on a U.S.-allied group inside Iraq suggests that at least some elements within Tehran are willing to take steps that risk upsetting that fragile equilibrium.

MEK leaders in Washington strongly disagree with the U.S. conclusions about the Ashraf attack. They point out that the facility is guarded by fences, checkpoints and more than 1,200 Iraqi troops, making it extremely difficult for gunmen to reach the camp without, at a minimum, the active cooperation of Iraqi forces. They also note that survivors said the masked gunmen spoke Arabic and argue that the group’s own operatives within Iran would know if the seven missing members had been brought into the country. They believe that Tehran ordered the attack, but say that it was carried out by Iraqi soldiers loyal to Maliki.

“The repeated statements by U.S. officials that Iraq has had no role in the September 1 massacre at Ashraf are only designed to exonerate the Iraqi prime minister and his senior officials from any responsibility in this manifest case of crime against humanity and to help him elude justice,” Shahin Gobadi, a spokesman for the National Council of Iran Resistance, said in a written statement.

U.S. officials, for their part, say that the Iranian commandos could have used Arabic to mask their identities or stayed just outside the camp while the Iraqi gunmen carried out the assault. They also say at the missing MEK members might have been executed shortly after being brought into Iran or imprisoned in secret facilities for interrogation.

The Obama administration has largely declined to publicly address Iranian involvement in the Ashraf attack. During a contentious hearing of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs earlier this month, Secretary of State John Kerry said he couldn’t respond to a question about the missing MEK members in an open, unclassified session.

Still, other senior officials have provided hints about their whereabouts. At a sparsely-attended congressional hearing in mid-November, Brett McGurk, the deputy assistant secretary of state for Iraq and Iran, told lawmakers that the seven MEK members “are not in Iraq.”

McGurk told the lawmakers that the remaining 2,900 MEK members in Iraq wouldn’t be safe until they could be brought out of the country and resettled elsewhere.

“The Iraqi government needs to do everything possible to keep those people safe, but they will never be safe until they’re out of Iraq,” McGurk said at the time. “And we all need to work together — the MEK, us, the committee, everybody, the international community — to find a place for them to go.”

Tehran’s antipathy towards the MEK isn’t surprising. The group has spent years publicly decrying the Iranian government and telling lawmakers that it has broad support within Iran and could help turn the country into a democracy. It has also revealed key details about the country’s nuclear program. In response, Iranian-backed forces inside Iraq have frequently targeted the group. In February, six of its members were killed and dozens were wounded when mortar shells landed at an MEK refugee camp on the grounds of a former U.S. base called Camp Liberty. A Hezbollah affiliate claimed responsibility.

Outgunned in Iraq, the MEK has tried to score points in the Washington influence game. It has enlisted former members of the military and both the Bush and Obama administrations as public advocates and unofficial lobbyists. The State Department designated it as a “foreign terrorist organization” in 1997, but removed the listing in September 2012 after strong pressure from MEK supporters like retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones, Obama’s first national security advisor, and former Attorney General Mike Mukasey. Most of the MEK’s most prominent backers are paid for making public appearances on the group’s behalf, but they also do pro bono work for the organization and say they genuinely believe in its cause.

The group also enjoys strong support on Capitol Hill. In the weeks after the Ashraf assault, New Jersey Democrat Bob Menendez, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a staunch MEK supporter, told Wendy Sherman, the No. 3 official at the State Department, that he would suspend U.S. weapons sales to Iraq until Maliki’s government did more to protect the MEK members still in the country.

The Obama administration, for its part, says the MEK’s members will only be safe once they’ve left Iraq. It’s not clear, however, if or when other countries will step forward and announce a willingness to accept them.

BY Yochi Dreazen DECEMBER 17, 2013 – 06:11 PM

Find this story at 17 December 2013

Copyright foreignpolicy.com

US-Protected Iran Exile Group in Line for Huge Cash Windfall (2009)

The MEK can use some of that cash to pay legal settlements with former members that
they tortured, as well as the families of Iranians they killed when they fought on the side of
Saddam against Iran.

The controversial Iranian exile organization MEK, which the United States calls a terrorist
group, could soon see a windfall of tens of millions of dollars as the result of the European
Union’s decision Monday to take it off its list of terrorist organizations.
If so, it will mark dramatic turnaround the group’s fortunes.

The MEK, shorthand for the Mujahedin-e Khalq, and also known as the People’s
Mujahideen Organisation of Iran, looked like it was on the ropes only days ago, when Iraqi
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said he wanted its U.S.-protected military base near the
Iranian border closed within two months.

But the E.U.’s Jan. 26 decision not only unlocks untold millions of dollars frozen in
European banks, it allows the militant anti-Iran organization to go public with appeals for
millions more, perhaps catapulting it into a leading role in the Iranian opposition abroad.
The MEK could claim $9 million held in France alone, along with “tens of millions of
dollars” worth of assets locked away in other EU countries, its spokesman told Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty.

What will it do with the windfall?

“Set off car bombs around Iran,” jibed former CIA operative Robert Baer, whose pursuit
was dramatized by George Clooney in the 2005 movie “Syriana.”
The group says it has renounced violence, but the MEK has carried out dozens of terrorist
attacks and assassinations against Iranian targets both inside and outside of the country.
Some of those were launched from its base in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, before the 2003
U.S. invasion.

MEK leader Maryam Rajavi said the unfrozen millions “will be used to increase our political
activities … including to further disclose the mullah regime’s secret nuclear weapons sites.”
Since Hussein’s overthrow, the 3,000 MEK fighters in Camp Ashraf, as it’s called, have
been under the “protection” of U.S. troops, even though they’re still officially labeled
terrorists by the State Department.

The seeming anomaly can be at least party explained by frequent reports that the MEK
has been secretly helping the CIA run operations against the Islamic regime from its base
in southeastern Iraq.

Its terrorist label was earned before the 1979 Iranian Islamic revolution, when the group,
which bills itself as Marxist-Islamist, targeted Americans working in Iran. Indeed, 30 years
ago this month the group helped overthrow the U.S.-backed shah and take 52 American
hostages.

But eventually it turned against the religious regime. In 2001 its sustained opposition to
Iran, its supposed renunciation of violence, and its portrayal of itself as a “progressive”
political force won it admirers in the Bush administration and pro-democracy groups in
Europe. Of no small note, it has also played a major role in exposing Iran’s nuclear
activities.

Walid Phares, a scholar on terrorism and American of Lebanese descent, called the
closing of Camp Ashraf “a significant Iranian victory.”
“Ashraf was the only base for the MEK against Iran’s regime,” he said by e-mail. “If it is
shut down, they will lose the only base they have.”
“More than a military base of the opposition against Tehran,” he added, “Ashraf was a
political base for broadcast and political outreach to the opposition in the inside.”
On the other hand, the E.U.’s decision will conceivably allow MEK fighters entry into
Europe, at least temporarily solving the problem of what to do with them once Ashraf is
closed.

That, and the new money, can only add to the MEK’s political clout, which was put on
display last year when the group drew 85,000 people to an anti-Iran protest outside Paris.
To date, exile communities have been divided over the MEK because of its attacks on
Iranian troops from Iraqi soil during the two nations’ 10-year war. Some call the
organization a puritanistic “cult,” because of its iron-fist leadership by a husband and wife
team who have been accused of violating the human rights of their own followers.
But the E.U.’s decision could give the MEK a big boost over its rivals, Phares suggests.
“Once they are decertified [as a terrorist group] they will act as an international NGO [nongovernmental organization] and will most likely receive even more donations from Iranian
exiles,” said Phares, a senior fellow at the hawkish Foundation for the Defense of
Democracies in Washington.

“De-certification by itself will strengthen the group within the Iranian diaspora,” he
continued. “Will they access to frozen funds in EU banks? This is another issue and will
have to be negotiated. But certainly they will have a legal base. They will spend it to widen
their base, and on strategic communications regarding Iran.”
All things considered, it’s not hard to suspect a hidden American hand in the E.U. decision,
or at least acquiescence in it, since it so neatly finesses the eviction notice served on
Camp Ashraf by Prime Minister Maliki.

In any event, it keeps MEK alive — and more — despite the threatened closing of its
longtime base in Iraq.

The Iranian regime reacted sharply to the E.U. move, accusing the union of a “double
standard” on terrorism. It also said it was drafting a plan to put MEK members on trial,
“either in the Islamic Republic or outside the country,” according to Press TV, an Iranian
news service.

By Jeff Stein | January 28, 2009

Find this story at 28 January 2009

Copyright Jeff Stein

Iranian dissidents killed in Iraq camp, U.N. demands inquiry (2013)

(Reuters) – At least 47 people were reported killed at an Iranian dissident camp in Iraq on Sunday, the United Nations said, urging Baghdad to investigate the “tragic events” at a site north of the capital.

The violence took place hours after a mortar bomb attack on the camp which the dissent group Mujahadin-e-Khalq (MEK) blamed on the Iraqi army.

Two Iraqi security sources said that army and special forces had opened fire on residents who had stormed a post at the entrance to Camp Ashraf, a site that Iraq’s government wants closed down. They said at least 19 were killed, 52 wounded and 38 arrested and that they believed residents were not armed.

However, the U.N. statement had a figure closer to the toll given by MEK, which said 52 of its roughly 100 members at the camp had been killed.

An advisor to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said reports that security forces had opened fire on the residents were baseless and said that Maliki had ordered an investigation into what had happened.

“We want to know the truth,” advisor Ali al-Moussawi said. He said it was unclear what had caused the blast in the morning. Residents could have been killed in the explosion or through infighting at the camp, he said. He gave no casualty figures.

In a statement, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appealed for the urgent restoration of security in the camp.

“The United Nations deplores the tragic events at Camp Ashraf today that have reportedly left 47 killed,” he said. Baghdad should “promptly investigate the incident and disclose the findings.”

MEK, which the U.S. State Department removed from its list of terrorist organizations last year, said some residents were machine-gunned with their hands tied behind their backs.

The U.S. embassy in Iraq condemned “the terrible events that took place in Camp Ashraf” and the UN said it would send in a team from its Iraq office to carry out its own probe.

“We further call on Iraqi authorities to act with urgency to immediately ensure medical assistance to the wounded and to secure the camp against any further violence or harm to the residents,” the U.S. embassy statement said, calling for a full, independent investigation.

MALIKI ORDERS PROBE

MEK emailed photos of people it said had been shot in the head during the clashes. Men and women were shown lying on blood-covered floors. It was not possible for Reuters independently to verify the images.

“The Iraqi government stresses the need for help to deport elements of the Mujahadin-e-Khalq who are on Iraqi soil illegally but at the same time confirms its commitment to the safety of souls on its territory,” Maliki’s office said in a statement referring to “events” at Camp Ashraf.

It gave no further details.

MEK wants Iran’s clerical leaders overthrown and fought with former Iraqi Sunni Muslim leader Saddam Hussein’s forces in the 1980s Iran-Iraq war.

It has been seeking to recast itself as an Iranian opposition force but is no longer welcome in Iraq under the Shi’ite Muslim-led government that came to power after U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam in 2003. Iraq’s current government is close to Iranian authorities.

Mortar bomb attacks on a newer MEK camp in a former military compound in western Baghdad, where authorities had relocated most Camp Ashraf MEK members, took place in February and June. At the time, MEK blamed Iran’s Quds force – an elite unit of the Revolutionary Guards with a special focus on foreign operations.

MEK, also known as the People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran, led a guerrilla campaign against the U.S.-backed Iranian Shah during the 1970s that included attacks on U.S. targets.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed and a Reuters reporter in Diyala, Iraq; Writing by Sylvia Westall; Editing by Jon Boyle)

By Kareem Raheem and Sylvia Westall
BAGHDAD Sun Sep 1, 2013 4:47pm EDT

Find this story at 1 September 2013

Copyright Thomson Reuters

EU Takes Iranian Group Off Terror List, But Status Still Disputed (2009)

Iraq has threatened to send MKO members at Camp Ashraf back to Iran, where many fear imprisonment or death.

At its monthly meeting of foreign ministers, the European Union has decided to remove the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) from its list of terrorist organizations.

The decision marks the first time the EU has “de-listed” an organization from its terrorist index, and could free the MKO, also known as the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran, to expand its activities in Europe. It is also likely to further strain Tehran’s already damaged relations with the West.

Formed in the 1960s to fight the shah’s regime, the Islamic-socialist MKO joined the 1979 Islamic revolution that overthrew him, but later fell out with the new clerical regime and fought with Saddam Hussein during Iraq’s 1980-88 war with Iran. Major attacks by the MKO against Tehran ceased by the early 1990s and the group renounced violence in 2001, but Tehran continues to seek MKO members’ extradition.

Maryam Rajavi, the France-based leader of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the political branch of the MKO that has been active in Europe in recent years, characterized the EU move as a “stinging defeat for Europe’s policy of appeasement” of Tehran.

And Said Mahmudi, a professor of international law at the University of Stockholm, says it will end the MKO’s difficulties in raising funds in Europe.

“Even though they had the possibility to contact different political organizations, there were some groups and bodies — particularly some individuals — who, because of the terrorist branding of the group, avoided it and didn’t give it public backing,” Mahmudi says.

“Now that the MKO has been removed from the EU terror list, all the groups that are sympathetic to the MKO will be able to support them publicly and help them without any problem,” he adds.

Shahin Gobadi, a spokesman for the group, says that $9 million had been frozen in France alone, with “tens of millions of dollars” worth of assets also locked away in other EU countries.

History Of Opposition

The development marks a striking turnaround for an organization that remains on the United States’ terrorism list, while remaining a fierce enemy of Tehran.

After its founding in 1965, members of the group took up arms against the Iranian shah and were involved in the killings of several U.S. citizens working in Iran in the 1970s. The group initially supported the 1979 revolution, but then went underground when an uprising against the newly established Islamic regime went awry.

Iranian protesting the decision outside the French Embassy in Tehran
Within years of the revolution, many MKO members were jailed, some were executed, and others fled Iran and went into exile.

The MKO later helped orchestrate a number of attacks against Iran’s leaders, including a 1981 bombing in which Iran’s prime minister and president were killed. In 1986, in the midst of the Iran-Iraq War, the organization’s leaders and members relocated to Iraq, where Saddam Hussein granted them refuge.

The MKO’s support for Iraq in the 1980-88 war is today seen by observers as the main reason for its limited support among Iranians. It is also accused by critics of collaborating with Saddam during his bloody campaign against the Kurds, charges that the MKO denies.

But the militant group renounced violence in 2001 and has not kept arms since 2003. It has also long sought to be removed from the EU and U.S. terror lists as Tehran continued its efforts to oust the group from Iraq.

Renouncing Violence

Iran’s largest opposition group in exile, the MKO follows an ideology that combines Islam and Marxism and says it is the best hope for establishing democracy in Iran. In 2002, the MKO exposed Iran’s covert nuclear activities.

But critics cast doubt on its effectiveness in opposing the Iranian regime, while organizations such as Human Rights Watch (in a 2005 report) have accused it of subjecting dissident members to torture and prolonged solitary confinement.

Massoud Khodabandeh, a former MKO member who currently works as an analyst with the French Center for the Study of Terrorism and an adviser to Iraq’s government, describes the MKO as a personality cult obsessed with celibacy.

“I witnessed forced divorces amid cries and shouts. I witnessed how 150 children under the age of 7 — the youngest was only two months old — were separated from their mothers and sent to other countries because the MKO leader had said [the children] are disrupting my relations with you,” Khodabandeh says.

MKO leaders have in the past rejected similar charges, but the reputation that precedes the group has opened questions about whether Brussels’s move fits with its efforts to promote human rights and to fight terrorism.

“If a group makes a pronouncement that it is abandoning violence, then I think we should be able to give them the chance to prove the case, so I think that’s what the European policy on these matters should be,” says professor John Wilkinson, chairman of the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews.

“Let us find political pathways away from violence where we can,” he continues. “If a group proves that it has not lived up to its claim to abandon violence then, of course, we must revert to using the instruments of criminal justice and law enforcement to deal with it.”

Future Of The People’s Mujahedin

Some 3,000 MKO members are currently based at Camp Ashraf in Iraq. Their presence there has led to increased concern over their fate since the Iraqi government took over responsibility for the camp from U.S. forces earlier this month.

Washington, while keeping the MKO on its list of terrorist organizations, has given members of the group who stay at Ashraf the status of “protected persons” under the Geneva Conventions.

Iraqi officials have made it clear that the group “is not wanted” on Iraqi territory, and have called on MKO members to leave voluntarily. This, in turn, led supporters and rights groups to warn that they could face torture or death if they returned to Iran.

Khodabandeh believes that the EU decision could mean a way out for those MKO members who are willing to leave Ashraf, including a number of his “friends.”

“I hope that the removal of MKO from the EU terror list will enable some of those individuals to be saved from the situation they’re facing in Iraq,” he says. “About 1,000 of them were based in [Europe] before; they should be given the right to return to their families.”

It’s not clear whether the EU decision will have an impact on Washington’s designation of the group as a foreign terrorist organization. The NCRI’s Rajavi, for one, urges the United States to follow the EU’s example.

The former U.S. administration reaffirmed its designation of the MKO as a foreign terrorist organization on January 7.

But Iran, which has said that nothing has changed “in the terrorist nature” of the group, can be expected to take some sort of action against the EU ruling.

In a possible hint at what might come, the head of the National Security Committee of the Iranian parliament on January 25 warned the EU against making a “mistake.”

“There is no reason for Iran to continue tens of billions of euros in economic and trade ties with the EU in this case,” Alaeddin Borujerdi said, adding that Iran has “many options” for new partners.

The Iranian parliament is expected on January 27 to discuss a draft bill “to authorize the government and the judiciary to bring those MKO members who have committed crimes to justice.”

By Golnaz Esfandiari

January 26, 2009

Find this story at 29 January 2009

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty © 2014 RFE/RL, Inc.

U.S. protects Iranian opposition group in Iraq (2007)

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — An Iranian opposition group based in Iraq, labeled a terrorist organization by the United States, gets protection from the U.S. military despite Iraqi pressure to leave the country.

The U.S. considers the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK, a source of valuable intelligence on Iran.

The group also is credited with helping expose Iran’s secret nuclear program through spying on Tehran for decades.

Iranian officials tied the MEK to an explosion in February at a girls school in Zahedan, Iran. (Full story)

The U.S. State Department considers the MEK a terrorist organization — meaning no American can deal with it; U.S. banks must freeze its assets; and any American giving support to its members is committing a crime.

The U.S. military, though, regularly escorts MEK supply runs between Baghdad and its base, Camp Ashraf.

“The trips for procurement of logistical needs also take place under the control and protection of the MPs,” said Mojgan Parsaii, vice president of MEK and leader of Camp Ashraf.

That’s because, according to U.S. documents, coalition forces regard MEK as protected people under the Geneva Conventions.

“The coalition remains deeply committed to the security and rights of the protected people of Ashraf,” U.S. Maj. Gen. John D. Gardner wrote in March 2006.

The group also enjoys the protection of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

“The ICRC has made clear that the residents of Camp Ashraf must not be deported, expelled or repatriated,” according to an ICRC letter.

Despite repeated requests, neither Iran’s ambassador in Baghdad nor the U.S. military would comment on MEK, also known as Mojahedin Khalq Organization, or MKO.

The State Department said Friday the Geneva Conventions protections apply only to MEK residents of Camp Ashraf, and the organization as a whole and its members elsewhere are subject to prosecution for terrorist or criminal acts.

“We still regard them as a terrorist organization,” former U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said.

When the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, Green Berets arrived at Camp Ashraf to find gardens and monuments, along with more than 2,000 well-maintained tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery, anti-aircraft guns and vehicles.

All 3,800 camp residents were questioned by Americans. No arrests were made, and the camp quickly surrendered under a cease-fire agreement — an agreement that also guaranteed its safety.

“Everyone’s entry to the camp and his departure are controlled by the U.S. military police force,” Parsaii said.

The MEK denies it is a terrorist group. Both Iran and the Iraqi government, however, accuse the group of ongoing terrorist attacks, and the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government wants it out.

“We gave this organization a six-month deadline to leave Iraq, and we informed the Red Cross,” said Shirwan al-Wa’eli, Iraq’s national security minister. “And presumably, our friends the Americans will respect our decision and they will not stay on Iraqi land.”

For now, however, the United States continues to protect MEK.

“There are counter-pressures, too,” Khalilzad said. “There are people who say, ‘No, they should be allowed to stay here.’ And as you know, around the world there are people with different views toward them.”

POSTED: 1553 GMT (2353 HKT), April 6, 2007

Find this story at 6 April 2007

© 2007 Cable News Network.

Deadly violence hits Iran exiles’ Camp Ashraf in Iraq

Camp Ashraf once housed more than 3,000 exiles, but most have moved to another camp (file photo)

Violence has erupted at a camp in Iraq for dissident Iranians, who say dozens of residents have lost their lives.

The Mujahideen-e Khalq group accused Iraqi forces of attacking Camp Ashraf north-east of Baghdad, killing at least 52 of its members – some shot in the head at close range.

However Iraqi officials said no soldiers entered the camp.

UN representatives have condemned the bloodshed and urged Iraq swiftly to establish the facts.

A statement from the UN mission in Iraq also called on Iraqi officials to ensure security for residents at the camp and urged an end to the violence so medical help could reach the wounded.

“The only thing we can confirm is there are a lot of casualties,” Eliana Nabaa, a spokeswoman for the UN mission to Iraq was quoted as saying.

The population of Camp Ashraf, once home to more than 3,000 members of the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), was believed to have dwindled to about 100 before the violence.

In recent years, Iraqi authorities have been trying to dismantle the camp and eject the group, which has been based in Iraq since the 1980s.
Mortars

Accounts of the violence given by MEK spokesmen and different local officials vary.

MEK officials said Iraqi forces attacked Camp Ashraf early on Sunday, firing mortar rounds.

Some Iraqi reports confirmed that mortar rounds had been fired without identifying their origin, but said the deaths came during subsequent clashes. Others said the blasts heard at the camp were caused by oil and gas canisters exploding.

Another source said there had been a raid on the camp overnight, but put the death toll at 19.

One source said Iraqi security forces opened fire after a crowd stormed a post at the camp entrance, wounding about 50 people, Reuters reported.

Local hospitals reported that three Iraqi soldiers were killed and four wounded in the violence, AFP said.

MEK officials sent out photographs and a video of people said to have been shot in the head during the clashes, but the images have not been independently verified.

A spokesman for the Iraqi prime minister confirmed there had been deaths among camp residents, but said initial investigations suggested they had resulted from infighting, AP reported.

Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has ordered an investigation, Reuters said.

Camp Ashraf was set up in the late 1980s to launch raids on Iran. It was welcomed by Iraq’s then president, Saddam Hussein, who was fighting a war against Iran.

Most members of the MEK – also known as the People’s Mujahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI) – were moved to a new camp last year.

Iran considers the MEK a terrorist group

The group was removed from the US State Department’s list of terrorist organisations last year.

1 September 2013 Last updated at 19:57 ET

Find this story at 1 September 2013

BBC © 2014

CIA held Syrian militants responsible for Lockerbie bombing

Muammar Gaddafi’s Libyan regime was publicly blamed by the US for the attack
The wreckage of the PanAm airliner that exploded and crashed over Lockerbie Photo: AFP

The CIA secretly held Syrian militants, rather than Libya, responsible for the Lockerbie bombing, according to newly unearthed testimony from a former US spy in the Middle East.

Dr Richard Fuisz said in a sworn deposition in 2001 that he was told by up to 15 senior Syrian officials that the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) had carried out the attack.

He also testified that CIA bosses told him the PFLP-GC was responsible, according to a lawyer’s note of a second deposition. Ahmed Jibril, the group’s founder leader, who is still alive at 75, was singled out as being to blame for the downing of Pan Am flight 103 over Scotland in December 1988, killing 270 people.

“Numerous high officials in the Syrian government were quite affirmative on Jibril’s involvement in Pan Am 103,” Dr Fuisz told lawyers, during his deposition in Virginia in 2001.

Dr Fuisz gave his depositions in 2000 and 2001 at the request of Megrahi’s defence lawyers. However, the evidence came too late to be used in the trial. They were first published by Channel 4 News.The CIA declined to comment.

Muammar Gaddafi’s Libyan regime was publicly blamed by the US for the attack, and Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted of the bombing in 2001. He was later released and died last year in Libya.

But serious doubts about the conviction have been raised by investigative journalists for several years, centring on forensic evidence, and Libya has strenuously denied involvement.

The PFLP-GC were in fact the first prime suspects in the investigation.

Experts suggested it may have been ordered by the Iranian government as revenge for the accidental shooting down of an Iranian passenger jet by a US battleship months earlier, killing 290.

They added that blame may have been diverted from Iran in order to protect secret and delicate negotiations by George Bush’s US administration over western hostages.

Dr Fuisz, a businessman who is said to have been a senior US intelligence asset in the Middle East in the 1980s and 90s, said that the Syrian officials he spoke to interacted with Jibril “on a constant basis” and that he was widely regarded to be the mastermind behind the bombing.

Asked who the Syrian officials cited as their source for the information, he said: “My recollection is they were direct. They were not hearsay sources on their part.” Asked if that he understood that to mean that he was “being told by members of the Syrian government that Jibril, and or members of the PFLGC were taking credit for the bombing,” he replied: “Yes”.

Jon Swaine
10:32PM GMT 20 Dec 2013

Find this story at 20 December 2013

© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2013

‘MI6 agent’ was spying on Iran oil shipping, officials claim

Iranian man arrested on charges of spying for British intelligence was passing on information on shipping operations to help impose sanctions, parliamentarians told

The Iranian man arrested for spying for British intelligence was helping foreign governments impose EU sanctions on covert oil shipping operations, parliamentarians in the country have been briefed.

An Iranian MP revealed the alleged MI6 agent was passing information on Iran’s shipping industries to its “enemies”, to be used in international efforts to cripple the sector.

Court officials in the city of Kerman said a suspect had confessed to holding 11 meetings inside and outside the country with British intelligence.

Alireza Manzari Tavakoli, an intelligence specialist in the Iranian parliament, was quoted on a news website claiming that the man handed over details of sanctions-busting activities. “We have received further information about the arrested individual that suggests that he has been involved in passing secret data on Iran’s shipping industries and the insurance covers on our oil tankers to the British intelligence services,” he said. “The EU could use them for imposing more sanctions on our shipping sectors.

“The arrested individual has also confessed to passing economic intelligence about Iran’s use of other countries’ flags in transporting its oil abroad. The information provided by this spy has been used by the enemies of the Islamic Republic to pass new and more sanctions on Iran.”

Britain’s role as the centre of the global maritime industry and leading insurance hub of the merchant fleet means London was pivotal to efforts to impose a virtual shutdown of Iran’s oil shipping through EU-wide sanctions.

Meanwhile Dadkhoda Salari, the public prosecutor in the city of Kerman, has described the alleged spy as a 50-year-old man, with good university education and fluent in English, who has never held any government job. Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence agents had been monitoring his movements for the last two months.

Hardliners opposed to the current thaw in British relations with Iran could use the spying revelations to disrupt progress towards restoration of full diplomatic ties.

Conservative factions have already sought to secure the withdrawal of an invitation by Iran’s parliament to Jack Straw, the former foreign secretary, to fly to Tehran for a fence-mending visit.

The announcement of the case came just a day after Iran’s new non-resident envoy to Britain, Hassan Habibollah-Zadeh, held talks in London on his first visit since his appointment last month. Ajay Sharma, his British counterpart, broke a two-year freeze in diplomatic relations earlier this month when, following the temporary deal on Iran’s nuclear programme in Geneva, he visited the Tehran embassy that was looted by an Iranian mob in November 2011.

By Damien McElroy, and Ahmed Vahdat

7:10PM GMT 15 Dec 2013

Find this story at 14 December 2013

© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2013

Iran claims to have captured MI6 spy

The alleged spy is said to have worked for British intelligence agency MI6 (pictured)

Iran says it has captured a spy working for British intelligence agency MI6 in the south-eastern city of Kerman.

The head of Kerman’s revolutionary court said the alleged spy had admitted being in contact with four British intelligence officers 11 times, both inside and outside the country.

He said the accused was now on trial and had confessed. The nationality of the alleged spy is not yet known.

The UK Foreign Office said it did not comment on intelligence matters.

Iran regularly claims to have captured spies working for foreign powers but in most cases the accused is released without charge months later.

According to a report from Iran’s conservative news agency Tasnim, the alleged spy was arrested after 10 months of intelligence work and had once had a meeting with British agents in London.

It quotes Dadkhoda Salari, the head of the Kerman court, as saying he is aged over 50, with an “academic education”. He is said to be fluent in English but does not hold an official post.

The news comes as Iran and Britain take steps to try to re-establish diplomatic relations.

Britain shut down its embassy in Tehran, the Iranian capital, in 2011 after it was stormed in a protest over British nuclear sanctions.
‘Constructive discussions’

Iran’s envoy to the UK this week made his first visit to London, during which he met officials at the Foreign Office.

The visit followed a trip to Iran earlier this month by the UK’s new envoy to the country – the first by a British diplomat for two years.

Non-resident charge d’affaires Ajay Sharma said he had “detailed and constructive discussions” about the UK’s relationship with Iran.

He also visited the site of the British embassy in Tehran to assess the damage following the mob attack two years ago.

Foreign Secretary William Hague has said relations between the two countries were improving on a “reciprocal basis”.

Thawing relations between Tehran and the international community have also seen a temporary deal reached over its nuclear programme.

Iran last month agreed to curb some of its nuclear activities in return for £4.3bn in sanctions relief, after days of talks in Geneva.

The country agreed to give better access to inspectors and halt some of its work on uranium enrichment for a six-month period.

14 December 2013 Last updated at 08:27 ET

Find this story at 14 December 2013

© 2013 The BBC

‘MI6 spy’ captured by Iran

Authorities say they have arrested an individual who has confessed to working for British intelligence
The British Secret Intelligence Services Headquarters in London Photo: EPA

Iran claims to have captured a British “spy” in a move that has threatened to cause a diplomatic crisis.

Officials in the country said a businessman in his fifties had been detained on suspicion of gathering intelligence “in all spheres” for the British security services.

They claimed he had confessed to meeting MI6 agents inside and outside Iran on 11 occasions.

Iran’s decision to publicise the arrest comes at a critical stage of diplomacy between the two countries, which broke off all official contact after the attack on the British embassy in Tehran two years ago.

Experts have said that the arrest and its announcement may have been driven by hardliners who oppose a deal to prevent Iran gaining nuclear weapons.

IRNA, Iran’s state news agency, reported that security forces had arrested an alleged spy working for the British Government in Kerman, a south-eastern province. The nationality of the arrested man, who is alleged to have “confessed” to espionage, has not been disclosed. There was no suggestion he is a British national. Spying in Iran carries the death penalty.

A Foreign Office spokesman said she would not comment on intelligence matters. Government sources said that the tactic of arresting local people on false charges of being British spies was something that happened “every few months” but that they were usually not publicised by the regime.

It was feared that the arrest could signal a determination among Iranian hardliners to unseat negotiations with the West, including last month’s agreement on the country’s nuclear programme. The “spying” charge could compromise diplomatic achievements, although Whitehall is understood to be treating the development with caution.

The nuclear deal led to the first formal contact between the United States and Tehran since they severed diplomatic ties over the 1979 hostage crisis, and was viewed as a crucial step towards avoiding a crisis in the Middle East.

Tehran is known to have used trumped-up spying allegations in the past to resolve internal disagreements. Dadkhoda Salari, the head of Kerman revolutionary court, said the alleged spy was a man with “business activities” who established a link with the British embassy in Tehran before its closure.

“The accused has had 11 face-to-face meetings with British intelligence officers, both inside and outside the country, and in every single meeting has passed to his MI6 contacts the specific information that they had asked him to collect,” said Mr Salari.

An Iranian news agency used this picture to illustrate the capture of the spy

“At the same time he has received certain instructions that would have enabled him to act against the interests of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

“He had been in touch with four intelligence officers and after receiving their instructions and training he has transferred their specific requested information to the country of their origin.

“This spy has been captured after many months of complicated intelligence operations and with the help of the almighty God.”

Mr Salari added that the man’s trial was already taking place and that he had “confessed” to all charges. The judicial spokesman said the accused had academic qualifications and spoke fluent English, and claimed he had collected intelligence “in all spheres” for Britain.

Tasnim news, an Iranian news website, claimed one of the man’s alleged meetings with British intelligence took place in London.

The announcement came a day after Hassan Habibollah-Zadeh, Iran’s new envoy to Britain, made his first visit to London. Mr Habibollah-Zadeh said that negotiations were under way to “resolve the existing issues”, so full ties could be restored. It is unclear what effect, if any, the arrest of the alleged spy would have in those negotiations.

Prof Ali Ansari, the director of the Institute for Iranian Studies at the University of St Andrews and a senior associate fellow of the Royal United Services Institute, said: “This probably has more to do with some of the more hawkish and hardline elements within the revolutionary establishment trying to put a spanner in the works of the rapprochement negotiations.

“The Iranian regime has done a fantastic PR job over the last couple of months selling the country as being ‘open for business’. But this news sours that, and suggests the old Iran is alive and well.”

He added: “Kerman is in the middle of nowhere, there’s no nuclear facilities there and all they do is grow pistachios. So what this man could be accused of doing there is a little strange.”

Britain shut its Tehran embassy after it was damaged in November 2011 by students protesting against Western sanctions.

In another high-profile incident, in 2007, Iran seized 15 personnel from HMS Cornwall who were on anti-drug smuggling operations in the Gulf, and held them for 13 days. Their detention gave Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the then Iranian president, a public relations coup.

By David Barrett, and Robert Tait, in Jerusalem

8:00PM GMT 14 Dec 2013

Find this story at 14 December 2013

© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2013

Missing American in Iran was on unapproved mission

WASHINGTON (AP) — In March 2007, retired FBI agent Robert Levinson flew to Kish Island, an Iranian resort awash with tourists, smugglers and organized crime figures. Days later, after an arranged meeting with an admitted killer, he checked out of his hotel, slipped into a taxi and vanished. For years, the U.S. has publicly described him as a private citizen who traveled to the tiny Persian Gulf island on private business.

But that was just a cover story. An Associated Press investigation reveals that Levinson was working for the CIA. In an extraordinary breach of the most basic CIA rules, a team of analysts — with no authority to run spy operations — paid Levinson to gather intelligence from some of the world’s darkest corners. He vanished while investigating the Iranian government for the U.S.

The CIA was slow to respond to Levinson’s disappearance and spent the first several months denying any involvement. When Congress eventually discovered what happened, one of the biggest scandals in recent CIA history erupted.

Behind closed doors, three veteran analysts were forced out of the agency and seven others were disciplined. The CIA paid Levinson’s family $2.5 million to pre-empt a revealing lawsuit, and the agency rewrote its rules restricting how analysts can work with outsiders.

But even after the White House, FBI and State Department officials learned of Levinson’s CIA ties, the official story remained unchanged.

“He’s a private citizen involved in private business in Iran,” the State Department said in 2007, shortly after Levinson’s disappearance.

“Robert Levinson went missing during a business trip to Kish Island, Iran,” the White House said last month.

Details of the unusual disappearance were described in documents obtained or reviewed by the AP, plus interviews over several years with dozens of current and former U.S. and foreign officials close to the search for Levinson. Nearly all spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive case.

The AP first confirmed Levinson’s CIA ties in 2010 and continued reporting to uncover more details. It agreed three times to delay publishing the story because the U.S. government said it was pursuing promising leads to get him home.

The AP is reporting the story now because, nearly seven years after his disappearance, those efforts have repeatedly come up empty. The government has not received any sign of life in nearly three years. Top U.S. officials, meanwhile, say his captors almost certainly already know about his CIA association.

There has been no hint of Levinson’s whereabouts since his family received proof-of-life photos and a video in late 2010 and early 2011. That prompted a hopeful burst of diplomacy between the United States and Iran, but as time dragged on, promising leads dried up and the trail went cold.

Some in the U.S. government believe he is dead. But in the absence of evidence either way, the government holds out hope that he is alive and the FBI says it remains committed to bringing him home.

If Levinson remains alive at age 65, he has been held captive longer than any American, longer than AP journalist Terry Anderson, who was held more than six years in Beirut. Unlike Anderson, Levinson’s whereabouts and captors remain a mystery.

Today, Iran and United States tiptoe toward warmer relations and a deal over Iran’s nuclear enrichment. But the U.S. has no new leads about Levinson’s whereabouts, officials said. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani publicly says he has no information about Levinson’s whereabouts.

Meanwhile, the story of how the married father of seven children from Coral Springs, Fla., became part of the CIA’s spy war with Iran has been cloaked in secrecy, with no public accounting for the agency’s mistakes.

___

A 28-year veteran of the Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI, Robert Levinson had a natural ability to cultivate informants. Former colleagues say he was an easy conversationalist who had the patience to draw out people and win their confidence. He’d talk to anyone.

“Bob, in that sense, was fearless,” said retired FBI Assistant Director Mark Mershon, who worked with Levinson in Miami in the 1980s. “He wasn’t concerned about being turned down or turned away.”

As the Soviet Union collapsed, Levinson turned his attention away from Mafia bosses and cocaine cartels and began watching the Russian gangsters who made their homes in Florida. Russian organized crime was a niche then and Levinson made a name as one of the few investigators who understood it.

At a Justice Department organized crime conference in Santa Fe, N.M., in the early 1990s, Levinson listened to a presentation by a CIA analyst named Anne Jablonski and spotted a kindred spirit.

Jablonski was perhaps the government’s foremost expert on Russian organized crime. Former colleagues say she had an encyclopedic memory and could, at the mere mention of a crime figure, quickly explain his place in the hierarchy and his method of moving money. When White House officials had questions about Russian organized crime, they often called Jablonski directly.

In the relatively staid world of CIA analysts, Jablonski was also a quirky character, a yoga devotee who made her own cat food, a woman who skipped off to Las Vegas to renew her vows in an Elvis-themed chapel.

After the Santa Fe conference, Levinson left a note for Jablonski at her hotel and the two began exchanging thoughts on organized crime. Jablonski invited Levinson to CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., to speak to her colleagues in the Office of Russian and European Analysis.

By the time Levinson retired from the FBI in 1998, he and Jablonski were close friends. She attended his going-away party in Florida, met his family and harvested his knowledge of organized crime.

In retirement, Levinson worked as a private investigator, traveling the world and gathering information for corporate clients. Jablonski, meanwhile, thrived at the CIA. After the Sept. 11 attacks, former colleagues say, she was assigned to brief Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller about terrorist threats every morning.

In 2005, Jablonski moved to the Office of Transnational Issues, the CIA team that tracks threats across borders. Right away, she arranged for Levinson to speak to the money-laundering experts in the office’s Illicit Finance Group.

In a sixth-floor CIA conference room, Levinson explained how to track dirty money. Unlike the analysts in the audience, Levinson came from the field. He generated his own information.

In June 2006, the head of Illicit Finance, Tim Sampson, hired Levinson on a contract with the CIA, former officials said. Like most CIA contracts, it was not a matter of public record. But it also wasn’t classified.

___

At its core, the CIA is made up of two groups: operatives and analysts. Operatives collect intelligence and recruit spies. Analysts receive strands of information and weave them together, making sense of the world for Washington decision-makers.

Their responsibilities don’t overlap. Operatives manage spies. Analysts don’t.

Levinson was hired to work for a team of analysts. His contract, worth about $85,000, called for him to write reports for the CIA based on his travel and his expertise.

From the onset, however, he was doing something very different. He wasn’t writing scholarly dissertations on the intricacies of money laundering. He was gathering intelligence, officials say.

He uncovered sensitive information about Colombian rebels. He dug up dirt on Venezuela’s mercurial president. He delivered photos and documents on militant groups. And he met with sources about Iran’s nuclear program, according to people who have reviewed the materials.

Levinson’s production got noticed. The CIA expected he’d provide one or two items a month from his travels. Some months, former officials said, Levinson would send 20 packages including photos, computer disks and documents — the work of a man with decades of investigative experience.

Levinson’s arrangement with the CIA was odd.

The agency instructed him not to mail his packages to headquarters or email documents to government addresses, former officials said. Instead, he was told to ship his packages to Jablonski’s home in Virginia. If he needed to follow up, he was instructed to contact Jablonski’s personal email account.

Jablonski said the analysts simply wanted to avoid the CIA’s lengthy mail screening process. As an employee, Jablonski could just drive the documents through the front gate each morning.

“I didn’t think twice about it,” she said in an interview.

But the normal way to speed up the process is to open a post office box or send packages by FedEx, officials say. And if Levinson were producing only unclassified analytical documents, there would have been no reason he couldn’t email them to the CIA.

The whole arrangement was so peculiar that CIA investigators conducting an internal probe would later conclude it was an effort to keep top CIA officials from figuring out that the analysts were running a spying operation. Jablonski adamantly denies that.

What’s more, the Illicit Finance Group didn’t follow the typical routine for international travel. Before someone travels abroad for the agency, the top CIA officer in the country normally clears it. That way, if a CIA employee is arrested or creates a diplomatic incident, the agency isn’t caught by surprise.

That didn’t happen before Levinson’s trips, former officials said. He journeyed to Panama, Turkey and Canada and was paid upon his return, people familiar with his travels said. After each trip, he submitted bills and the CIA paid him for the information and reimbursed him for his travel expenses.

Neither the analysts nor the contract officers or managers who reviewed the contract, ever flagged it as a problem that Levinson’s travel might become a problem.

It would prove to be a serious problem.

Levinson was assigned a contract officer inside the agency, a young analyst named Brian O’Toole. But Jablonski was always his primary contact. Sometimes, he told her before he left for a trip. Other times, he didn’t. The emails between Jablonski and Levinson, some of which the AP has seen or obtained, are circumspect. But they show that Levinson was taking his cues from her.

The more Levinson did for the agency, the more the analysts ran afoul of the CIA’s most basic rules.

Before anyone can meet sources, seasoned CIA intelligence officials must review the plan to make sure the source isn’t a double agent. That never happened for Levinson.

Levinson’s meetings blurred the lines between his work as a private investigator and his work as a government contractor. Inside the CIA, the analysts reasoned that as long as they didn’t specifically assign Levinson to meet someone, they were abiding by the rules.

On Feb. 5, 2007, Levinson emailed Jablonski and said he was gathering intelligence on Iranian corruption. He said he was developing an informant with access to the government and could arrange a meeting in Dubai or on an island nearby.

Problem was, Levinson’s contract was out of money and, though the CIA was working to authorize more, it had yet to do so.

“I would like to know if I do, in fact, expend my own funds to conduct this meeting, there will be reimbursement sometime in the near future, or, if I should discontinue this, as well as any and all similar projects until renewal time in May,” Levinson wrote.

There’s no evidence that Jablonski ever responded to that email. And she says she has no recollection of ever receiving it.

A few days later, Levinson joined Jablonski and her husband for dinner at Harry’s Tap Room in the Washington suburbs. Levinson was days away from his trip, and though he was eager to get paid for it, Jablonski says the subject never came up in conversation.

The discussion was more light-hearted, she said. She recalls scolding her overweight friend for not eating right, especially while on the road. At one point she recalls chiding him: “If I were your wife, I’d confiscate your passport.”

On Feb. 12, Levinson again emailed Jablonski, saying he hadn’t heard anything from the contract office. Jablonski urged him not to get the contract team involved.

“Probably best if we keep talk about the additional money among us girls — you, me, Tim and Brian — and not get the contracts folks involved until they’ve been officially notified through channels,” Jablonski said, according to emails read to the AP.

Jablonski signed off: “Be safe.”

Levinson said he understood. He said he’d try to make this trip as successful as previous ones. And he promised to “keep a low profile.”

“I’ll call you upon my return from across the pond,” he said.

While Levinson was overseas, the CIA was raving about information Levinson had recent sent about Venezuela and Colombian rebels.

“You hit a home run out of the park with that stuff,” she wrote. “We can’t, of course, task you on anything, but let’s just say it’s GREAT material.”

Levinson arrived in Dubai on March 3, 2007. Friends and investigators say he was investigating cigarette smuggling and also looking into Russian organized crime there.

On March 8, he boarded a short flight to Kish Island, a tourist destination about 11 miles off Iran’s southern coast. Unlike the Dubai trip, this one was solely for the CIA. He was there to meet his source about Iran.

The biggest prize would be gleaning something about Iran’s nuclear program, one of the CIA’s most important targets.

Levinson’s source on Kish was Dawud Salahuddin, an American fugitive wanted for killing a former Iranian diplomat in Maryland in 1980. In interviews with ABC News and the New Yorker, Salahuddin has admitted killing the diplomat

Since fleeing to Iran, Salahuddin had become close to some in the Iranian government, particularly to those seen as reformers and moderates.

To set up the meeting, Levinson worked with a longtime friend, retired NBC investigative reporter Ira Silverman. Silverman had talked at length with Salahuddin and, in a 2002 piece for the New Yorker magazine, portrayed him as a potential intelligence source if the U.S. could coax him out of Iran. The subtitle of the article: “He’s an assassin who fled the country. Could he help Washington now?”

“I told them to put off until after the U.S. surge in Iraq was completed,” Salahuddin told the National Security News Service, a Washington news site, shortly after Levinson disappeared. “But Silverman and Levinson pushed for the meeting and that’s why we met in March.”

Silverman’s role in helping set up Levinson’s meeting with Salahuddin has been previously disclosed. Silverman declined to discuss Levinson’s disappearance.

Levinson’s flight landed late the morning of March 8, a breezy, cloudy day. He checked into the Hotel Maryam, a few blocks off Kish’s eastern beaches. Salahuddin has said he met with Levinson for hours in his hotel room.

The hotel’s registry, which Levinson’s wife has seen, showed him checking out on March 9, 2007.

___

Jablonski was in the office when news broke that Levinson had gone missing. She went to the bathroom and threw up.

FBI agents began asking about Levinson’s disappearance and the CIA started a formal inquiry into whether anyone at the agency had sent Levinson to Iran or whether he was working for the CIA at the time.

The response from the analytical division was that, yes, Levinson had given a few presentations and had done some analytical work. But his contract was out of money. The agency had no current relationship with Levinson and there was no connection to Iran.

That’s what the CIA told the FBI and Congress, according to numerous current and former FBI, CIA and congressional officials.

Jablonski never mentioned to internal investigators the many emails she’d traded with Levinson, officials close to the investigation said. When asked, she said she had no idea he was heading to Iran. She didn’t tell managers or that Levinson expected to be reimbursed for the trip he was on, or that he was investigating Iranian corruption.

Jablonski says none of this was a secret; Levinson’s contract and work product were available to others at the CIA, she said.

Because the emails were exchanged from her personal account, they were not available to investigators searching the CIA’s computers. But had anyone at the CIA or FBI conducted even a cursory examination of Levinson’s work product, it would have been immediately clear that Levinson was not acting as a mere analyst.

Had anyone read his invoices, people who have seen or been briefed on them said, investigators would have seen handwritten bills mentioning Iran and its Revolutionary Guard.

That didn’t happen.

So the official story became that Levinson was in Iran on private business, either to investigate cigarette smuggling or to work on a book about Russian organized crime, which has a presence on Kish.

At the State Department, officials told the world that Levinson was a private businessman.

“At the time of his disappearance Mr. Levinson was not working for the United States government,” the State Department said in a May 2007 message sent to embassies worldwide and signed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Levinson’s family feared the government had forsaken him.

The government’s version would have remained the official story if not for Levinson’s friends. One of them was David McGee, a former Justice Department prosecutor in Florida who had worked with Levinson when he was at the FBI. McGee, now in private practice at the Florida law firm Beggs and Lane, knew that Levinson was working for the CIA. He just couldn’t prove it.

As time dragged on, McGee kept digging. Finally, he and his paralegal, Sonya Dobbs, discovered Levinson’s emails with Jablonski.

They were astounded. And they finally had the proof they needed to get the government’s attention.

Armed with the emails, McGee wrote to the Senate Intelligence Committee in October 2007. The CIA had indeed been involved in Levinson’s trip, the letter proved.

The CIA had been caught telling Congress a story that was flatly untrue. The Intelligence Committee was furious. In particular, Levinson’s senator, Bill Nelson, D-Fla., took a personal interest in the case. The committee controls the budget of the CIA, and one angry senator there can mean months of headaches for the agency.

CIA managers said their own employees had lied to them. They blamed the analysts for not coming forward sooner. But the evidence had been hiding in plain sight. The CIA didn’t conduct a thorough investigation until the Senate got involved. By then, Levinson had been missing for more than eight months. Precious time had been lost.

Sampson said he was never aware of Levinson’s emails with Jablonski or the Iranian trip.

“I didn’t even know he was working on Iran,” he said. “As far as I knew he was a Latin America, money-laundering and Russian organized crime guy. I would never have directed him to do that.”

Finally, the CIA assigned its internal security team to investigate. That inquiry quickly determined that the agency was responsible for Levinson while he was in Iran, according to a former official familiar with the review. That was an important conclusion. It meant that, whatever happened to Levinson overseas, the CIA bore responsibility.

Next, a team of counterintelligence officers began unraveling the case.

The investigation renewed some longtime tensions between the CIA’s operatives and analysts. The investigators felt the analysts had been running their own amateur spy operation, with disastrous results. Worse, they said the analysts withheld what they knew, allowing senior managers to testify falsely on Capitol Hill.

That led the Justice Department to investigate possible criminal charges against Jablonski and Sampson. Charges were never pursued, current and former officials said, in part because a criminal case could have revealed the whole story behind Levinson’s disappearance. Officially, though, the investigation remains open.

Sampson offered to take a polygraph. Jablonski says she has consistently told the truth. Recently, as the five-year statute of limitations concluded, FBI agents interviewed her again and she told the same story, officials said.

The analysts argued that many people had seen Levinson’s contract and his work product. Nobody questioned it until he went missing, they said. The way the analysts saw it, the CIA was looking for scapegoats.

“That she would even by accident put someone in harm’s way is laughable,” said Margaret Henoch, a former CIA officer and a close friend of Jablonski. “When I worked with Anne, and I worked very closely with her for a very long time, she was always the one who pulled me up short and made me follow procedure.”

Jablonski said the CIA’s relationship with Levinson was not unusual. But as part of the investigation, the CIA reviewed every analytical contract it had.

Only Levinson was meeting with sources, collecting information, and getting reimbursed for his trips, officials said. Only Levinson was mailing packages of raw information to the home of an analyst.

Despite Jablonski’s denials, her emails convinced investigators that she knew Levinson was heading overseas and, with a wink and a nod, made it clear he could expect to be paid.

In May 2008, Jablonski was escorted from the building and put on administrative leave. Sampson was next. At the CIA, when you’re shown the door, you leave with nothing. Security officers empty your desk, scrutinize its contents and mail you whatever doesn’t belong to the agency.

Both were given the option of resigning or being fired. The next month, they resigned. Their boss was forced into retirement. At least seven others were disciplined, including employees of the contracts office that should have noticed that Levinson’s invoices didn’t square with his contract.

In secret Senate hearings from late 2007 through early 2008, CIA Deputy Director Stephen Kappes acknowledged that the agency had been involved in Levinson’s disappearance and conceded that it hadn’t been as forthcoming as it should have been, current and former officials said.

The CIA’s top lawyer, John Rizzo, had to explain it all to the White House. Former Bush administration officials recall Rizzo meeting with a stunned Fred Fielding, the White House counsel who asked, since when do CIA analysts get involved in operations?

One of Rizzo’s assistants, Joseph Sweeney, a lawyer, flew to Florida to apologize to Levinson’s family.

The CIA paid the family about $120,000, the value of the new contract the CIA was preparing for him when he left for Iran. The government also gave the family a $2.5 million annuity, which provides tax-free income, multiple people briefed on the deal said. Neither side wanted a lawsuit that would air the secret details in public.

Jablonski now analyzes risk for companies doing business overseas.

Sampson, the former head of CIA’s Illicit Finance group, quickly returned to the government, landing a job at the Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence division. O’Toole, the young contracts officer, moved to the Treasury Department. He would not comment.

Inside the CIA, the biggest legacy of the Levinson case might be the strict new rules in place for analysts. Before, analysts were encouraged to build relationships with experts. An analyst could go to dinner with a professor of Middle East affairs or pick up the phone and chat with a foreign affairs expert. The 9/11 Commission encouraged CIA analysts to do even more to solicit outside views.

After the Levinson inquiry, the CIA handed down orders requiring analysts to seek approval for nearly any conversation with outsiders. The rules were intended to prevent another debacle like Levinson’s, but former officials say they also chilled efforts to bring outside views into the CIA.

___

The U.S. always suspected, but could never prove, that Levinson had been picked up by Iranian security forces. What was not immediately clear, however, was whether Iran knew that Levinson was working for the CIA.

Now, nearly than seven years later, investigators believe Iranian authorities must know. Levinson wasn’t trained to resist interrogation. U.S. officials could not imagine him withholding information from Iranian interrogators, who have been accused of the worst types of mental and physical abuses.

In an October 2010 interview with the AP, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran at the time, said his country was willing to help find Levinson. But he appeared to suggest he knew or had suspicions that Levinson was working for the U.S. government.

“Of course if it becomes clear what his goal was, or if he was indeed on a mission, then perhaps specific assistance can be given,” Ahmadinejad said. “For example, if he had plans to visit with a group or an individual or go to another country, he would be easier to trace in that instance.”

As a CIA contractor, Levinson would have been a valuable chip to bargain with on the world stage. So if Iran had captured him, and knew his CIA ties, why the secrecy?

That question became even more confusing in 2009, when three U.S. hikers strayed across border from Iraq into Iran and were arrested. If Iran had captured Levinson, investigators wondered, why would it publicly accuse three hikers of espionage while keeping quiet about an actual CIA contractor?

Occasionally, Iranian defectors would claim to have seen Levinson or to have heard where he was being held, according to his family, former officials and State Department cables published by WikiLeaks.

A French doctor said Levinson was treated at his hospital in Tehran. An Iranian nurse claimed to have attended to him. One defector said he saw Levinson’s name scrawled into a prison door frame. Someone sent Levinson’s family what appeared to be secret Iranian court documents with his name on them.

But the U.S. could never confirm any of these accounts or corroborate the documents.

Occasionally, the family would hear from someone claiming to be the captor. Once, someone sent an email not only to the family, but also to other addresses that might have been stored on Levinson’s phone. But despite efforts to try to start negotiating, the sender went silent.

The State Department continued its calls on Iran to release information about Levinson’s whereabouts. Then, in November 2010, Levinson’s wife Christine received an email from an unknown address. A file was attached, but it would not open.

Frantic, she sent the email to some computer savvy friends, who opened the file and held the phone to the computer. Christine Levinson immediately recognized her husband’s voice.

“My beautiful, my loving, my loyal wife, Christine,” he began.

The 54-second video showed Levinson sitting in front of a concrete wall, looking haggard but unharmed. He said he was running dangerously low of diabetes medicine, and he pleaded with the government to bring him home.

“Thirty-three years of service to the United States deserves something,” Levinson said. “Please help me.”

The video was a startling proof of life and it ignited the first promising round of diplomacy since Levinson’s disappearance. U.S. officials met privately with members of the Iranian government to discuss the case. The Iranians still denied any knowledge of Levinson’s whereabouts but said they were willing to help, U.S. officials said.

Some details about the video didn’t add up, though. The email had been sent from a cyber cafe in Pakistan, officials said, and Pashtun wedding music played faintly in the background. The Pashtun people live primarily in Pakistan and Afghanistan, just across Iran’s eastern border.

Further, the video was accompanied by a demand that the U.S. release prisoners. But officials said the United States was not holding anyone matching the names on the list.

In March 2011, after months of trying to negotiate with shadows, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released a statement saying the U.S. had evidence that Levinson was being held “somewhere in southwest Asia.” The implication was that Levinson might be in the hands of terrorist group or criminal organization somewhere in Pakistan or Afghanistan, not necessarily in Iran.

U.S. intelligence officials working the case still believed Iran was behind Levinson’s disappearance, but they hoped Clinton’s statement would offer a plausible alternative story if Iran wanted to release him without acknowledging it ever held him.

U.S. negotiators didn’t care what the story was, as long as it ended with Levinson coming home.

The following month, the family received another email, this time from a new address, one that tracked back to Afghanistan. Photos were attached. Levinson looked far worse. His hair and beard were long and white. He wore an orange Guantanamo Bay-style jumpsuit. A chain around his neck held a sign in front of his face. Each picture bore a different message.

“Why you can not help me,” was one.

Though the photos were disturbing, the U.S. government and Levinson’s family saw them as a hopeful sign that whoever was holding Levinson was interested in making a deal. Then, a surprising thing happened.

Nothing.

Nobody is sure why the contact stopped. Some believe that, if Iran held him, all the government wanted was for the United States to tell the world that Levinson might not be in Iran after all. Others believe Levinson died.

Iran executes hundreds of prisoners each year, human rights groups say. Many others disappear and are presumed dead. With Levinson’s history of diabetes and high blood pressure, it was also possible he died under questioning.

The discussions with Iran ended. A task force of CIA, FBI and State Department officials studied the case anew. Analysts considered alternative theories. Maybe Levinson was captured by Russian organized crime figures, smugglers or terrorists? They investigated connections between Russian and Iranian oil interests.

But each time, they came back to Iran.

For example, during one meeting between the U.S. and Iran, the Iranians said they were searching for Levinson and were conducting raids in Baluchistan, a mountainous region that includes parts of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, U.S. officials said. But the U.S. ultimately concluded that there were no raids, and officials determined that the episode was a ruse by the Iranians to learn how U.S. intelligence agencies work.

Then, U.S. operatives in Afghanistan traced the hostage photos to a cellphone used to transmit them, officials said. They even tracked down the owner, but concluded he had nothing to do with sending them.

Such abrupt dead ends were indicative of a professional intelligence operation, the U.S. concluded. Whoever sent the photos and videos had made no mistakes. Mobsters and terrorists are seldom so careful.

Iran denies any knowledge of Levinson’s whereabouts and says it’s doing all it can.

This past June, Iran elected Hassan Rouhani as president. He has struck a more moderate tone than his predecessor, sparking hope for warmer relations between Iran and the West. But Rouhani’s statements on Levinson were consistent with Ahmadinejad’s.

“He is an American who has disappeared,” Rouhani told CNN in September. “We have no news of him. We do not know where he is.”

___

Back home in Florida, Christine Levinson works to keep her husband’s name in the news and pushes the Obama administration to do more. Last year, the FBI offered a reward of $1 million for information leading to the return of her husband. But the money hasn’t worked.

In their big, tight-knit family, Bob Levinson has missed many birthdays, weddings, anniversaries and grandchildren.

Levinson was always the breadwinner, the politically savvy investigator who understood national security. Now it is his wife who has traveled to Iran seeking information on her husband, who has meetings on Capitol Hill or with White House officials. They are kind and reassuring.

But nothing changes.

Others held in Iran have returned home. Not her husband.

“There isn’t any pressure on Iran to resolve this,” she said in January, frustrated with what she said was a lack of attention by Washington. “It’s been much too long.”

By MATT APUZZO and ADAM GOLDMAN
— Dec. 12, 2013 9:26 PM EST

Find this story at 12 December 2013

P News | © 2013 Associated Press

Reports: American who went missing in Iran worked for CIA

NEW: Source: The CIA apologized to the family, paid $2.5 million settlement
NEW: Family: “It is time for the U.S. government to step up”
AP and Washington Post: Bob Levinson was working for the CIA in Iran
Officials and family have previously denied government ties to the trip

(CNN) — A former FBI agent who went missing in Iran was working for the CIA there, not conducting private business as officials have previously claimed, The Associated Press and the Washington Post reported on Thursday.

Both the State Department and Bob Levinson’s family have long denied he was working for the U.S. government when he disappeared on a trip to Iran in 2007.

But Thursday’s reports from the Washington Post and the AP claim that Levinson had been on a CIA mission to dig up information.

A source who’s involved in the matter told CNN that there’s proof that Levinson worked for the CIA undercover and under contract while also working as a private investigator.
WH calls for Levinson release
Longest-held American hostage
Americans detained abroad

The AP says it decided to move forward with publishing the sensitive story after holding off several times.

“The AP first confirmed Levinson’s CIA ties in 2010 and continued reporting to uncover more details. It agreed three times to delay publishing the story because the U.S. government said it was pursuing promising leads to get him home,” the news agency said in its report. “The AP is reporting the story now because, nearly seven years after his disappearance, those efforts have repeatedly come up empty. The government has not received any sign of life in nearly three years. Top U.S. officials, meanwhile, say his captors almost certainly already know about his CIA association.”

CNN’s source, who declined to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the investigation, said that after six and half years in captivity and interrogations, it’s more than likely that Levinson’s captors know he was working undercover.

“The family is aware of the risk created by this story and are praying for his safety, as they have for six years,” a Levinson family spokesman told CNN Thursday night. “All they want is to bring Bob home.”

In a written statement, the family criticized the U.S. government’s response to the situation.

“Bob is a courageous man who has dedicated himself, including risking his own life, in service to the U.S. government. But the U.S. government has failed to make saving this good man’s life the priority it should be. There are those in the U.S. government who have done their duty in their efforts to find Bob, but there are those who have not,” the statement said. “It is time for the U.S. government to step up and take care of one of its own. After nearly 7 years, our family should not be struggling to get through each day without this wonderful, caring, man that we love so much.”

Officials contacted by CNN on Thursday declined to comment on any alleged ties between Levinson and the U.S. government.

“We have no comment on any purported affiliation between Mr. Levinson and the U.S. Government,” CIA spokesman Chris White said. “The U.S. Government remains committed to bringing him home safely to his family.”

National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden criticized the AP for publishing the story and said it “does nothing to further the cause of bringing him home.”

“Without commenting on any purported affiliation between Mr. Levinson and the U.S. government, the White House and others in the U.S. Government strongly urged the AP not to run this story out of concern for Mr. Levinson’s life,” she said. “We regret that the AP would choose to run a story that does nothing to further the cause of bringing him home. The investigation into Mr. Levinson’s disappearance continues, and we all remain committed to finding him and bringing him home safely to his family.”

Other detained Americans

AP: ‘One of the biggest scandals in recent CIA history’

The agent-turned-security-consultant was last heard from on March 8, 2007, when he checked into a hotel on Iran’s Kish Island and then checked out to return to the United States the next day.

From the start, the CIA and the State Department denied there were any government ties to Levinson’s trip.

And Levinson’s family said he had been in Iran on private business investigating cigarette smuggling.

But the Washington Post and AP reports differ sharply from public government descriptions.

After Levinson’s disappearance, the Washington Post and AP reported, CIA officials initially downplayed his ties with the agency and said he did not go to Iran for the agency.

“But months after Levinson’s abduction, e-mails and other documents surfaced that suggested he had gone to Iran at the direction of certain CIA analysts who had no authority to run operations overseas,” the Washington Post story says, citing officials. “That revelation prompted a major internal investigation that had wide-ranging repercussions at Langley.”

The AP’s story describes the situation as “one of the biggest scandals in recent CIA history.”

According to the reports, the CIA changed how analysts work with contractors as a result. And the agency paid $2.5 million to Levinson’s family, the Washington Post and AP said.

Source: CIA apologized to family

CNN’s source said that David McGee, a family friend who used to be a federal prosecutor in Florida, helped find the documents that proved Levinson’s CIA connection. Ever since Levinson’s disappearance, McGee had been trying to do whatever he could to locate his friend.

With the help of his paralegal, McGee found e-mails exchanged between a CIA analyst and Levinson. The e-mails discussed Levinson’s 2007 trip to Iran, the source said. And more importantly, they revealed the trip had a CIA connection, as the AP and the Washington Post reported.

McGee took the e-mails to the Senate Intelligence Committee and to Sen. Bill Nelson from Levinson’s home state of Florida, a committee member at the time, the source said.

At first, the source said, the CIA denied any involvement.

“As a result of the documents, they conducted an investigation and discovered it was true,” the source said.

A CIA representative asked to meet Levinson’s family in Pensacola, Florida, the source said, and “personally apologized on behalf of the CIA.”

McGee met with the CIA and negotiated a $2.5 million settlement with Levinson’s family to fend off a lawsuit, the source told CNN.

But all the while, in public statements, the U.S. government continued to deny any ties between Levinson and the CIA — work that, according to the AP and Washington Post reports, was done off the books.

As a results of the investigation, three CIA employees were fired and seven others were disciplined, the source said.

At least two of the three people fired have been rehired by other government agencies, a source told CNN, confirming information first reported by the AP.

“They fired their own people and then took care of them,” the source said.

The Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into the matter, according to the source. So far, the source said, no one has been charged.

Justice Department spokesman Andrew Ames declined to comment.

Where is Levinson?

Levinson’s whereabouts remain unclear.

During an exclusive interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in September, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani offered little when asked what he could tell Levinson’s family.

“We don’t know where he is, who he is,” Rouhani said. “He is an American who has disappeared. We have no news of him.”

In 2011, the State Department said new evidence suggested that Levinson, who has diabetes and high blood pressure, was alive and being held somewhere in southwest Asia.

This year, a source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN, “we have every reason to believe that he’s alive and that the Iranians control his fate.”

Last month, Levinson became the longest held American hostage in history.

At the time, Levinson’s family members told CNN’s New Day that they were worried because they haven’t had any word since they received five photos in 2011.

The pictures show Levinson in an orange jumpsuit, holding messages.

“We have not received any recent information about him,” said his wife, Christine Levinson, “although I do believe he is safe and will come home to us soon.”

Wife of U.S. pastor held in Iran pleads for his freedom

CNN’s Jim Sciutto and Tori Blase contributed to this report.

By Susan Candiotti and Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN
December 13, 2013 — Updated 1909 GMT (0309 HKT)

Find this story at 13 December 2013

© 2013 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.

Former FBI agent missing in Iran photographed in Guantánamo jumpsuit (January 2013)

The family of retired FBI agent Robert Levinson, who went missing in Iran in 2007, have released pictures of him dressed in an orange jumpsuit like a Guantánamo Bay prisoner, as they continue to hold hope that he is still alive.

The five photographs were taken in April 2011, just months after the family also received a video that was emailed anonymously.

Mr Levinson, a private investigator, disappeared in 2007 on the Iranian island of Kish. The Iranian government has repeatedly denied knowing anything about his disappearance.

However, the consensus among US officials involved in the case is that despite years of denials, Iran’s intelligence service was almost certainly behind the 54-second video and five photographs.

An expert on Russian organised crime, Mr Levinson, who would now be 64, retired from the FBI in 1998 and became a private investigator. He was investigating cigarette smuggling in early 2007, and his family has said that took him to the Iranian island of Kish, where he was last seen.Kish is a popular resort area and a hotbed of smuggling and organised crime. It is also a free-trade zone, meaning US citizens do not need visas to travel there.

Mr Levinson’s wife, Christine, decided to release the images because she felt her husband’s disappearance was not getting the attention it deserves from the US government.

“There isn’t any pressure on Iran to resolve this,” she said. “It’s been much too long.”

She said that because her husband disappeared in Iran, she believes he is still being held there.

“It needs to come front and centre again,” she told The Associated Press. “There needs to be a lot more public outcry.”

She said she has met with Barack Obama and John Brennan, the president’s nominee to head the CIA. She said that both men had pledged to do everything they could to free her husband. Now, nearly six years after his disappearance, she thinks Iran is being let off the hook.

“He’s a good man,” she said. “He just doesn’t deserve this.”

FBI spokeswoman Jacqueline Maguire said: “As we near the sixth anniversary of his disappearance, the FBI remains committed to bringing Bob home safely to his family.”

By Barney Henderson

8:44PM GMT 08 Jan 2013

Find this story at 8 January 2013

© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2013

WikiLeaks: Vanished FBI officer Robert Levinson ‘held by Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ (February 2011)

A former FBI officer who disappeared in mysterious circumstances in Iran four years ago has been held by the country’s Revolutionary Guard, the cables suggest.

Robert Levinson vanished in 2007 while working as a private investigator on Kish Island, a popular tourist resort in the Persian Gulf. Since then the Tehran regime has rebuffed all efforts from his family to discover his fate, insisting it has no information.

But testimony from a political prisoner who managed to flee the country casts doubt on the official Iranian line and indicates that Mr Levinson may have spent time in one of the Revolutionary Guard’s notorious secret jails.

The informant, who was detained in August 2009 amid the civil unrest sparked by the country’s disputed presidential elections, claims that he saw the words “B. LEVINSON” written on the frame of his cell, beneath three lines of English which he assumed to be a “plea for help”.

The American diplomat who interviewed the source two months later wrote to Washington: “He said that at the time he did not know who Levinson was and only after his release did he use the search engine Google to find that Levinson was a missing American citizen.”

While unable to provide information on the American’s current whereabouts, the prisoner painted a bleak picture of conditions in the Tehran jail, which he described as having a “smell of blood”.

During his four-day ordeal, the source claims that guards burned him with cigarettes and subjected him to sexual assaults.

The US is generally sceptical of information supplied by untested sources, wary of those who concoct false intelligence in the hope of financial reward or assistance with asylum applications.

But the diplomat who interviewed the source noted that he “asked us for no favours” and gave no indication of dishonest motives.

Mr Levinson, who would now be 62, was reportedly investigating a cigarette-smuggling ring when he disappeared in March 2007. The US has always denied he was still working for the FBI.

By Matthew Moore

6:30AM GMT 03 Feb 2011

Find this story at 3 February 2011

© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2013

Ex-FBI agent who disappeared in Iran was on rogue mission for CIA

An American man who disappeared in Iran more than six years ago had been working for the CIA in what U.S. intelligence officials describe as a rogue operation that led to a major shake-up in the spy agency.

Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent, traveled to the Iranian island of Kish in March 2007 to investigate corruption at a time when he was discussing the renewal of a CIA contract he had held for several years. He also inquired about getting reimbursed for the Iran trip by the agency before he departed, according to former and current U.S. intelligence officials.

After he vanished, CIA officials told Congress in closed hearings as well as the FBI that Levinson did not have a current relationship with the agency and played down its ties with him. Agency officials said Levinson did not go to Iran for the CIA.

But months after Levinson’s abduction, e-mails and other documents surfaced that suggested he had gone to Iran at the direction of certain CIA analysts who had no authority to run operations overseas. That revelation prompted a major internal investigation that had wide-ranging repercussions, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

The CIA leadership disciplined 10 employees, including three veteran analysts who were forced out of their jobs, the officials said.

The agency changed the rules outlining how analysts conduct business with contractors, including academics and other subject-matter experts who don’t work at the CIA, making it harder for agency employees to have such relationships.

The CIA ultimately concluded that it was responsible for Levinson while he was in Iran and paid $2.5 million to his wife, Christine, former U.S. intelligence officials said. The agency also paid the family an additional $120,000, the cost of renewing Levinson’s contract.

Levinson’s whereabouts remain unknown. Investigators can’t even say for certain whether he’s still alive. The last proof of life came about three years ago when the Levinson family received a video of him and later pictures of him shackled and dressed in an orange jumpsuit similar to those worn by detainees at the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“I have been held here for 31 / 2 years,” he says in the video. “I am not in good health.”

U.S. intelligence officials concede that if he is alive, Levinson, who would be 65, probably would have told his captors about his work for the CIA, as he was likely subjected to harsh interrogation.

The National Security Council declined to comment on any ties Levinson has to the U.S. government. “The investigation into Mr. Levinson’s disappearance continues, and we all remain committed to finding him and bringing him home safely to his family,” said spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden.

In a statement released Thursday, Levinson’s family said the U.S. government has failed to make saving his life a priority. “It is time for the U.S. government to step up and take care of one of its own. After nearly 7 years, our family should not be struggling to get through each day without this wonderful, caring, man that we love so much,” the statement said.

Levinson joined the FBI’s New York Field Office in 1978 after spending six years with the Drug Enforcement Administration. He was an expert on the New York mob’s five families. Eventually, he moved to the Miami office, where he tracked Russian organized-crime figures and developed a reputation for developing sources.

While in the FBI, Levinson attended a conference where he met a well-respected CIA analyst named Anne Jablonski, one of the agency’s experts on Russia. The two formed a friendship.

When Levinson retired from the FBI in 1998, he went to work as a private investigator.

Jablonski continued at the agency and, among her other duties after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, was to brief FBI Director Robert S. Mueller and Attorney General John D. Ashcroft. By 2005, she was in the Office of Transnational Issues (OTI), the CIA unit that tracks money transfers, weapons smuggling and organized crime.

Jablonski brought Levinson to the CIA for discussions on money laundering with her colleagues. In 2006, Tim Sampson, then the head of the Illicit Finance Group, which was part of OTI, hired Levinson. The unclassified contract was then worth $85,000.

Academic reports

Levinson was supposed to provide academic reports but was operating more like a spy, gathering intelligence for the CIA and producing numerous well-
received reports, officials said. While working for the CIA, he passed on details about the Colombian rebels, then-President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Iran’s nuclear program.

Levinson hopscotched the globe. He went to Turkey and Canada, among other countries, to interview potential sources, sometimes using a fake name. But CIA station chiefs in those countries were never notified of Levinson’s activities overseas even though the agency reimbursed him for his travel, a violation of the rules.

On March 8, 2007, Levinson flew from Dubai to the Iranian island of Kish and checked into a hotel. He met with Dawud Salahuddin, a fugitive wanted for the murder of an Iranian dissident and diplomat who was shot at his house in Bethesda, Md. Levinson thought Salahuddin could supply details about the Iranian regime, perhaps ones that could interest the CIA, according to officials who have reconstructed some of his movements.

Levinson spent hours talking to Salahuddin. The next morning, he checked out of his hotel and vanished, officials said. The United States suspected the Iranian security services were behind his abduction, according to a diplomatic cable disclosed by WikiLeaks.

The U.S. government insisted that Levinson was a private citizen making a private trip. The State Department, in a cable to U.S. embassies in May 2007, said much the same thing. “Levinson was not working for the United States government,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wrote.

The CIA told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Levinson had done some minor work for the agency but that his contract had run out and the spy agency had nothing to do with him going to Iran. Agency analysts also spoke with the FBI and said they hadn’t sent him to Iran. The CIA’s involvement seemed to end there. The FBI, which investigates crimes against Americans, did not push the CIA to open its files and take a deeper look at Levinson’s relationship with the agency.

But Levinson’s family and friends refused to accept that he was a lost tourist. A former federal prosecutor in Florida named David McGee, a friend of Levinson’s, and McGee’s paralegal, Sonya Dobbs, thought the government wasn’t being truthful about who employed Levinson.

Dobbs managed to access Levinson’s e-mail accounts. There she found e-mails between Jablonski and Levinson and other material suggesting that he had worked with the CIA in what appeared to be a continuing relationship.

One of the e-mails instructed Levinson not to worry about getting paid for going to Iran shortly before he made the trip. Jablonski said she would take care of it. She advised him not to contact the agency’s contract office. “Keep talk about the additional money among us girls,” she said by e-mail.

The e-mails also suggested that Levinson was operating at Jablonski’s behest, according to officials who have reviewed the communications between the two. Jablonski adamantly denied in an interview that she oversaw what Levinson was doing.

With the newly discovered information, McGee got the attention of Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who serves on the intelligence panel and is from Levinson’s home state. At the CIA, agency investigators began to scrutinize Levinson’s relationship with Jablonski and her boss, Sampson, and discovered more problems in the handling of his work.

Instead of mailing reports to the CIA, where they would be properly screened and processed, Jablonski had Levinson send them to her house, according to officials. She said she could review them faster that way.

They used private e-mail accounts to communicate — one reason the CIA was slow to learn of the relationship. The arrangement led CIA investigators to think Jablonski was trying to obscure their ties, according to current and former U.S. officials.

Jablonski never disclosed those details and others to investigators when Levinson disappeared. While the FBI and CIA knew about Levinson’s previous contract, answers she provided “didn’t square with the e-mails,” said a former senior agency official with knowledge of the events.

To CIA officials, it appeared that she was running a source and collecting intelligence, a job for trained operatives in the clandestine service and not analysts. In fact, the CIA’s clandestine arm never knew that Levinson was on the payroll or his activities when he traveled abroad, officials said.

By 2008, the CIA’s deputy director at the time, Stephen Kappes, conceded to Nelson and other senators that there was more to the Levinson story than the agency had acknowledged the previous year. Some on the committee said they had been misled by the CIA.

Jablonski said in an interview that she wasn’t hiding anything from CIA officials and that they knew about the arrangement with Levinson. Jablonksi said she would never put Levinson, a friend, in harm’s way.

Nevertheless, Jablonski and Sampson could face criminal charges, law enforcement officials say. Both veteran analysts resigned from the CIA in 2008 along with a third senior manager. Jablonski now works in the private sector. Sampson took a job with the Department of Homeland Security. He declined to comment for this report.

He told the Associated Press: “I didn’t even know he was working on Iran. As far as I knew he was a Latin America, money-laundering and Russian-organized-crime guy. I would never have directed him to do that.”

A break in 2010

For years, Levinson’s family had no word on the fate of the former FBI agent. A break came in November 2010 when an unknown source sent the family a 54-second video of Levinson, who appeared haggard but otherwise unharmed. They are unsure who sent the video, or why. The FBI is also unsure when the video was made.

“Please help me get home,” he says in the video. “Thirty-three years of service to the United States deserves something. Please help me.”

Levinson spent only 28 years with the Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI, suggesting that he was including his time on a CIA contract as part of his government service.

A few months later, the family received a series of pictures: Levinson, his hands chained and his hair long and unruly, dressed in an orange jumpsuit. The family received them in April 2011. The FBI determined that they were sent from Afghanistan but was unsure when they were taken.

The photographs and videos turned into a dead end. And a recent FBI media blitz and $1 million reward haven’t revealed his whereabouts. Secret FBI meetings with the Iranians in Europe also have proved fruitless, officials said.

After the video and pictures of Levinson emerged, American officials concocted a story that he was being held in Pakistan or Afghanistan in an effort to provide the Iranians some cover to release him, according to U.S. intelligence officials. Then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton put out a statement in March 2011 that Levinson might be in southwest Asia. Officials hoped Levinson would turn up in one of those two countries and give the Iranians plausible deniability, officials said.

The ruse failed.

U.S. intelligence officials say that if there was a moment for his return, it was when they received the video. They can’t explain why Iran has freed other captives, such as a trio of U.S. hikers, but not Levinson. And other U.S. citizens being held by Iran — pastor Saeed Abedini and former Marine Amir Hekmati — are known to be alive, unlike Levinson.

The Iranians have steadfastly denied holding Levinson. Even as the relationship between the United States and Iran has thawed with the recent election of President Hassan Rouhani and a temporary deal that freezes parts of the country’s nuclear program, there has been no progress on securing Levinson or information about his fate.

“We don’t know where he is, who he is,” Rouhani told CNN in September during the United Nations General Assembly. “He is an American who has disappeared. We have no news of him.”

U.S. intelligence officials remain skeptical. They suspect Iran did snatch Levinson, but they can’t prove it. Officials surmise that only a professional intelligence service such as Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and National Security could have taken Levinson and thwarted American efforts to find him for so many years.

U.S. intelligence officials acknowledge it’s very possible Levinson, who was in poor health, died under questioning at some point. They say there is no upside for the Iranians to admit he died in their custody.

Former officials familiar with the case said releasing the information about his CIA ties won’t make his situation any worse.

Levinson’s family refuses to believe he is dead and remains hopeful he will return home.

In November, Levinson became the longest-held hostage in U.S. history, surpassing the 2,454 days that Terry Anderson spent in captivity in Lebanon in the 1970s.

“No one would have predicted this terrible moment more than 61 / 2 years ago when Bob disappeared,” Christine Levinson said in a statement last month. “Our family will soon gather for our seventh Thanksgiving without Bob, and the pain will be almost impossible to bear. Yet, as we endure this terrible nightmare from which we cannot wake, we know that we must bear it for Bob, the most extraordinary man we have ever known.”

This article was reported beginning in 2010 while Goldman worked at the Associated Press. Goldman, whose byline also appears on an AP story on this subject, is now a Post staff writer.

By Adam Goldman,

Find this story at 13 December 2013

© The Washington Post Company

Turkey denies exposing Israeli spies to Iran

Washington Post report accuses Ankara of blowing the cover of 10 Iranians who met in Turkey with Mossad handlers.

Davutoglu said the Washington Post allegations were “without any foundation” [Reuters]

Turkey denied on Thursday a US newspaper report claiming it had revealed an Israeli spy ring working with Iranians on its soil to the authorities in Tehran, a sign of the souring ties between the once-close allies.

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government had last year revealed to Iranian intelligence the identities of up to 10 Iranians who had been meeting in Turkey with Mossad handlers.

But Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the allegations were “without any foundation”.

“[Turkish intelligence chief Hakan] Fidan and other security agents report only to the Turkish government and the parliament,” he said.

The allegation angered officials in Ankara, already on the defensive after a Wall Street Journal article last week suggested Washington was concerned that Fidan had shared sensitive information with Iran.

Other officials in Ankara, speaking on condition they not be named, described the article as part of an attempt to discredit Turkey by foreign powers uncomfortable with its growing influence in the Middle East.

“Turkey is a regional power and there are power centres which are uncomfortable with this… stories like these are part of a campaign,” a Turkish official said, asking not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject.

‘Very complex’

There was no immediate comment from Israel, but Israeli ministers have accused Erdogan of adopting an anti-Israeli stance in recent years. Deputy Israeli Foreign Minister Zeev Elkin declined to comment on the report, but said relations with Turkey were “very complex.”

“The Turks made a strategic decision … to seek the leadership of our region, in the Middle East, and they chose the convenient anti-Israeli card in order to build up leadership,” he told Israel Radio.

The relationship hit the rocks in 2010 after Israeli commandos killed nine Turkish activists seeking to break Israel’s long-standing naval blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Relations between the two US allies have been fraught ever since, with military cooperation frozen and mutual distrust scuppering attempts to restore ties, despite efforts by US President Barack Obama to broker a reconciliation.

Iran has long accused Israel of spying on it soil and of killing several Iranian nuclear scientists, the last in January 2012.

In April 2012, Iran announced that it had broken up a large Israeli spy network and arrested 15 suspects. It was not clear if this was connected to the alleged Turkish leak.

Last Modified: 17 Oct 2013 17:15

Find this story at 17 October 2013

Turkey blows Israel’s cover for Iranian spy ring

The Turkish-Israeli relationship became so poisonous early last year that the Turkish government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is said to have disclosed to Iranian intelligence the identities of up to 10 Iranians who had been meeting inside Turkey with their Mossad case officers.

Knowledgeable sources describe the Turkish action as a “significant” loss of intelligence and “an effort to slap the Israelis.” The incident, disclosed here for the first time, illustrates the bitter, multi-dimensional spy wars that lie behind the current negotiations between Iran and Western nations over a deal to limit the Iranian nuclear program. A Turkish Embassy spokesman had no comment.

Israeli anger at the deliberate compromise of its agents may help explain why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu became so entrenched in his refusal to apologize to Erdogan about the May 2010 Gaza flotilla incident . In that confrontation at sea, Israeli commandos boarded a Turkish-organized convoy of ships carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza. Nine Turks were killed.

Netanyahu finally apologized to Erdogan by phone in March after President Obama negotiated a compromise formula. But for more than a year before that, the Israeli leader had resisted entreaties from Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to heal the feud.

Top Israeli officials believe that, despite the apology, the severe strain with Erdogan continues. The Turkish intelligence chief, Hakan Fidan, is also suspect in Israel because of what are seen as friendly links with Tehran; several years ago, Israeli intelligence officers are said to have described him facetiously to CIA officials as “the MOIS station chief in Ankara,” a reference to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security. The United States continued to deal with Fidan on sensitive matters, however.

Though U.S. officials regarded exposure of the Israeli network as an unfortunate intelligence loss, they didn’t protest directly to Turkish officials. Instead, Turkish-American relations continued warming last year to the point that Erdogan was among Obama’s key confidants. This practice of separating intelligence issues from broader policymaking is said to be a long-standing U.S. approach.

U.S. officials were never sure whether the Turkish disclosure was done in retaliation for the flotilla incident or was part of a broader deterioration in Turkish-Israeli relations.

Israeli intelligence had apparently run part of its Iranian spy network through Turkey, which has relatively easy movement back and forth across its border with Iran. The Turkish intelligence service, known as the Milli Istihbarat Teskilati, or MIT, conducts aggressive surveillance inside its borders, so it had the resources to monitor Israeli-Iranian covert meetings.

U.S. officials assessed the incident as a problem of misplaced trust, rather than bad tradecraft. They reasoned that the Mossad, after more than 50 years of cooperation with Turkey, never imagined the Turks would “shop” Israeli agents to a hostile power, in the words of one source. But Erdogan presented a unique challenge, as he moved in 2009 to champion the Palestinian cause and, in various ways, steered Ankara away from what had been, in effect, a secret partnership with Jerusalem.

The Israeli-Turkish intelligence alliance was launched in a secret meeting in August 1958 in Ankara between David Ben-Gurion, then Israel’s prime minister, and Adnan Menderes, then Turkey’s prime minister. “The concrete result was a formal but top-secret agreement for comprehensive cooperation” between the Mossad and Turkish intelligence, wrote Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman in their 2012 book, “Spies Against Armageddon.”

The groundwork had been laid secretly by Reuven Shiloah, the founding director of the Mossad, as part of what he called a “peripheral alliance strategy.” Through that partnership, Israelis provided training in espionage to the Turks and, ironically, also to Iranians under the shah’s government, which was toppled in 1979.

Fidan, the Turkish spy chief, is a key Erdogan adviser. He became head of the MIT in 2010 after serving as a noncommissioned officer in the Turkish army and gaining a bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland and a doctorate in Ankara. After Fidan took over the Turkish service, “he rattled Turkey’s allies by allegedly passing to Iran sensitive intelligence collected by the U.S. and Israel,” according to a recent profile in the Wall Street Journal. The Journal also noted U.S. fears that Fidan was arming jihadist rebels in Syria.

The Netanyahu-Erdogan quarrel, with its overlay of intelligence thrust and parry, is an example of the kaleidoscopic changes that may be ahead in the Middle East. The United States, Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are all exploring new alliances and struggling to find a new equilibrium — overtly and covertly.

Read more from David Ignatius’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.

Read more about this issue: David Ignatius: Rouhani sees a nuclear deal in 3 months Soli Ozel: The protests in Turkey won’t be the last Fareed Zakaria: Israel dominates the new Middle East Sonet Cagaptay: Syria becomes a wedge between the United States and Turkey Dani Rodrik: Turkey’s miscarriage of justice

By David Ignatius, Published: October 17

Find this story at 17 October 2013
© The Washington Post Company

CIA Confirms Role in 1953 Iran Coup

Documents Provide New Details on Mosaddeq Overthrow and Its Aftermath
National Security Archive Calls for Release of Remaining Classified Record
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 435

Decades of Delay Questioning CIA Rationales

Have the British Been Meddling with the FRUS Retrospective Volume on 1953?
Foreign Office Worried over “Very Embarrassing” Revelations, Documents Show

The United Kingdom sought to expunge “very embarrassing” information about its role in the 1953 coup in Iran from the official U.S. history of the period, British documents confirm. The Foreign Office feared that a planned State Department publication would undermine U.K. standing in Iran, according to declassified records posted on the National Security Archive’s Web site today.

The British censorship attempt happened in 1978, but London’s concerns may play a role even today in holding up the State Department’s long-awaited history – even though U.S. law required its publication years ago.

The declassified documents, from the Foreign Office (Foreign and Commonwealth Office since 1968), shed light on a protracted controversy over crucial gaps in the State Department’s authoritative Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series. The blank spots on Iran involve the CIA- and MI6-backed plot to overthrow the country’s prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddeq. Six decades after his ouster, some signs point to the CIA as the culprit for refusing to allow basic details about the event to be incorporated into the FRUS compilation.[1]

Recently, the CIA has declassified a number of records relating to the 1953 coup, including a version of an internal history that specifically states the agency planned and helped implement the coup. (The National Security Archive obtained the documents through the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.) This suggests that ongoing CIA inflexibility over the FRUS volume is not so much a function of the agency’s worries about its own role being exposed as a function of its desire to protect lingering British sensitivities about 1953 – especially regarding the activities of U.K. intelligence services. There is also evidence that State Department officials have been just as anxious to shield British interests over the years.

Regardless of the reasons for this continued secrecy, an unfortunate consequence of withholding these materials is to guarantee that American (and world) public understanding of this pivotal episode will remain distorted. Another effect is to keep the issue alive in the political arena, where it is regularly exploited by circles in Iran opposed to constructive ties with the United States.

Background on FRUS and the Mosaddeq Period

By statute, the FRUS series is required to present “a thorough, accurate, and reliable documentary record” of American foreign policy.[2] That law came about partly as a consequence of the failure of the original volume covering the Mosaddeq period (published in 1989) to mention the U.S. role in his overthrow. The reaction of the scholarly community and interested public was outrage. Prominent historian Bruce Kuniholm, a former member of State’s Policy Planning Staff, called the volume “a fraud.”[3]

The full story of the scandal has been detailed elsewhere,[4] but most observers blamed the omission on the intelligence community (IC) for refusing to open its relevant files. In fact, the IC was not alone. Senior Department officials joined in opposing requests for access to particular classified records by the Historical Advisory Committee (HAC), the group of independent scholars charged with advising the Department’s own Office of the Historian.[5] The head of the HAC, Warren Cohen, resigned in protest in 1990 citing his inability to ensure the integrity of the FRUS series. Congress became involved and, in a display of bipartisanship that would be stunning today (Democratic Senator Daniel P. Moynihan getting Republican Jesse Helms to collaborate), lawmakers passed a bill to prevent similar historical distortions. As Cohen and others pointed out, while Moscow was disgorging its scandalous Cold War secrets, Washington was taking a distinctly Soviet approach to its own history.[6]

By 1998, State’s historians and the HAC had decided to produce a “retrospective” volume on the Iran coup that would help to correct the record. They planned other volumes to cover additional previously airbrushed covert activities (in Guatemala, the Congo, etc.). It was a promising step, yet 15 years later, while a couple of publications have materialized, several others have not – including the Iran volume.[7]

Institutional Delays

A review of the available minutes of HAC meetings makes it apparent that over the past decade multiple policy, bureaucratic, and logistical hurdles have interfered with progress. Some of these are routine, even inevitable – from the complications of multi-agency coordination to frequent personnel changes. Others are more specific to the realm of intelligence, notably a deep-seated uneasiness in parts of the CIA over the notion of unveiling putative secrets.

In the Fall of 2001, an ominous development for the HO gave a sense of where much of the power lay in its relationship with the CIA. According to notes of a public HAC meeting in October 2001, the CIA, on instructions from the Director of Central Intelligence, decided unilaterally “that there could be no new business” regarding FRUS until the two sides signed an MOU. Agency officials said the document would address legitimate IC concerns; HAC members worried it would mainly boost CIA control over the series. The agency specifically held up action on four volumes to make its point, while HAC historians countered that the volumes were being “held hostage” and the HO was being forced to work “under the threat of ‘blackmail’.”[8]

The CIA held firm and an agreement emerged in May 2002 that, at least from available information, appears to bend over backwards to give the IC extraordinary safeguards without offering much reassurance about key HO interests. For instance, the MOU states that the CIA must “meet HO’s statutory requirement” – hardly something that seems necessary to spell out. At the same time, it allows the CIA to review materials not once, but again even after a manuscript has passed through formal declassification, and once more after it is otherwise in final form and ready for printing. In the context of the disputed Iran volume, HAC members worried about the “random” nature of these provisions which gave the agency “a second bite at the apple.”[9] The implication is that the CIA will feel little obligation to help meet the HO’s legal requirement if it believes its own “equities” are at stake. (This of course may still affect the Iran volume, currently scheduled for 2014 publication.)

Is It the British?

As mentioned, the CIA has begun to release documentation in recent years making explicit its connection to the Mosaddeq overthrow. Even earlier, by 2002, the State Department and CIA jointly began compiling an Iran retrospective volume. These are not signs of a fundamental institutional unwillingness to publish American materials on the coup (although parts of the CIA continued to resist the notion). The HO even tried at least twice previously to organize a joint project with the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office on Iran, but the idea evidently went nowhere.[10]

In 2004, two years later, the State Department’s designated historian finished compiling the volume. According to that historian, he included a number of records obtained from research at the then-Public Record Office in London. Among his findings was “material that documents the British role.” He added that he had also located State Department records “that illustrate the British role.”[11] By no later than June 2006, the Iran volume had entered the declassification queue. At the June 2006 HAC session, CIA representatives said “they believed the committee would be satisfied with the [declassification] reviews.”

Up to that point, the agency’s signals seemed generally positive about the prospects of making public previously closed materials. But in the six years since, no Iran volume has emerged. Even State’s committee of historians apparently has never gotten a satisfactory explanation as to why.[12]

When the IC withholds records, “sources and methods” are often the excuse. The CIA is loath to release anything it believes would reveal how the agency conducts its activities. (For many years, the CIA kept secret the fact that it used balloons to drop leaflets over Eastern Europe during the Cold War, and would not confirm or deny whether it compiled biographical sketches of Communist leaders.) On the other hand, clandestine operations have been named in more than 20 other FRUS publications.[13] One of these was the retrospective volume on PBSUCCESS, the controversial overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954. Furthermore, the agency has released troubling materials such as assassination manuals that demonstrate how to murder political opponents using anything from “edge weapons” to “bare hands.” In 2007, in response to a 15-year-old National Security Archive FOIA request, the CIA finally released its file of “family jewels” detailing an assortment of infamous activities. from planning to poison foreign leaders to conducting illegal surveillance on American journalists.

If the agency felt it could part with such high-profile sources and methods information, along with deeply embarrassing revelations about itself, why not in the Iran case? Perhaps the British are just saying no, and their American counterparts are quietly going along.

State Department Early Warning – 1978

The FCO documents in this posting (Documents 22-35) strongly support this conclusion. Theytell a fascinating story of transatlantic cooperation and diplomatic concern at a turbulent time. It was a State Department official who first alerted the FCO to plans by the Department’s historians to publish an official account of the 1953 coup period. The Department’s Iran expert warned that the records could have “possibly damaging consequences” not only for London but for the Shah of Iran, who was fighting for survival as he had 25 years earlier (Document 22). Two days later, FCO officials began to pass the message up the line that “very embarrassing things about the British” were likely to be in the upcoming FRUS compilation (Document 23). FCO officials reported that officers on both the Iran and Britain desks at State were prepared to help keep those materials out of the public domain, at least for the time being (Document 33). Almost 35 years later, those records are still inaccessible.

The British government’s apparent unwillingness to acknowledge what the world already knows is difficult for most outsiders to understand. It becomes positively baffling when senior public figures who are fully aware of the history have already acknowledged London’s role. In 2009, former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw publicly remarked on Britain’s part in toppling Mosaddeq, which he categorized as one of many outside “interferences” in Iranian affairs in the last century.[14] Yet, present indications are that the U.K. government is not prepared to release either its own files or evidently to approve the opening of American records that might help bring some degree of closure to this protracted historic – and historiographical – episode.

(Jump to the British documents)

NOTES

[1] A recent article drawing attention to the controversy is Stephen R. Weissman, “Why is U.S. Withholding Old Documents on Covert Ops in Congo, Iran?” The Christian Science Monitor, March 25, 2011. ( http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2011/0325/Why-is-US-withholding-old-documents-on-covert-ops-in-Congo-Iran )

[2] Section 198, Public Law 102-138.

[3] Bruce Kuniholm, “Foreign Relations, Public Relations, Accountability, and Understanding,” American Historical Association, Perspectives, May-June 1990.

[4] In addition to the Kuniholm and Weissman items cited above, see also Stephen R. Weissman, “Censoring American Diplomatic History,” American Historical Association, Perspectives on History, September 2011.

[5] Joshua Botts, Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State, “‘A Burden for the Department’?: To The 1991 FRUS Statute,” February 6, 2012, http://history.state.gov/frus150/research/to-the-1991-frus-statute.

[6] Editorial, “History Bleached at State,” The New York Times, May 16, 1990.

[7] Retrospective compilations on Guatemala (2003) and the intelligence community (2007) during the 1950s have appeared; collections on the Congo and Chile are among those that have not.

[8] HAC minutes, October 15-16, 2001, http://history.state.gov/about/hac/october-2001.

[9] HAC minutes, July 22-23, 2002, http://history.state.gov/about/hac/july-2002; and December 14-15, 2009, http://history.state.gov/about/hac/december-2009.

[10] HAC minutes, July 22-23, 2002, http://history.state.gov/about/hac/july-2002.

[11]HAC minutes, March 6-7, 2006, http://history.state.gov/about/hac/march-2006.

[12] See HAC minutes for July 12-13, 2004, http://history.state.gov/about/hac/july-2004; September 20-21, 2004, http://history.state.gov/about/hac/september-2004; September 8-9, 2008, http://history.state.gov/about/hac/september-2008; for example.

[13] Comments of then-FRUS series editor Edward Keefer at the February 26-27, 2007, HAC meeting, http://history.state.gov/about/hac/february-2007.

[14] Quoted in Souren Melikian, “Show Ignores Essential Questions about Iranian King’s Role,” The International Herald Tribune, February 21, 2009.

Washington, D.C., August 19, 2013 – Marking the sixtieth anniversary of the overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, the National Security Archive is today posting recently declassified CIA documents on the United States’ role in the controversial operation. American and British involvement in Mosaddeq’s ouster has long been public knowledge, but today’s posting includes what is believed to be the CIA’s first formal acknowledgement that the agency helped to plan and execute the coup.

The explicit reference to the CIA’s role appears in a copy of an internal history, The Battle for Iran, dating from the mid-1970s. The agency released a heavily excised version of the account in 1981 in response to an ACLU lawsuit, but it blacked out all references to TPAJAX, the code name for the U.S.-led operation. Those references appear in the latest release. Additional CIA materials posted today include working files from Kermit Roosevelt, the senior CIA officer on the ground in Iran during the coup. They provide new specifics as well as insights into the intelligence agency’s actions before and after the operation.
This map shows the disposition of bands of “ruffians,” paid to demonstrate by coup organizers, early on August 19, 1953. The bands gathered in the bazaar and other sections of southern Tehran, then moved north through the capital. Thug leaders’ names appear at left, along with the estimated size of their groups, and their targets. (Courtesy of Ali Rahnema, author of the forthcoming Thugs, Turn-coats, Soldiers, Spooks: Anatomy of Overthrowing Mosaddeq in Four Days.)

The 1953 coup remains a topic of global interest because so much about it is still under intense debate. Even fundamental questions — who hatched the plot, who ultimately carried it out, who supported it inside Iran, and how did it succeed — are in dispute.[1]

The issue is more than academic. Political partisans on all sides, including the Iranian government, regularly invoke the coup to argue whether Iran or foreign powers are primarily responsible for the country’s historical trajectory, whether the United States can be trusted to respect Iran’s sovereignty, or whether Washington needs to apologize for its prior interference before better relations can occur.
Pro-Shah police, military units and undercover agents became engaged in the coup starting mid-morning August 19. (Courtesy of Ali Rahnema, author of the forthcoming Thugs, Turn-coats, Soldiers, Spooks: Anatomy of Overthrowing Mosaddeq in Four Days.)

Also, the public release of these materials is noteworthy because CIA documents about 1953 are rare. First of all, agency officials have stated that most of the records on the coup were either lost or destroyed in the early 1960s, allegedly because the record-holders’ “safes were too full.”[2]

Regarding public access to any remaining files (reportedly about one cubic foot of material), the intelligence community’s standard procedure for decades has been to assert a blanket denial. This is in spite of commitments made two decades ago by three separate CIA directors. Robert M. Gates, R. James Woolsey, and John M. Deutch each vowed to open up agency historical files on a number of Cold War-era covert operations, including Iran, as a sign of the CIA’s purported new policy of openness after the collapse of the USSR in 1991.[3]
Tanks played a critical role on August 19, with pro-Shah forces gaining control of some 24 of them from the military during the course of the day. (Courtesy of Ali Rahnema, author of the forthcoming Thugs, Turn-coats, Soldiers, Spooks: Anatomy of Overthrowing Mosaddeq in Four Days.)

A clear sign that their pledge would not be honored in practice came after the National Security Archive filed a lawsuit in 1999 for a well-known internal CIA narrative about the coup. One of the operation’s planners, Donald N. Wilber, prepared the account less than a year later. The CIA agreed to release just a single sentence out of the 200-page report.

Despite the appearance of countless published accounts about the operation over the years – including Kermit Roosevelt’s own detailed memoir, and the subsequent leak to The New York Times of the 200-page CIA narrative history[4] — intelligence agencies typically refused to budge. They have insisted on making a distinction between publicly available information on U.S. activities from non-government sources and official acknowledgement of those activities, even several decades after the fact.
Anti-Mosaddeq armed forces converged on his house (left side of map) beginning around 4:00 pm, eventually forcing him to escape over a garden wall before his house was destroyed. By then, Zahedi had already addressed the nation from the Radio Transmission Station. (Courtesy of Ali Rahnema, author of the forthcoming Thugs, Turn-coats, Soldiers, Spooks: Anatomy of Overthrowing Mosaddeq in Four Days.)

While the National Security Archive applauds the CIA’s decision to make these materials available, today’s posting shows clearly that these materials could have been safely declassified many years ago without risk of damage to the national security. (See sidebar, “Why is the Coup Still a Secret?”)

Archive Deputy Director Malcolm Byrne called for the U.S. intelligence community to make fully available the remaining records on the coup period. “There is no longer good reason to keep secrets about such a critical episode in our recent past. The basic facts are widely known to every school child in Iran. Suppressing the details only distorts the history, and feeds into myth-making on all sides.”

To supplement the recent CIA release, the National Security Archive is including two other, previously available internal accounts of the coup. One is the narrative referred to above: a 1954 Clandestine Services History prepared by Donald N. Wilber, one of the operation’s chief architects, which The New York Times obtained by a leak and first posted on its site in April 2000.

The other item is a heavily excised 1998 piece — “Zendebad, Shah!” — by an in-house CIA historian. (The Archive has asked the CIA to re-review the document’s excessive deletions for future release.)

The posting also features an earlier declassification of The Battle for Iran for purposes of comparison with the latest release. The earlier version includes portions that were withheld in the later release. As often happens, government classification officials had quite different — sometimes seemingly arbitrary — views about what could and could not be safely made public.

Read together, the three histories offer fascinating variations in perspective — from an agency operative to two in-house historians (the last being the most dispassionate). Unfortunately, they still leave wide gaps in the history, including on some fundamental questions which may never be satisfactorily answered — such as how to apportion responsibility for planning and carrying out the coup among all the Iranian and outside actors involved.

But all 21 of the CIA items posted today (in addition to 14 previously unpublished British documents — see Sidebar), reinforce the conclusion that the United States, and the CIA in particular, devoted extensive resources and high-level policy attention toward bringing about Mosaddeq’s overthrow, and smoothing over the aftermath.

DOCUMENTS

CIA Records

CIA Internal Histories

Document 1 (Cover Sheet, Summary, I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, Appendix A, Appendix B, Appendix C, Appendix D, Appendix E): CIA, Clandestine Services History, Overthrow of Premier Mossadeq of Iran: November 1952 – August 1953, Dr. Donald N. Wilber, March 1954

Source: The New York Times

Donald Wilber was a principal planner of the initial joint U.S.-U.K. coup attempt of August 1953. This 200-page account is one of the most valuable remaining records describing the event because Wilber wrote it within months of the overthrow and provided a great deal of detail. Like any historical document, it must be read with care, taking into account the author’s personal perspective, purpose in writing it, and audience. The CIA routinely prepared histories of important operations for use by future operatives. They were not intended to be made public.

Document 2: CIA, Summary, “Campaign to Install a Pro-Western Government in Iran,” draft of internal history of the coup, undated

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act release

This heavily excised summary was almost certainly prepared in connection with Donald Wilber’s Clandestine Services History (Document 1). By all indications written not long after the coup (1953-54), it includes several of the phrases Wilber used — “quasi-legal,” and “war of nerves,” for example. The text clearly gives the impression that the author attributes the coup’s eventual success to a combination of external and internal developments. Beginning by listing a number of specific steps taken by the U.S. under the heading “CIA ACTION,” the document notes at the end (in a handwritten edit): “These actions resulted in literal revolt of the population, [1+ lines excised]. The military and security forces joined the populace, Radio Tehran was taken over, and Mossadeq was forced to flee on 17 [sic] Aug 53.”

Document 3 a & b: CIA, History, The Battle for Iran, author’s name excised, undated (c. mid-1970s) – (Two versions – declassified in 1981 and 2011)

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act release

This posting provides two separate releases of the same document, declassified 30 years apart (1981 and 2011). Each version contains portions excised in the other. Though no date is given, judging from citations in the footnotes The Battle for Iran was written in or after 1974. It is marked “Administrative – Working Paper” and contains a number of handwritten edits. The author was a member of the CIA’s History Staff who acknowledges “the enthusiastic cooperation” of the agency’s Directorate of Operations. The author provides confirmation that most of the relevant files were destroyed in 1962; therefore the account relies on the relatively few remaining records as well as on public sources. The vast majority of the covert action portion (Section III) remains classified, although the most recent declassification of the document leaves in some brief, but important, passages. An unexpected feature of the document (Appendix C) is the inclusion of a series of lengthy excerpts of published accounts of the overthrow designed, apparently, to underscore how poorly the public understood the episode at the time.

Document 4: CIA, History, “Zendebad, Shah!”: The Central Intelligence Agency and the Fall of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq, August 1953, Scott A. Koch, June 1998

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act release

The most recent known internal history of the coup, “Zendebad, Shah!” was written by an in-house agency historian in 1998. It is heavily excised (but currently undergoing re-review by the CIA), with virtually all paragraphs marked Confidential or higher omitted from the public version. Still, it is a useful account written by someone without a stake in the events and drawing on an array of U.S. government and published sources not available to the earlier CIA authors.

CIA Records Immediately Before and After the Coup

Document 5: CIA, memo from Kermit Roosevelt to [Excised], July 14, 1953

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act release

Kermit Roosevelt conveys information about rapidly unfolding events in Tehran, including Mosaddeq’s idea for a referendum on his remaining in office, the prospect of his closing the Majles, and most importantly the impact President Eisenhower’s recent letter has had in turning society against the prime minister. The U.S. government publicized Eisenhower’s undiplomatic letter turning down Mosaddeq’s request for financial aid. The move was one of the ways Washington hoped to weaken his political standing.

Document 6: CIA, memo from Kermit Roosevelt to [Excised], July 15, 1953

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act release

Responding to the resignation of Mosaddeq supporters from the Majles, Kermit Roosevelt fires off a plan to ensure that other Majles members keep the parliament functioning, the eventual goal being to engineer a no-confidence in Mosaddeq. The memo provides an interesting clue on the subject of whether CIA operatives ever bought votes in the Majles, about which other CIA sources are vague. Roosevelt urges that as many deputies as possible be “persuaded” to take bast in the parliament. “Recognize will be necessary expend money this purpose and determine precisely who does what.” At the conclusion of the document he appears to tie this scheme into the previously elaborated — but clearly evolving — coup plan.

Document 7: CIA, memo from Kermit Roosevelt to [Excised], July 16, 1953

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act release

Roosevelt reports on developing plans involving Fazlollah Zahedi, the man who has been chosen to replace Mosaddeq. CIA sources, including the Wilber history, indicate that the military aspects of the plan were to be largely Zahedi’s responsibility. This memo supports that (even though many details are excised), but also provides some insight into the differences in expectations between the Americans and Zahedi. With some skepticism (“Zahedi claims …”), Roosevelt spells out a series of events Zahedi envisions that presumably would bring him to the premiership, albeit in a very round-about way. His thinking is clearly prompted by his declared unwillingness to commit “‘political suicide’ by extra-legal move.”

Document 8: CIA, memo from Kermit Roosevelt to [Excised], July 17, 1953

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act release

The CIA’s Tehran station reports on the recent resignations of independent and opposition Majles members. The idea, an opposition deputy tells the station, was to avert Mosaddeq’s planned public referendum. The memo gives a bit of insight into the fluidity and uncertainty of developments with each faction undoubtedly elaborating their own strategies and tactics to a certain degree.

Document 9: CIA, note to Mr. [John] Waller, July 22, 1953

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act release

This brief note conveys much about both U.S. planning and hopes for Mosaddeq’s overthrow. It is a request from Kermit Roosevelt to John Waller and Donald Wilber to make sure that a formal U.S. statement is ready in advance of “a ‘successful’ coup.” (See Document 10)

Document 10: CIA, note forwarding proposed text of State Department release for after the coup, August 5, 1953

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act release

This draft text from the State Department appears to be a result of Roosevelt’s request (Document 9) to have an official statement available for use after completion of the operation. The draft predates Mosaddeq’s ouster by two weeks, but its language — crediting “the Iranian people, under the leadership of their Shah,” for the coup — tracks precisely with the neutral wording used by both the State Department and Foreign Office in their official paperwork after the fact.

Document 11: CIA, Memo, “Proposed Commendation for Communications Personnel who have serviced the TPAJAX Operation,” Frank G. Wisner to The Acting Director of Central Intelligence, August 20, 1953

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act release

Wisner recommends a special commendation for the work performed by the communications specialists who kept CIA headquarters in contact with operatives in Iran throughout the coup period. “I am sure that you are aware of the exceptionally heavy volume of traffic which this operation has necessitated,” Wisner writes — an unintentionally poignant remark given how little of that documentation has survived.

Document 12: CIA, Memo, “Commendation,” Frank G. Wisner to CNEA Division, August 26, 1953

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act release

Wisner also requests a commendation for John Waller, the coup overseer at CIA headquarters, “for his work in TPAJAX.” Waller’s conduct “in no small measure, contributed to the successful result.”

Document 13: CIA, “Letter of Commendation [Excised],” author and recipient names excised, August 26, 1953

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act release

Evidently after reflection, Frank Wisner concludes that there are troubling “security implications” involved in providing a letter of commendation for a covert operation.

Document 14: CIA, Memo, “Anti-Tudeh Activities of Zahedi Government,” author’s name excised, September 10, 1953

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act release

A priority of the Zahedi government after the coup was to go after the Tudeh Party, which had been a mainstay of support for Mosaddeq, even if the relationship was mostly one of mutual convenience. This is one of several memos reporting details on numbers of arrests, names of suspected Central Committee members, and planned fate of arrestees. The report claims with high specificity on Soviet assistance being provided to the Tudeh, including printing party newspapers at the embassy. Signs are reportedly mixed as to whether the party and pro-Mosaddeq elements will try to combine forces again.

Document 15: CIA, memo from Kermit Roosevelt to [Excised], September 21, 1953

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act release

Roosevelt reports on an intense period of political maneuvering at high levels in the Zahedi government. Intrigues, patronage (including a report that the government has been giving financial support to Ayatollah Behbehani, and that the latter’s son is angling for a Cabinet post), and corruption are all dealt with in this memo.

Document 16: CIA, memo from Kermit Roosevelt to [Excised], September 24, 1953

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act release

A restless Zahedi is reported to be active on a number of fronts including trying to get a military tribunal to execute Mosaddeq and urging the Shah to fire several senior military officers including Chief of Staff Batmangelich. The Shah reportedly has not responded to Zahedi’s previous five messages.

Document 17: CIA, Memo from Kermit Roosevelt to [Excised], October 2, 1953

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act release

According to this account, the Shah remained deeply worried about Mosaddeq’s influence, even while incarcerated. Roosevelt reports the Shah is prepared to execute Mosaddeq (after a guilty verdict that is a foregone conclusion) if his followers and the Tudeh take any threatening action.

Document 18: CIA, Memo from Kermit Roosevelt to [Excised], October 9, 1953

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act release

Iranian politics did not calm down entirely after the coup, as this memo indicates, reporting on “violent disagreements” between Zahedi and his own supporter, Hoseyn Makki, whom Zahedi threatened to shoot if he accosted any senators trying to attend a Senate session. Roosevelt also notes two recent payments from Zahedi to Ayatollah Behbehani. The source for these provocative reports is unknown, but presumably is named in the excised portion at the top of the memo.

Document 19: CIA, memo from Kermit Roosevelt to [Excised], October 20, 1953

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act release

Roosevelt notes a meeting between the new prime minister, Zahedi, and Ayatollah Kashani, a politically active cleric and once one of Mosaddeq’s chief supporters. Kashani reportedly carps about some of his former National Front allies. Roosevelt concludes Zahedi wants “split” the front “by wooing Kashani away.”

Document 20: CIA, Propaganda Commentary, “Our National Character,” undated

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act release

This appears to be an example of CIA propaganda aimed at undermining Mosaddeq’s public standing, presumably prepared during Summer 1953. Like other examples in this posting, the CIA provided no description when it released the document. It certainly fits the pattern of what Donald Wilber and others after him have described about the nature of the CIA’s efforts to plant damaging innuendo in local Iranian media. In this case, the authors extol the virtues of the Iranian character, particularly as admired by the outside world, then decry the descent into “hateful,” “rough” and “rude” behavior Iranians have begun to exhibit “ever since the alliance between the dictator Mossadeq and the Tudeh Party.”

Document 21: CIA, Propaganda Commentary, “Mossadeq’s Spy Service,” undated

Source: CIA Freedom of Information Act release

This propaganda piece accuses the prime minister of pretending to be “the savior of Iran” and alleges that he has instead built up a vast spying apparatus which he has trained on virtually every sector of society, from the army to newspapers to political and religious leaders. Stirring up images of his purported alliance with “murderous Qashqai Khans” and the Bolsheviks, the authors charge: “Is this the way you save Iran, Mossadeq? We know what you want to save. You want to save Mossadeq’s dictatorship in Iran!”

British Records

Document 22 : FCO, Summary Record, “British-American Planning Talks, Washington,” October 10-11, 1978

Source: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO) FCO 8/3216, File No. P 333/2, Folder, “Iran: Release of Confidential Records,” 1 Jan – 31 Dec 1978 (hereafter: TNA: PRO FCO 8/3216)

In October 1978, a delegation of British FCO officials traveled to Washington for two days of discussions and comparing of notes on the world situation with their State Department counterparts. The director of the Department’s Policy Planning Staff, Anthony Lake (later to serve as President Bill Clinton’s national security advisor), led the American side. Other participants were experts from various geographical and functional bureaus, including Henry Precht, the head of the Iran Desk.

Beginning in paragraph 22, Precht gives a dour summary of events in Iran: “the worst foreign policy disaster to hit the West for many years.” In a fascinating back-and-forth about the Shah, Precht warns it is “difficult to see how the Shah could survive.” The British politely disagree, voicing confidence that the monarchy will survive. Even his State Department colleagues “showed surprise at the depth of Mr. Precht’s gloom.”

In the course of his presentation (paragraph 23), Precht notes almost in passing that the State Department is reviewing its records from 1952-1954 for eventual release. A British representative immediately comments that “if that were the case, he hoped HMG [Her Majesty’s Government] would be consulted.”

Document 23: FCO, Minute, B.L. Crowe to R.S. Gorham, “Anglo-American Planning Talks: Iran,” October 12, 1978

Source: TNA: PRO FCO 8/3216

This memo recounts Precht’s dramatic presentation on Iran two days earlier (see previous document). “His was essentially a policy of despair,” the author writes. When the British follow up with the Americans about Precht’s outlook of gloom, they find that State Department and National Security Council (NSC) staff were just as bewildered by his remarks. One NSC staff member calls them “bullshit.” Policy Planning Director Lake laments the various “indiscreet and sensitive things” the Americans said at the meeting, and asks the British to “be very careful” how they handle them.

“On a completely different subject,” the minute continues, “Precht let out … that he was having to go through the records of the 1952/53 Mossadeq period with a view to their release under the Freedom of Information Act [sic]. He said that if released, there would be some very embarrassing things about the British in them.” (Much of this passage is underlined for emphasis.) The note goes on: “I made a strong pitch that we should be consulted,” but the author adds, “I imagine that it is American documents about the British rather than documents on which HMG have any lien which are involved.” (This is a point that may still be at issue today since the question of discussing American documents with foreign governments is very different from negotiating over the use of foreign government records.)

Document 24: FCO, Letter, R.J. Carrick to B.L. Crowe, October 13, 1978

Source: TNA: PRO FCO 8/3216

An FCO official reports that Precht recently approached another British diplomat to say that “he hoped we had not been too shocked” by his recent presentation. He says Precht acknowledged being “over-pessimistic” and that in any event he had not been offering anyone’s view but his own.[5] According to the British, NSC staff members put more stock in the assessments of the U.K. ambassador to Tehran, Sir Anthony Parsons, than in Precht’s. The writer adds that U.S. Ambassador to Iran William Sullivan also shares Parsons’ judgment, and concludes, without indicating a source, that even “Henry Precht has now accepted Sullivan’s view!”

Document 25: FCO, Letter, R.S. Gorham to Mr. Cullimore, “Iran: The Ghotbi Pamphlet and the Mussadeq Period,” October 17, 1978

Source: TNA: PRO FCO 8/3216

This cover note (to Document 24) refers to Precht’s revelation about the impending American publication of documents on the Mosaddeq period. The author suggests giving some consideration to the implications of this for “our own record of the time.”

Document 26: FCO, Letter, B.L. Crowe to Sir A. Duff, “Anglo-American Planning Talks,” October 19, 1978

Source: TNA: PRO FCO 8/3216

FCO official Brian Crowe summarizes the October 10-11 joint U.S.-U.K. talks. The document is included here mainly for the sake of comprehensiveness, since it is part of the FCO folder on the FRUS matter. The writer repeats the remark from State’s Anthony Lake that “some of the comments” from the U.S. side on Iran (among other topics) were “highly sensitive” and should not be disclosed – even to other American officials.

Document 27: FCO, Letter, J.O. Kerr to B.L. Crowe, “Talks with the US Planners: Iran,” October 24, 1978

Source: TNA: PRO FCO 8/3216

This brief note shows that word is moving up the line in the FCO about the forthcoming FRUS volume on Iran. The writer conveys a request to have the U.K. embassy in Washington check the risks involved in the potential release of U.S. documents, and “when the State Department propose to raise them formally with us.”

Document 28: FCO, letter, G.G.H. Walden to B.L. Crowe, “Anglo-American Planning Talks: Iran,” November 10, 1978

Source: TNA: PRO FCO 8/3216

Still more interest in the possible State Department release is reflected in this short note, now a month after the joint U.S.-U.K. talks. Here and elsewhere, the British notes erroneously report that the release will come under the Freedom of Information Act (or the Public Information Act, as given here); they are actually slated for inclusion in the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series.

Document 29: FCO, R.S. Gorham cover note to Streams, “Iran: Release of Confidential Records,” attaching draft letter to Washington, November 14, 1978

Source: TNA: PRO FCO 8/3216

This note and draft are included primarily because they are part of the FCO file on this topic. However, the draft letter does contain some different wording from the final version (Document 31).

Document 30: U.S. Embassy London, Letter, Ronald I. Spiers to Sir Thomas Brimelow, March 24, 1975

Source: TNA: PRO FCO 8/3216

Three years before Precht’s revelation to his British counterparts, the U.K. sought general guidance from the State Department about how the U.S. would handle “classified information received from Her Majesty’s Government.” The month before, robust amendments to the U.S. Freedom of Information Act had gone into effect. This letter from the number two official in London at the time, Ronald Spiers, offers a detailed response. Britain’s awareness of the new amendments and anxiousness about their implications (including the fairly abstruse question of how secret documents would be handled in court cases) show how sensitive an issue the British considered protection of their information to be. The U.S. Chargé is equally anxious to provide the necessary reassurances. (More than a decade later, Spiers would sharply oppose efforts by the State Department’s Historical Advisory Committee to gain access to restricted documentation for the FRUS series.[6])

Document 31: FCO, Letter, R.S. Gorham to R.J.S. Muir, “Iran: Release of Confidential Records,” November 16, 1978

Source: TNA: PRO FCO 8/3216

The British embassy in Washington is alerted to the possibility of documents being released on the 1952-54 period. The FCO clearly expects that, as apparently has been the case in the past, “there should be no difficulty for the Americans in first removing … copies of any telegrams etc from us and US documents which record our views, even in the case of papers which are not strictly speaking ‘official information furnished by a foreign government.'” (This raises important questions about how far U.S. officials typically go to accommodate allied sensibilities, including to the point of censoring U.S. documents.) “What is not clear,” the letter continues, “is whether they could withhold American documents which referred to joint Anglo/US views about, say, the removal of Musaddiq in 1953.”

Document 32: British Embassy in Washington, Letter, R.J.S. Muir to R.S. Gorham, “Iran” Release of Confidential Records,” December 14, 1978

Source: TNA: PRO FCO 8/3216

This follow-up to Gorham’s earlier request (Document 31) is another reflection of U.K. skittishness about the pending document release. The embassy officer reports that he has spoken to Henry Precht “several times” about it, and that the British Desk at the State Department is also looking into the matter on London’s behalf. The objective is to persuade the Department to agree to withhold not only British documents but American ones, too.

Document 33: British Embassy in Washington, Letter, R.J.S. Muir to R.S. Gorham, “Iran: Release of Confidential Records,” December 22, 1978

Source: TNA: PRO FCO 8/3216

The embassy updates the FCO on the status of the Iran records. Precht informs the embassy that he is prepared to “sit on the papers” to help postpone their publication. Precht’s priority is the potential impact on current U.S. and U.K. policy toward Iran. Conversely, a historian at the State Department makes it clear that his office feels no obligation even to consult with the British about any non-U.K. documents being considered. The historian goes on to say “that he had in the past resisted requests from other governments for joint consultation and would resist very strongly any such request from us.” But the same historian admits that the embassy might “be successful” if it approached the policy side of the Department directly.

The embassy letter ends with a “footnote” noting that State Department historians “have read the 1952-54 papers and find them a ‘marvelous compilation.'”

Interestingly, a handwritten comment on the letter from another FCO official gives a different view about the likely consequences of the upcoming document publication: “As the revolution [in Iran] is upon us, the problem is no longer Anglo-American: the first revelations will be from the Iranian side.” In other words, the revolution will bring its own damaging results, and the revolutionaries will not need any further ammunition from the West.

Document 34: FCO, Cover Note, Cohen (?) to Lucas, circa December 22, 1978

Source: TNA: PRO FCO 8/3216

In a handwritten remark at the bottom of this cover note, an unidentified FCO official voices much less anxiety than some of his colleagues about the possible repercussions of the disclosure of documents on Iran. Referring to a passage in paragraph 3 of the attached letter (see previous document), the writer asks: “why should we be concerned about ‘any other documents’?” The writer agrees with the cover note author’s suggestion to “let this matter rest for a while,” then continues: “I think we ought positively to seek the agreement of others interested to Y.” (“Y” identifies the relevant passage on the cover note.)

Document 35: FCO, Meeting Record, “Iran: Policy Review,” December 20, 1978

Source : British National Archives, FCO 8/3351, File No. NB P 011/1 (Part A), Title “Internal Political Situation in Iran”

British Foreign Secretary David Owen chairs this FCO meeting on the unfolding crisis in Iran. It offers a window into London’s assessment of the revolution and British concerns for the future (including giving “highest priority to getting paid for our major outstanding debts”). The document also shows that not everyone at the FCO believed significant harm would necessarily come to British interests from the FRUS revelations. Although he is speaking about events in 1978, I.T.M. Lucas’ comment could apply just as forcefully to the impact of disclosing London’s actions in 1953: “[I]t was commonly known in [the Iranian] Government who the British were talking to, and there was nothing we could do to disabuse public opinion of its notions about the British role in Iran.” (p. 2)

NOTES

[1] Just in the last several years, books in English, French and Farsi by Ervand Abrahamian, Gholam-Reza Afkhami, Mohammad Amini, Christopher de Bellaigue, Darioush Bayandor, Mark Gasiorowski (and this author), Stephen Kinzer, Abbas Milani, Ali Rahnema, and others have focused on, or at least dealt in depth with, Mosaddeq and the coup. They contain sometimes wide differences of view about who was behind planning for the overthrow and how it finally played out. More accounts are on the way (including an important English-language volume on Iranian domestic politics by Ali Rahnema of the American University of Paris).

[2] Tim Weiner, “C.I.A. Destroyed Files on 1953 Iran Coup,” The New York Times, May 29, 1997.

[3] Tim Weiner, “C.I.A.’s Openness Derided as a ‘Snow Job’,” The New York Times, May 20, 1997; Tim Weiner, op. cit., May 29, 1997. (See also the link to the Archive’s lawsuit, above.)

[4] Kermit Roosevelt, Countercoup: The Struggle for the Control of Iran (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1979); The New York Times, April 16, 2000.

[5] Precht recalls that he was originally not slated to be at the meetings, which usually deputy assistant secretaries and above attended. But the Near East division representative for State was unavailable. “I was drafted,” Precht said. Being forced to “sit through interminable and pointless talk” about extraneous topics “when my plate was already overflowing” on Iran contributed to a “sour mood,” he remembered. (Henry Precht e-mail to author, June 2, 2011.)

[6] Joshua Botts, Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State, “‘A Burden for the Department’?: To The 1991 FRUS Statute,” February 6, 2012, http://history.state.gov/frus150/research/to-the-1991-frus-statute.

Posted – August 19, 2013
Edited by Malcolm Byrne
For more information contact:
Malcolm Byrne 202/994-7043 or mbyrne@gwu.edu

Find this story at 19 August 2013

© 1995-2013 National Security Archive

Israel suspected over Iran nuclear programme inquiry leaks

Western officials believe Israel may have leaked information from IAEA investigation in bid to raise global pressure on Tehran

A satellite image of Iran’s military complex at Parchin. The IAEA is investigating Tehran’s past nuclear activities and current aspirations. Photograph: DigitalGlobe – Institute for Science and International Security

Israel is suspected of carrying out a series of leaks implicating Iran in nuclear weapons experiments in an attempt to raise international pressure on Tehran and halt its programme.

Western diplomats believe the leaks may have backfired, compromising a UN-sanctioned investigation into Iran’s past nuclear activities and current aspirations.

The latest leak, published by the Associated Press (AP), purported to be an Iranian diagram showing the physics of a nuclear blast, but scientists quickly pointed out an elementary mistake that cast doubt on its significance and authenticity. An article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists declared: “This diagram does nothing more than indicate either slipshod analysis or an amateurish hoax.”

The leaked diagram raised questions about an investigation being carried out by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors after it emerged that it formed part of a file of intelligence on alleged Iranian nuclear weapons work held by the agency.

The IAEA’s publication of a summary of the file in November 2011 helped trigger a new round of punitive EU and US sanctions.

Western officials say they have reasons to suspect Israel of being behind the most recent leak and a series of previous disclosures from the IAEA investigation, pointing to Israel’s impatience at what it sees as international complacency over Iranian nuclear activity.

The leaks are part of an intensifying shadow war over Iran’s atomic programme being played out in Vienna, home to the IAEA’s headquarters.

The Israeli spy agency, the Mossad, is highly active in the Austrian capital, as is Iran and most of the world’s major intelligence agencies, leading to frequent comparisons with its earlier incarnation as a battleground for spies in the early years of the cold war.

The Israeli government did not reply to a request for comment and AP described the source of the latest leak only as “officials from a country critical of Iran’s atomic programme”.

An “intelligence summary” provided to AP with the graph appeared to go out of its way to implicate two men in nuclear weapons testing who had been targeted for assassination two years ago. One of them, Majid Shahriari, was killed on his way to work in Tehran in November 2010 after a motorcyclist fixed a bomb to the door of his car. The other, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, was wounded in a near identical attack the same day.

A book published earlier this year by veteran Israeli and American writers on intelligence, called Spies Against Armageddon, said the attacks were carried out by an assassination unit known as Kidon, or Bayonet – part of the Mossad.

One western source said the “intelligence summary” supplied with the leaked diagram “reads like an attempt to justify the assassinations”.

According to one European diplomat, however, the principal impact of the leak would be to compromise the ongoing IAEA investigation into whether Iran has tried to develop a nuclear weapon at any point. “This is just one small snapshot of what the IAEA is working on, and part of a much broader collection of data from multiple sources,” the diplomat said.

“The particular document turns out to have a huge error but the IAEA was aware of it and saw it in the context of everything it has. It paints a convincing case.”

Sources who have seen the documents said the graph was based on a spreadsheet of data in the IAEA’s possession which appears to analyse the energy released by a nuclear blast. The mistake was made when that data was transposed on to a graph, on which the wrong units were used on one of the axes.

There is widespread belief among western governments, Russia, China and most independent experts that evidence is substantial for an Iranian nuclear weapons programme until 2003. There is far less consensus on what activities, if any, have been carried out since. The IAEA inquiry has so far not found a “smoking gun”.

Analysts say that the recent leaks may have shown the IAEA’s hand, revealing what it knows and does not know, and therefore undermined the position of its inspectors in tense and so far fruitless talks with Iranian officials about the country’s past nuclear activities.

Iran rejects the evidence against it as forged and has not granted access to its nuclear scientists or to a site known as Parchin where IAEA inspectors believe the high-explosive components for a nuclear warhead may have been tested.

The IAEA says it has evidence that the site is being sanitised to remove any incriminating traces of past experiments.

David Albright, a nuclear expert at the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, said he had no knowledge of who was behind the leak but added: “Whoever did this has undermined the IAEA’s credibility and made it harder for it to do its work.”

…

Julian Borger, diplomatic editor
The Guardian, Monday 10 December 2012 20.47 GMT

Find this story at 10 December 2012

© 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

DIY graphic design

This week the Associated Press reported that unnamed officials “from a country critical of Iran’s nuclear program” leaked an illustration to demonstrate that “Iranian scientists have run computer simulations for a nuclear weapon that would produce more than triple the explosive force of the World War II bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.” The article stated that these officials provided the undated diagram “to bolster their arguments that Iran’s nuclear program must be halted.”

The graphic has not yet been authenticated; however, even if authentic, it would not qualify as proof of a nuclear weapons program. Besides the issue of authenticity, the diagram features quite a massive error, which is unlikely to have been made by research scientists working at a national level.

The image released to the Associated Press shows two curves: one that plots the energy versus time, and another that plots the power output versus time, presumably from a fission device. But these two curves do not correspond: If the energy curve is correct, then the peak power should be much lower — around 300 million ( 3×108) kt per second, instead of the currently stated 17 trillion (1.7 x1013) kt per second. As is, the diagram features a nearly million-fold error.

This diagram does nothing more than indicate either slipshod analysis or an amateurish hoax.

In any case, the level of scientific sophistication needed to produce such a graph corresponds to that typically found in graduate- or advanced undergraduate-level nuclear physics courses.

While such a graphic, if authentic, may be a concern, it is not a cause for alarm. And it certainly is not something proscribed by the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement between the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran, nor any other international agreements to which Iran is a party. No secrets are needed to produce the plot of the explosive force of a nuclear weapon — just straightforward nuclear physics.

Though the image does not imply that computer simulations were actually run, even if they were, this is the type of project a student could present in a nuclear-science course. The diagram simply shows that the bulk of the nuclear fission yield is produced in a short, 0.1 microsecond, pulse. Since the 1950s, it has been standard knowledge that, in a fission device, the last few generations of neutron multiplication yield the bulk of the energy output. It is neither a secret, nor indicative of a nuclear weapons program.

Graphs such as the one published by the Associated Press can be found in nuclear science textbooks and on the Internet. For instance, The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, by physicists Samuel Glasstone and Philip Dolan, features a similar diagram as its Figure 7.84. This iconic book is freely available online and is considered to be the open-source authority on the subject of nuclear weapons and nuclear weapon effects. Another graphic can be found in Figure 2.11 of the textbook The Physics of the Manhattan Project.

…

By Yousaf Butt and Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress | 28 November 2012

Find this story at 28 November 2012

Copyright © 2012 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. All Rights Reserved.

AP Exclusive: Graph suggests Iran working on bomb

The undated diagram that was given to the AP by officials of a country critical of Iran’s atomic program allegedly calculating the explosive force of a nuclear weapon _ a key step in developing such arms. The diagram shows a bell curve and has variables of time in micro-seconds and power and energy, both in kilotons _ the traditional measurement of the energy output, and hence the destructive power of nuclear weapons. The curve peaks at just above 50 kilotons at around 2 microseconds, reflecting the full force of the weapon being modeled. The Farsi writing at the bottom translates “changes in output and in energy released as a function of time through power pulse” (AP Photo)

VIENNA (AP) — Iranian scientists have run computer simulations for a nuclear weapon that would produce more than triple the explosive force of the World War II bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, according to a diagram obtained by The Associated Press.

The diagram was leaked by officials from a country critical of Iran’s atomic program to bolster their arguments that Iran’s nuclear program must be halted before it produces a weapon. The officials provided the diagram only on condition that they and their country not be named.

The International Atomic Energy Agency — the Vienna-based U.N. nuclear watchdog — reported last year that it had obtained diagrams indicating that Iran was calculating the “nuclear explosive yield” of potential weapons. A senior diplomat who is considered neutral on the issue confirmed that the graph obtained by the AP was indeed one of those cited by the IAEA in that report. He spoke only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue.

The IAEA report mentioning the diagrams last year did not give details of what they showed. But the diagram seen by the AP shows a bell curve — with variables of time in micro-seconds, and power and energy both in kilotons — the traditional measurement of the energy output, and hence the destructive power of nuclear weapons. The curve peaks at just above 50 kilotons at around 2 microseconds, reflecting the full force of the weapon being modeled.

The bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima in Japan during World War II, in comparison, had a force of about 15 kilotons. Modern nuclear weapons have yields hundreds of times higher than that.

The diagram has a caption in Farsi: “Changes in output and in energy released as a function of time through power pulse.” The number “5” is part of the title, suggesting it is part of a series.

David Albright, whose Institute for Science and International Security is used by the U.S. government as a go-to source on Iran’s nuclear program, said the diagram looks genuine but seems to be designed more “to understand the process” than as part of a blueprint for an actual weapon in the making.

“The yield is too big,” Albright said, noting that North Korea’s first tests of a nuclear weapon were only a few kilotons. Because the graph appears to be only one in a series, others might show lower yields, closer to what a test explosion might produce, he said.

The senior diplomat said the diagram was part of a series of Iranian computer-generated models provided to the IAEA by the intelligences services of member nations for use in its investigations of suspicions that Iran is trying to produce a nuclear weapon. Iran denies any interest in such a weapon and has accused the United States and Israel of fabricating evidence that suggests it is trying to build a bomb.

Asked about the project, Iran’s chief IAEA delegate, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said he had not heard of it. IAEA spokeswoman Gill Tudor said the agency had no comment.

Iran has refused to halt uranium enrichment, despite offers of reactor fuel from abroad, saying it is producing nuclear fuel for civilian uses. It has refused for years to cooperate with the U.N. nuclear agency’s efforts to investigate its program.

Iran’s critics fear it could use the enriched uranium for military purposes. Such concerns grew this month when the IAEA said Iran is poised to double its output of higher-enriched uranium at its fortified underground facility — a development that could put Tehran within months of being able to make the core of a nuclear warhead.

In reporting on the existence of the diagrams last year, the IAEA said it had obtained them from two member nations that it did not identify. Other diplomats have said that Israel and the United States — the countries most concerned about Iran’s nuclear program — have supplied the bulk of intelligence being used by the IAEA in its investigation.

“The application of such studies to anything other than a nuclear explosive is unclear to the agency,” the IAEA said at the time.

The models were allegedly created in 2008 and 2009 — well after 2003, the year that the United States said Tehran had suspended such work in any meaningful way. That date has been questioned by Britain, France, Germany and Israel, and the IAEA now believes that — while Iran shut down some of its work back then — other tests and experiments continue today.

With both the IAEA probe and international attempts to engage Iran stalled, there are fears that Israel may opt to strike at Tehran’s nuclear program. The Jewish state insists it will not tolerate an Iran armed with nuclear arms.

An intelligence summary provided with the drawing linked it to other alleged nuclear weapons work — significant because it would indicate that Iran is working not on isolated experiments, but rather on a single program aimed at mastering all aspects of nuclear arms development.

The IAEA suspects that Iran has conducted live tests of conventional explosives that could be used to detonate a nuclear weapon at Parchin, a sprawling military base southeast of Tehran. The intelligence summary provided to the AP said data gained from those tests fed the model plotted in the diagram. Iran has repeatedly turned down IAEA requests to visit the site, which the agency fears is undergoing a major cleanup meant to eliminate any traces of such experiments.

…

By GEORGE JAHN
— Nov. 27 11:43 AM EST

Find this story at 27 November 2012

© 2012 Associated Press

Researcher: CIA, NSA may have infiltrated Microsoft to write malware

Did spies posing as Microsofties write malware in Redmond? How do you spell ‘phooey’ in C#?

June 18, 2012, 2:46 PM — A leading security researcher has suggested Microsoft’s core Windows and application development programming teams have been infiltrated by covert programmer/operatives from U.S. intelligence agencies.

If it were true it would be another exciting twist to the stories of international espionage, sabotage and murder that surround Stuxnet, Duqu and Flame, the most successful cyberwar weapons deployed so far, with the possible exception of Windows itself.

Nevertheless, according to Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer of antivirus and security software vendor F-Secure, the scenario that would make it simplest for programmers employed by U.S. intelligence agencies to create the Stuxnet, Duqu and Flame viruses and compromise Microsoft protocols to the extent they could disguise downloads to Flame as patches through Windows Update is that Microsoft has been infiltrated by members of the U.S. intelligence community.

[ FREE DOWNLOAD: 68 great ideas for running a security department ]

Having programmers, spies and spy-supervisors from the NSA, CIA or other secret government agencies infiltrate Microsoft in order to turn its technology to their own evil uses (rather than Microsoft’s) is the kind of premise that would get any writer thrown out of a movie producer’s office for pitching an idea that would put the audience to sleep halfway through the first act.

Not only is it unlikely, the “action” most likely to take place on the Microsoft campus would be the kind with lots of tense, acronymically dense debates in beige conference rooms and bland corporate offices.

The three remarkable bits of malware that attacked Iranian nuclear-fuel development facilities and stole data from its top-secret computer systems – Flame Duqu and Stuxnet – show clear signs of having been built by the same teams of developers, over a long period of time, Hypponen told PC Pro in the U.K.

Flame used a counterfeit Microsoft security certificates to verify its trustworthiness to Iranian users, primarily because Microsoft is among the most widely recognized and trusted computer companies in the world, Hypponen said.

Faking credentials from Microsoft would give the malware far more credibility than using certificates from other vendors, as would hiding updates in Windows Update, Hypponen said.

The damage to Microsoft’s reputation and suspicion from international customers that it is a puppet of the CIA would be enough to keep Microsoft itself from participating in the operation, even if it were asked.

That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

“It’s plausible that if there is an operation under way and being run by a US intelligence agency it would make perfect sense for them to plant moles inside Microsoft to assist in pulling it off, just as they would in any other undercover operation,” Hypponen told PC Pro. “It’s not certain, but it would be common sense to expect they would do that.”

The suggestion piqued the imaginations of conspiracy theorists, but doesn’t have a shred of evidence to support it.

It does have a common-sense appeal, however. Planting operatives inside Microsoft would probably be illegal, would certainly be unethical and could have a long-range disadvantage by making Microsofties look like tools of the CIA rather than simply tools.

“No-one has broken into Microsoft, but by repurposing the certificate and modifying it with unknown hash collision technologies, and with the power of a supercomputer, they were able to start signing any program they wanted as if it was from Microsoft,” Hypponen said. “If you combine that with the mechanism they were using to spoof MS Update server they had the crown jewels.”

Hypponen is one of a number of security experts who have said Stuxnet and Duqu have the hallmarks of software written by traditionally minded software engineers accustomed to working in large, well-coordinated teams.

After studying the code for Duqu, security researchers at Kaspersky Labs said the malware was most similar to the kind of work done by old-school programmers able to write code for more than one platform at a time, do good quality control to make sure the modules were able to install themselves and update in real time, and that the command-and-control components ahd been re-used from previous editions.

“All the conclusions indicate a rather professional team of developers, which appear to be reusing older code written by top “old school” developers,” according to Kaspersky’s analysis. “Such techniques are normally seen in professional software and almost never in today’s malware. Once again, these indicate that Duqu, just like Stuxnet, is a ‘one of a kind’ piece of malware which stands out like a gem from the large mass of “dumb” malicious program we normally see.”

Earlier this month the NYT ran a story detailing two years worth of investigations during which a range of U.S. officials, including, eventually, President Obama, confirmed the U.S. had been involved in writing the Stuxnet and Flame malware and siccing them on Iran.

That’s far from conclusive proof that the NSA has moved its nonexistent offices to Redmond, Wash. It doesn’t rule it out either, however.

Very few malware writers are able to write such clean code that can install on a variety of hardware systems, assess their new environments and download the modules they need to successfully compromise a new network, Kaspersky researchers said.

Stuxnet and Flame are able to do all these things and to get their own updates through Windows Update using a faked Windows Update security certificate.

No other malware writer, hacker or end user has been able to do that before. Knowing it happened this time makes it more apparent that the malware writers know what they are doing and know Microsoft code inside and out.

That’s still no evidence that Microsoft could be or has been infiltrated by spies from the U.S. or from other countries.

It does make sense, but so do a lot of conspiracy theories.

Until there’s some solid indication Flame came from inside Microsoft, not outside, it’s probably safer to write off this string of associative evidence.

Even in his own blog, Hypponen makes fun of those who make fun of Flame as ineffective and unremarkable, but doesn’t actually suggest moles at Microsoft are to blame.

…

Find this story at 18 June 2012

By Kevin Fogarty

© 1994 – 2012 ITworld. All rights reserved.

Stuxnet was work of U.S. and Israeli experts, officials say

A damaging cyberattack against Iran’s nuclear program was the work of U.S. and Israeli experts and proceeded under the secret orders of President Obama, who was eager to slow that nation’s apparent progress toward building an atomic bomb without launching a traditional military attack, say current and former U.S. officials.

The origins of the cyberweapon, which outside analysts dubbed Stuxnet after it was inadvertently discovered in 2010, have long been debated, with most experts concluding that the United States and Israel probably collaborated on the effort. The current and former U.S. officials confirmed that long-standing suspicion Friday, after a New York Times report on the program.

The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe the classified effort code-named Olympic Games, said it was first developed during the George W. Bush administration and was geared toward damaging Iran’s nuclear capability gradually while sowing confusion among Iranian scientists about the cause of mishaps at a nuclear plant.

The use of the cyberweapon — malware designed to infiltrate and damage systems run by computers — was supposed to make the Iranians think that their engineers were incapable of running an enrichment facility.

“The idea was to string it out as long as possible,” said one participant in the operation. “If you had wholesale destruction right away, then they generally can figure out what happened, and it doesn’t look like incompetence.”

Even after software security companies discovered Stuxnet loose on the Internet in 2010, causing concern among U.S. officials, Obama secretly ordered the operation continued and authorized the use of several variations of the computer virus.

Overall, the attack destroyed nearly 1,000 of Iran’s 6,000 centrifuges — fast-spinning machines that enrich uranium, an essential step toward building an atomic bomb. The National Security Agency developed the cyberweapon with help of Israel.

Several senior Iranian officials on Friday referred obliquely to the cyberattack in reaffirming Iran’s intention to expand its nuclear program.

“Despite all plots and mischievous behavior of the Western countries . . . Iran did not withdrawal one iota from its rights,” Kazem Seddiqi, a senior Iranian cleric, said during services at a Tehran University mosque, according to news reports from Iran.

Iran previously has blamed U.S. and Israeli officials and has said its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes, such as generating electricity.

White House officials declined to comment on the new details about Stuxnet, and an administration spokesman denied that the material had been leaked for political advantage.

“It’s our view, as it is the view of everybody who handles classified information, that information is classified for a reason: that it is kept secret,” deputy press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters. “It is intended not to be publicized because publicizing it would pose a threat to our national security.”

The revelations come at a particularly sensitive time, as the United States and five other world powers are engaged in talks with Iran on proposed cuts to its nuclear program. Iran has refused to agree to concessions on what it says is its rightful pursuit of peaceful nuclear energy. The next round of negotiations is scheduled for this month in Moscow.

“Effectively the United States has gone to war with Iran and has chosen to do so in this manner because the effects can justify this means,” said Rafal Rohozinski, a cyber-expert and principal of the SecDev Group, referring to the slowing of Iran’s nuclear program.

“This officially signals the beginning of the cyber arms race in practice and not in theory,” Rohozinski said.

In 2006, senior Bush administration officials developed the idea of using a computer worm, with Israeli assistance, to damage Iranian centrifuges at its uranium enrichment plant in Natanz. The concept originated with Gen. James E. Cartwright, who was then head of U.S. Strategic Command, which handles nuclear deterrence, and had a reputation as a cyber-strategist.

“Cartwright’s role was describing the art of the possible, having a view or vision,” said a former senior official familiar with the program. But “the heavy lifting” was done by NSA Director Keith Alexander, who had “the technical know-how and carried out the actual activity,” said the former official.

Olympic Games became a collaborative effort among NSA, the CIA and Israel, current and former officials said. The CIA, under then-Director Michael V. Hayden, lent its covert operation authority to the program.

The CIA and Israelis oversaw the development of plans to gain physical access to the plant. Installing the worm in plant equipment not connected to the Internet depended on spies and unwitting accomplices — engineers, plant technicians — who might connect an infected device to one of the systems, officials said.

The cyberweapon took months of testing and development. It began to show effects in 2008, when centrifuges began spinning at faster-than-normal speeds until sensitive components began to warp and break, participants said.

…

By Ellen Nakashima and Joby Warrick, Published: June 1 | Updated: Saturday, June 2, 12:03 PM

© The Washington Post Company

Find this story at 1 june 2012