Defecting Iranian General Spied on Iran

The Sunday Times has very, very interesting news (if true of course): the general who defected in Turkey a couple of days ago, Ali Reza Asgari, spied on Iran since 2003 when he left the country for a business trip and was recruited by ‘an’ intelligence agency. The agency? Most likely the Mossad, but it could also be a different agency.

He fled because his cover was about to be ‘blown’: “the escape took several months to arrange. At least 10 close members of his family had to flee the country.” He’s currently believed “to be undergoing debriefing at a Nato base in Germany.” This could be a tremenous source of information, especially considering that “Asgari is said to have carried with him documents disclosing Iran’s links to terrorists in the Middle East.” It is, sadly, “not thought that he had details of the country’s nuclear programme.”

Is the article correct? Did Asgeri spy on Iran (for the Mossad)? Nobody can say for sure right now (well, no bloggers or journalists at least), but, it seems to be quite possible, even likely. Ed Morrissey has a good post up:

Asgari must have provided a wealth of information to his handling agency, whose identity remains unclear. The Times suspects the Mossad, perhaps with a more acceptable (to an Iranian) Western intel agency as a middleman. Asgari might not have information on the nuclear-weapons program, but he has plenty of data on Iranian support for terrorism, especially Hezbollah, and probably good data on other weapons systems and unit dispositions for the Revolutionary Guard. No one has mentioned this yet, but an officer at that level of the intelligence service might also have some information on crypto, which would be a devastating blow to operational security for Iranian military and intelligence agencies.

This is not just ‘big’, this is huge. As Ed also points out, this is obviously very embarrassing to Tehran: an important figure not only defected… he spied on Iran… perhaps even for the, of all agencies, Israeli Mossad. The arch-enemy of the Mullahs.

I have to admit that this amuses me.

Anyway, the question now is what the West / Israel will do with the information Asgari will give. Will it be used to put pressure on Iran behind closed doors, or will, for instance the Bush administration, make some information about how Iran is sponsoring terrorism public? And how will Iran react? Will the Mullahs compromise? And… will the West / Israel be able to hurt not just Iran but terrorist organizations badly?

It’s a fascinating development.

Cross posted at my own blog.