THE IRANIAN HAND ON THE PLUNGER - 29-Jul-94

(Article by Ron Ben-Yishai, 'Yediot Ahronot', July 29, 1994, pp.6-7, 26)

INTELLIGENCE OFFICIALS ARE CONVINCED: ONE HAND, FROM TEHRAN, DIRECTED THE ATTACK IN ARGENTINA, THE HIZBULLAH ATTACK IN SOUTH LEBANON AND THE EXPLOSIONS IN LONDON. THE METHOD: IRANIAN INTELLIGENCE OFFICERS, WITH DIPLOMATIC PASSPORTS, OPERATE IN IRANIAN EMBASSIES AROUND THE WORLD AND RECRUIT LOCAL MUSLIMS. THE COUNTER-RESPONSE SHOULD INCLUDE INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION, ECONOMIC SANCTIONS AND SEVERING OF RELATIONS, AND HITTING THOSE RESPONSIBLE.

'The show of force by the Iranian terrorist apparatuses in the past two weeks, could cost Tehran dearly,' a veteran senior Israeli intelligence official said a few days ago.

'The world now understands the problem better. Whoever is capable today of organizing such a world-wide cluster of murderous attacks, in perfect timing from his standpoint, be successful in all of them, and then withdraw all of his personnel safely, will tomorrow be able to overthrow governments,' added the senior intelligence official, who specializes in foiling terrorism. 'It is clear to us, the Americans and even Hussein that there was one hand directing and assisting the car bomb in Buenos Aires, the Hizbullah attack in southern Lebanon (which began the moment that Rabin and Hussein shook hands in Washington), and the two car bombs, which blew up the next day in central London. We also know that, compared to the Iranian hand, the old, known international terrorism is becoming child's play.'

The attacks in London this week are very similar in their operational characteristics to other attacks perpetrated by Islamic terrorists linked to Iran. These were carried out by a uniform method: a car bomb, driven by a lone driver to the vicinity of the target and exploded near it.

It can be assumed that both attacks were planned not only to spoil the atmosphere at the Rabin-Hussein meeting in London, but that they also stemmed from other motives: Iranian revenge, on behalf of Hizbullah, over the Dirani abduction and the Israeli Air Force's bombing of the Hizbullah training base in Lebanon's Bek'a Valley.

Up till now, the State of Israel has tried with all its power to refrain from direct conflict with the Iranians. The policy was to use all available means to fight Hizbullah in Lebanon, but not to provoke Iran, which supports Hizbullah; to do everything possible so that Iran itself would not enter into an active terrorist war against Israel. True, Israel did verbally attack the Tehran rulers, accusing them of holding Ron Arad and of aiding fundamentalist terrorism. At the same time, however, it sought ways to engage them in dialogue, and refrained from physically acting against the Iranians' terrorist apparatuses.

What happened in the past two weeks raised serious doubts in Jerusalem regarding the efficacy of this restrained approach. More and more politicians (including the Prime Minister) and senior defense establishment officials believe that the policy should be changed and that 'we should use full force in dealing with them, as we dealt with the international terrorism of the PLO and Black September.'

In fact, there are clear signs that the Israeli Government's 'Iranian' policy is about to change. It will not be an easy war, the anti-terrorism experts believe, and Israel is not capable of conducting it by itself. If it tries to do so, it will suffer greatly. 'The monster has grown and developed into larger proportions which, alone, we are currently incapable of handling. We will need active cooperation and not just intelligence from the Americans and any other source which we can harness to the effort,' says one of the experts.

The 'monster' began to take shape in 1983. The Iran-Iraq War was then at its height. The West, as well as most of the rulers in the Arab world, fearing Khomeinism more than they feared Saddam Hussein, aided Iraq. Thousands opposed to the ayatollahs' regime, who had fled Iran, moved throughout Europe and the U.S., harming the Iranian war effort.

At the order of the Imam Khomeini, who was then at the height of his physical power and controlled Iran unfettered, the 'Supreme National Defense Council of Iran' convened and decided to begin a 'nonconventional war to the end on the enemy's territory.' This was a nice name for an active war of terrorism in the international arena. This war had two goals: attacking enemies of the Islamic revolution wherever they were and toppling secular Muslim regimes, in order to impose 'true' Islam, of the Khomeini school, across the Muslim world.

Members of that same council, which set up the Iranian terrorist empire, then included Khomeini himself, his son Ahmad, Speaker of Parliament Hashemi Rafsanjani, Ayatollah Khamenei, and several other ayatollahs and senior officials, such as Mohtashemi Pur and Ali Akhbar Velayati. It was also decided, at those same meetings of the Supreme National Defense Council, to establish a number of organizations which would conduct the terrorism war, the modus operandi was laid out and strategic goals were determined.

After a short time, the results began to be seen on the ground. Revolutionary Guards personnel, who left for Lebanon, set up Hizbullah to act as a bridgehead for exporting the Islamic revolution. They were the ones who sent terrorists to carry out impressive suicide car bomb attacks against the the Embassy of the United States (the 'Great Satan') and the Marine barracks in Beirut, and against Israel (the 'Little Satan'). In Europe, former supporters of the late Shah were eliminated one by one, as were exiled leaders of the Mujahiddin Khalq underground and prominent officials of the Kurdish-Iranian underground, who had fought against the ayatollahs' regime.

These facts did not go unnoticed by members of the American intelligence community. Satellite photographs analyzed in the U.S. after the bombing of the American Embassy in Beirut, clearly showed a model of the building in the Sheikh Abdallah camp in Lebanon's Bek'a Valley. This model, which had been built in the Revolutionary Guards' training camp, was undoubtedly use b been built in the Revolutionary Guards' training camp, was undoubtedly used by the Hizbullah personnel who carried out the attack.

At a meeting convened at the Pentagon at the time, the possibility that the U.S. 'repay' the Iranians directly for the painful attacks was considered. Several participants suggested using cruise missiles and planes to bomb the camp. However, Pentagon officials rejected the proposal, saying that 'it is inhuman to indiscriminately bomb a camp in which the families of Revolutionary Guards members also live.' The proposal was shelved.

Even Israel, which at the time still hoped to turn a new leaf in relations with Khomeini's Iran, meticulously refrained from attacking Revolutionary Guards personnel. France released Iranian terrorists which it had captured one by one (and continues to do today). Many among us, and also in the U.S., are now embarrassed over that appeasement, which enabled Iranian terrorism to set up proxies and to build an extensive international infrastructure, unhindered. In the 10 years since then, many things have happened in Iran: Khomeini died; Khamenei succeeded him as Iran's spiritual leader, Rafsanjani is now president and the country's strong-man, and Ali Akbar Velayati is foreign minister. The extremist Ahmad Khomeini was moved aside in the struggles over succession, and the extremist Mohtashemi Pur, currently a parliamentarian, is not particularly important. The Supreme National Defense Council also changed its name to the Supreme National Security Council.

Western intelligence services, including the CIA, German intelligence and, of course, the French, saw these changes as a sign of the victory of the pragmatists in Iran, who seek closer ties with the West. The assumption was that Iran, which is beset by economic distress, was about to change its ways.

The Iranians, under the leadership of Rafsanjani, a pistachio dealer, have tried to bolster this impression, and to this end helped, in the early 1990's, to effect the wholesale release of western hostages in Lebanon. However, at the same time, they continued to develop and expand their sophisticated terrorism apparatuses unhindered, and to deploy them all over the globe.

Anti-terrorism experts claim that the Iranian terrorism empire is several times more dangerous than what was called 'international terrorism' in the 1970's. That earlier period witnessed a shaky coalition of terrorist organizations, most with some sort of Marxist ideology. Others, like the IRA, were filled with a religious-nationalist fervor. They had no ideological common denominator, despite the fact that most of them were connected in some way to the Eastern Bloc. They received aid from Moscow, East Berlin or Bulgaria, but their patrons did not give them instructions on how and where to carry out attacks.

Though there were several exceptions, in general the Soviet Union and its satellites merely supplied aid for subversive activity, which was supposed to shake the foundations of colonialist, capitalist society. The Soviet Union kept well away from direct involvement in terrorist activity, among other things for fear that terrorism is a double-edged sword, which could be directed against it.

It is different with the Iranians. For them, terrorism is used as an active tool for carrying out policy and for fulfilling their fundamentalist world-view. It is employed to achieve four objectives:

* The elimination of those opponents to the regime, which is usually carried out directly by Iranian intelligence agents, with logistical support from local collaborators.

* The defense of Islamic holy places, such as those in Saudi Arabia, where the Iranians tried to undermine the 'corrupt' hold of the Saudi royal house; the war against Salman Rushdie's 'The Satanic Verses,' a primarily heretical book; and the war against Israel, which captured the holy places in Jerusalem from the Muslims.

* Spreading the Islamic revolution, through terrorism, aided and carried out by fundamentalist movements, such as Hizbullah in Lebanon, Hamas in Israel and the territories, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad factions, the Jama al-Islamiyah in Egypt, and others.

* War against the Western infidels, the various 'messengers of Satan,' who spread their heresy, corrupt the Muslims through an unbridled, hedonistic, worthless culture of consumerism, and prevent them from maintaining a pure way of life according to the Koran's precepts, [as in] the United States, for example.

Despite the secrecy surrounding what goes on in Iran in general, and the terrorist organizations in particular, it is already clear to western intelligence services that the central organization currently running Iranian terrorism is the Supreme National Security Council, controlled by President Rafsanjani. This is the same Rafsanjani who poses as a moderate and pragmatist, trying to enjoy the best of all worlds.

The National Security Council makes decisions about terrorist attacks or liquidations. After the decision is made in principle to carry out an attack, it is sent to one of the operational apparatuses for an opinion. There are four such apparatuses:

* The Quds (Jerusalem) apparatus, in the framework of the Revolutionary Guard. It is usually responsible for attacks by the Lebanese Hizbullah, the Turkish Hizbullah and other Islamic terrorist organizations. The person generally responsible for this apparatus is the commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Muhsein Rafiq Duset.

* The Iranian intelligence apparatus, the SAVAMA and the VAK (the successor to the SAVAK, which operated in the days of the Shah and was trained, according to foreign sources, by Israel). They are headed by Ali Falahian, and are primarily responsible for liquidating opponents of the regime abroad. The U.S. State Department's report on international terrorism states that members of these apparatuses carry out widespread intelligence gathering on foreign embassies, primarily those of the United States and Israel. They were also apparently responsible for collecting the operational intelligence on the Jewish institutions and the embassies which were attacked in Argentina, London, Bangkok, Istanbul and other places.

* Another apparatus, which apparently functions within the framework of the 'Islamic Leadership Ministry,' struggles primarily to protect everything holy to Islam.

Iranian government ministries extend assistance to these apparatuses as required. Thus, for example, Iranian deputy foreign minister Hussein Shekih al-Aslam a former University of California student is responsible for positioning intelligence agents and Revolutionary Guards in diplomatic posts at Iranian embassies around the world. He also supervises the transfer of funds and weapons for carrying out attacks.

Recruitment within Iran is mostly done at Imam Ali University in the holy city of Qom. Foreign Muslim students, who volunteer or are volunteered for such work, receive their training at secret camps in western Iran (between Qom and Tehran). Other training camps were constructed, by the Revolutionary Guards, in Sudan and Lebanon (the Sheikh Abdallah camp).

The approach to building an international terrorist infrastructure, which has become more extensive over the years, was grounded in a basic principle the integration of a small number of intelligence officers and trained Iranian terrorists, together with incited Muslim citizens of Europe, the United States, South Africa and Asia. Most of the intelligence officers and the Iranian terrorism experts were posted as diplomats at Iranian embassies in the target countries. Others, also carrying diplomatic passports, were sent to staff the 'Islamic Cultural Centers' which Iran has established world-wide.

These 'diplomats' made contact with Muslim population centers in the countries where they operated. They located the devout, the disgruntled, the motivated and slowly recruited them into tight groups and squads, ready to act and take risks in the name of Islam. The contact, the meetings and sometimes the training were mainly effected in mosques and within the confines of local Muslim charitable/aid associations.

The creation of the Iranian terror infrastructure received a serious push with the 1989 publication of Salman Rushdie's 'The Satanic Verses.' Muslims the world over without any connection to Iran viewed the book as a direct assault and a secular Western plot against everything held holy by Muslims.

The 'fatwa' (religious ruling) issued by Khomeini, which calls on all Muslims able to do so, to kill Rushdie, fell on attentive ears. Thousands of Muslims around the world joined the Iranian terrorist corps, enthusiastic to carry out the mission. Afterward, the 'fatwa' was expanded to include those circulating Rushdie's book, and even those who did not disclaim it. At least four journalists and publishers were murdered in Turkey as a direct result of the local response to this ruling a further proof of the capability gained, in the interim, by the Iranian terror machine.

It is very possible that the terrorist infrastructure established in England by the Iranians, with the intent of assaulting Rushdie, was exploited this week to attack the Israeli embassy and the Jewish Agency offices in London. Still, most of the groups recruited by the Iranian terrorist and intelligence agents did not operate immediately. The diplomats who activate the groups prefer to keep them dormant until the appropriate time for them act.

The Iranians view attacks on their emissaries around the world as part of the war that the heretics have waged against the Islamic revolution of which they are the spearhead. Accordingly, attacks against Hizbullah (in Lebanon, for instance) are compensated by activating one of the dormant terror networks, in Turkey or South America. The perpetrators are not necessarily Hizbullah members, but are locals activated by Iranian diplomats.

This is the fate of the reconciliation process between Israel and the Arabs. Whoever assists or is party to this process, anywhere in the world, can expect an attack. The Iranian modus operandi prefers to utilize simple means which require more proximity that sophistication. Car-bombs are a hit. Explosives can be made at home, and their installation in a vehicle - - with a detonator is simple. At the same time, the Iranians take pains to ensure that their emissaries are not apprehended, and that no direct Iranian link to the attack can be proven.

Thus, the activation and recruitment are not always simple. The Iranians frequently avail themselves of intermediaries mainly 'graduates' of the war in Afghanistan who, from the Iranian perspective, possess three golden qualities: they are full of religious fervor, and enjoy prestige and hero status among Muslim zealots; they have experience in battle, and know how to manufacture home-made weapons, and; they are unemployed.

These 'graduates of Afghanistan,' citizens of the target countries, are the ones who maintain contact with the Iranian controllers who send them funds, and sometimes weapons, from Europe or the Middle East. Therefore, for example, the network that blew up New York's Twin Towers in 1993 was activated by the blind Egyptian sheikh Abdul Rahman, who had filled a key role in recruiting and dispatching fighters to the Afghanistan war.

'Afghanistan graduates' also head the Islamic rescue movement in Algeria today, where they maintain contact with their Iranian operators in Europe. And a zealous Muslim network, whose members planned acts of terror against the king and the kingdom, is now on trial in Jordan. All of these network members fought in Afghanistan and were in contact with Iran.

Iranian intelligence agents take advantage of every spot where there are Muslim populations, and where the authorities only enforce perfunctory security measures. Not long ago, during a visit to South America, I was told by an Israeli living in the area that there is an active center of radical Muslims who operate with the assistance and inspiration of Iran at the point where the Brazilian, Argentine and Paraguayan borders meet. In that same area, around the Iguacu Falls which attract millions of tourists from around the world, there also lives a population of German descent (many of whom are members of neo-Nazi organizations) which cooperates with the Muslim groups. It is suspected that the squad whose members detonated the car-bomb near the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires two years ago set out from this area.

I travelled to the area and indeed encountered devout, thick-bearded Muslims and blond, blue-eyed youths who did not conceal their neo- Nazi views. During my trip around the Falls, I noted that it is possible to pass between the three countries without difficulty or inspection. Only once was my passport inspected. It is therefore no wonder that such 'hot' areas for illegal activity are exploited by Iranian terrorist operators.

The question now is how can Iranian terror be fought under the current conditions?

First, with a pin-pointed assault against terror operators and their collaborators. The difficulty mainly involves the political and moral problem of using fighters to combat terrorism in third countries.

Second, via deterrence. A massive presence by local security forces at sites which are prone to attack, like Jewish institutions and embassies, acts as a deterrent and complicates carrying out attacks. But there must also be vigilance at our embassies in those same countries and a constant requirement that security measures be maintained, and remain effective.

Third, Embassy and Jewish organization buildings (and their environs) must be properly protected and reinforced to prevent the infiltration or collapse of the structures in the event of an explosion. It must be ensured that vehicles cannot approach vulnerable building.

Fourth, there must be active international cooperation in the intelligence area including information exchanges and operations to penetrate the populations from among which the perpetrators of attacks are liable to come.