Antinuclear

Secret war already going on between Israel, USA and Iran

No one has claimed responsibility for the killing. But on Tuesday, Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz, Israel’s military chief of staff, told a special parliamentary committee Iran should expect more “unnatural” events in 2012

There has been obvious push-back from Iran in the form of repeated claims its secretive Al Quds Force has attacked U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan using Iranian-designed improvised explosive devices.

“Waging a covert, low-level war is not without risks, including the risk of undesirable escalation,”  “No matter how carefully we try to control the level of force, there’s always the danger that matters spiral out of control.”

Iranian nuclear scientists’ deaths no mystery, National Post, Peter Goodspeed  13 Jan 12, A covert war between Iran and the West burst to the surface Wednesday on the fashionable streets of northern Tehran when two men on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to the car of a 32-year-old nuclear scientist, killing him and his bodyguard…….

Mr. Roshan’s killing is the latest in a long line of suspicious setbacks to Iran’s nuclear program. These have included assassinations, kidnappings, sabotaged equipment, computer viruses that destroyed information networks and mysterious
explosions at nuclear sites, missile-testing grounds, refineries and pipelines.

“Iranian nuclear engineers have to worry about being killed on their way to work, about their colleagues leaking information to the West, about their computers not working, about their equipment malfunctioning, about lacking necessary materials, about unavailability of training and advice and about the possibility of strikes from UAVs [drones]. That list of problems is daunting,” said Patrick Clawson, director of research for the Washington Institute for
Near East Policy…..
No one has claimed responsibility for the killing. But on Tuesday, Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz, Israel’s military chief of staff, told a special parliamentary committee Iran should expect more “unnatural” events in 2012

Last year, Dan Meridor, Israel’s Minister for Intelligence & Atomic
Matters, told Israeli Radio, “There are countries that impose economic
sanctions and there are countries who act in other ways.”

Wednesday the French newspaper Le Figaro reported Israeli Mossad
agents are recruiting and training Iranian dissidents from Iraq’s
Kurdish region to work against the regime in Tehran……
“Covert action against Iran’s nuclear program has been under way on
many fronts for years,” said Mr. Clawson.

“It does appear that there is a campaign of assassinations and
cyber-war, as well as the semi-acknowledged campaign of sabotage.

“The U.S. government has acknowledged it secured the defection of an
important Iranian nuclear scientist, and the Iranian government has
alleged a U.S. hand behind the disappearance of a brigadier general
from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” he said.

“In addition, Iran’s December 2011 downing of a U.S. unmanned aerial
vehicle [UAV] revealed a vigorous U.S. covert intelligence collection
effort.

“The Israelis, too, appear to be conducting an active military
disruption campaign against Iran’s nuclear program, including the
assassination of several Iranian nuclear scientists as alleged by
Tehran.”

There has been obvious push-back from Iran in the form of repeated
claims its secretive Al Quds Force has attacked U.S. troops in Iraq
and Afghanistan using Iranian-designed improvised explosive devices.

Last year, U.S. officials alleged Al Quds operatives planned to hire
assassins from Mexico’s Zetas drug cartel to assassinate the Saudi
ambassador in Washington and undertake a terrorist bombing campaign.

On Monday, Iran said it had sentenced Amir Hekmati, a former U.S.
Marine, to death for allegedly spying for the Central Intelligence
Agency. Late last year, Iran also claimed to have arrested an entire
CIA network of Iranian and Lebanese spies……
In recent years, the United States has become much more active in
using aggressive, low-profile attacks, including targeted drone
killings in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Yemen.

The next step, Mr. Clawson suggests may be “equipping the UAVs flying
over Iran with strike capabilities, a step that could raise anxiety
for the Revolutionary Guard, who could worry during missile tests that
UAVs may ignite the highly explosive fuel.”

In November a huge explosion ripped through a Revolutionary Guard
Corps’ base outside Tehran, leveling most of the buildings and killing
17 people, including a founder of Iran’s ballistic missile program,
General Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam.

Two weeks later, another large explosion damaged a key uranium
enrichment plant at Isfahan.

On Dec. 11, seven people were reported killed in an explosion at a
steel mill linked to nuclear program in Yazd.

Iran is now threatening to respond with tit-for-tat attacks against
U.S. and Israeli targets.

“Waging a covert, low-level war is not without risks, including the
risk of undesirable escalation,” said Stephen Walt, a professor of
international relations at Harvard University.

“No matter how carefully we try to control the level of force, there’s
always the danger that matters spiral out of control.”
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/01/11/peter-goodspeed-iranian-nuclear-scientists-deaths-no-mystery/

January 13, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized