Is Iran cracking down on the CIA? Is there an operation underway to arrest those who might be connected with the American intelligence agency — an above-the-water revelation of the big under-the-water iceberg covert war going on between the two countries? The Christian Science Monitor’s Howard LaFranchi suggests a crackdown is occurring — and an Israeli newspaper suggests the arrests are linked to Iranian missile testing.
A smoldering covert war pitting the United States against Iran took a new turn this week as Iranian officials announced the arrests of a dozen “CIA spies” they said were targeting the country’s nuclear program.
Iranian officials, including the country’s intelligence minister, did not release the identities or nationalities of the alleged spies, but intelligence analysts say they are probably Iranians working as informants for Western intelligence services.
“The main mission of this act of espionage was related to Iran’s progress in the fields of nuclear technology and also military and security activities,” said Parviz Sorouri, a member of Iran’s powerful parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy, according to the official IRNA news agency. “The US and Zionist regime’s espionage apparatuses were trying to damage Iran both from inside and outside with a heavy blow, using regional intelligence services.”
The potential “CIA arrests” followed reports earlier in the week of other arrests in Iran. There were also reports that Hezbollah, the Iran-affiliated Shiite militia in Lebanon, has arrested alleged CIA informants.
The latest Iranian allegations could not be verified, and the Central Intelligence Agency declined to comment, as it does as a rule on “operational activities.” But the charges were the latest installment in a growing list of covert operations – or accusations claiming such operations. That list includes the killing of Iranian nuclear scientists, explosions at Iranian factories and military installations, cyberattacks targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities, and – on the other side – the alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington.
Iran has for years accused the US of working in conjunction with Israeli intelligence to thwart Iran’s nuclear program through covert operations. Many analysts assume that the Stuxnet computer worm that affected machines in Iran’s nuclear installations between June 2009 and the end of 2010 was developed in Israel with US assistance.
US officials have declined to acknowledge American involvement in the covert operations including Stuxnet. But Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton did claim early this year that the virus and other “technological difficulties” had set back Iran’s nuclear progress.
The leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, said in June his group had uncovered at least two CIA informants within its ranks but his claims were met with scepticism at the time.
The US embassy in Lebanon denied the accusation but officials conceded Hezbollah had methodically picked off CIA informants in recent months.
Former US officials told Reuters this week those arrested were indeed working for the CIA. The officials claimed the agents were ”believed to be local recruits” working for the CIA rather than US citizens.
Iran did not specify the nationality of the individuals it has arrested and the CIA has declined to comment on the recent reports, saying ”it does not, as a rule discuss allegations of operational activities”.
A former CIA chief in Beirut, Robert Baer, told ABC News the arrests were ”catastrophic” and amounted to a demonstration American had ”lost its touch” in Middle East espionage.
The arrests further raise tensions in Iran’s already strained relationship with the US. US authorities said last month factions inside the Iranian regime had conspired to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington.
Iran denied the allegations and one Iranian diplomat told The Guardian the US had resorted to an ”entrapment technique” in order to smear Tehran in the eyes of the world.
Is there another factor lurking behind the arrests? The Jerusalem Post offers this explanation:
Iran’s claim to arresting 12 CIA agents in its territory is linked to clandestine efforts by Tehran to disperse missiles around the country, a senior Iran analyst in the US told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.
Professor Raymond Tanter, adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and founder of the Washingtonbased Iran Policy Committee, said the Iranians were moving and testing missiles “that would form the first response” to an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear sites.
“The rollup of alleged western spies in Iran involves the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC),” Tanter said, adding that this organization “operates all of Iran’s Scud missiles and provides the military leadership for Iranian missile production.
“Events in Iran concern surreptitious testing and movement of missiles at an IRGC facility during mid- November to harden and hide them from surprise attack,” he added.
Referring to a mysterious and powerful blast that rocked a missile base on the outskirts of Tehran earlier this month, killing Gen. Hassan Moghaddam, the architect of Iran’s missile program, and at least 16 other Iranian officials, Tanter said, “The accident in Iran is consistent with statements by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak that Tehran seeks to create a ‘zone of immunity,’ which spreads missile sites around the country. The goals are to increase the costs of an Israeli first strike, lower the likelihood of success, and decrease the time window of opportunity for Israel to attack Iran.”
Earlier on Thursday, Iran’s IRNA official media outlet said the supposed agents were planning to attack Iranian targets. The report quoted a senior Iranian security official as saying that the alleged spies were planning to carry out espionage attacks to “damage Iran both from inside and outside with a heavy blow, using regional intelligence services.
“Fortunately, with swift reaction by the Iranian intelligence department, the actions failed to bear fruit,” said the official, named as Parviz Sorouri, a member of Iran’s foreign policy and national security committee. Sourouri also said the alleged agents were working with “the Zionist regime.”
Tanter said that “there is a humongous need for human intelligence from inside Iran,” adding, “The best source to complement Western intelligence on the IRGC is the main Iranian opposition organization, the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MeK), which is under siege in Iraq but still maintains an effective intelligence network in the Iranian national security establishment.”
It’s clear the U.S. has to deal with a foreign policy double whammy as it heads into the 21st century: what to do and how to do it when it comes to Iran — and to Pakistan.
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Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.