Iranian Terror Cells Infest South America

By Arnold Ahlert

Last Wednesday, Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman accused Iran of “infiltrating” South America and establishing intelligence networks aimed at carrying out more terrorist attacks in the region. Nisman said the effort has been ongoing since the 1980s in Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Colombia, Guyana, Surinam and Trinidad and Tobago. “These are sleeper cells,” he explained. ”They have activities you wouldn’t imagine. Sometimes they die having never received the order to attack.”

Nisman’s remarks were made as he presented a 500-page indictment detailing the case against former Iranian officials accused of masterminding the 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish center that killed 85 people. The effort has resulted in Interpol arrest warrants for eight Iranians and one person believed to be Lebanese. They include former Iranian cultural attaché in Argentina, Mohsen Rabbani; Iran’s current defense minister, Gen. Ahmad Vahidi; former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani; former Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahian; former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, former Revolutionary Guard chief Mohsen Rezaei; former ambassador to Argentina Hadi Soleimanpour; and the Iranian Embassy’s former third-ranking diplomat, Ahmad Reza Asghari.

Velayati and Rezaei are candidates in Iran’s current presidential election, scheduled for June 14. Rabbani is the alleged the architect of the bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) in Buenos Aires, as well as ”coordinator of the Iranian infiltration of South America, especially in Guyana,” according to Nisman.

With a population of 200,000, Argentina’s Jewish community is the largest in South America, making it the most obvious target for terror in the region.

Nisman’s report contends that the 1994 bombing “has to be investigated as a segment in a larger sequence.” This includes the case of Guyanese men Russell M. Defreitas and Abdul Kadir, who were convicted in 2010 of conspiring to attack New York’s Kennedy International Airport by blowing up fuel tanks and triggering a series of explosions along a pipeline that wends its way through the city. During cross-examination by prosecutors in that case, Kadir, a former Guyanese government official, admitted he had drafted regular reports to the Iranian ambassador in Venezuela, outlining plans to infiltrate the Guyanese military and police forces.

According to Nisman, Kadir was Rabbani’s “disciple.” Kadir “received instructions” from Rabbani “and carried out the Iranian infiltration in Guyana, whose structure was nearly identical … to that established by Rabbani in Argentina,” the prosecutor wrote. He further insisted that Interpol should step up its efforts to execute arrest warrants for the bombers.

The indictment has been sent to Rodolfo Canicoba Corral, the judge in charge of the case, as well as the countries targeted for infiltration. Iran has sought “to infiltrate the countries of Latin America and install secret intelligence stations with the goal of committing, fomenting and fostering acts of international terrorism in concert with its goals of exporting the revolution,” Nisman wrote.

Unsurprisingly, Iran has denied any involvement in the 1994 attack. Furthermore, the regime refuses to allow Rabbani or any of the other suspects to be extradited to Argentina. The Iranians insist a viable compromise is a newly agreed upon “truth commission” that will purportedly allow Nisman to obtain testimony from the accused — in Tehran — following years of legal deadlock.

The establishment of the truth commission was announced in January, following a concession made by Iran last July to cooperate with Argentina on the investigation, which the Iranians contended ”was going down the wrong way.” It will be comprised of five judges, none of whom come from Argentina or Iran.

AMIA officials, as well as other Jewish groups in Argentina, are vehemently opposed to the move…

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A Green Light for Iran’s New Terrorist War

by REZA KAHLILI

Iranian leaders have given the go-ahead to a coalition of terrorists to attack American soil, in effect all but declaring war on the United States.

As I reported recently and according to a source in the Islamic regime’s intelligence apparatus, Iran created the Coalition of Muslim Soldiers to wreak havoc on the United States and its allies. The goal is to change the field of battle from the Middle East to the American homeland, and the opening salvos – if indeed the Boston bombing wasn’t the first – are due imminently unless U.S. authorities can short-circuit Tehran’s plans.

The source said the regime views the Boston bombing as a successful terrorist attack in which fear was created, U.S. intelligence was questioned and a sense of security was diminished. No link has been established yet to any group or nation for the Boston tragedy, which is the aim of this coalition of terrorists, formed by units of Lebanon‘s Hezbollah, al Qaeda and Iran‘s Quds Forces.

In a 2010 meeting, Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Forces; Seif Adel, the operational head of al Qaeda; and Mustafa Badr al-Din, the operational head of Hezbollah, devised a plan for continued terrorist operations against America under a new coalition, dubbed the Coalition of Muslim Soldiers. It includes al-Shabab, an al Qaeda offshoot based in Somalia, and has its central command in the Iranian city of Kerman.

After the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists in recent years and again with the increase in sanctions, the Islamic regime’s supreme leader warned that the country’s strategy had changed to face “threats with threats,” a subliminal message that the regime will go on the offensive with terrorist covert operations. More recently, a senior commander of the Islamic regime had warned that terrorism was coming to America.

“If the people of America and Europe do not confront the aggressive policies of their governments, they cannot then remain far from the possible future [terrorist attacks],” Brig. Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, the regime’s armed forces deputy chief of staff, said in a Feb. 23 interview with Fars News Agency. Gen. Jazayeri, objecting to U.S. involvement in the Syrian civil war, warned that explosions similar to those in Syria would take place in other countries.

 

With the sanctions increasing the danger of an uprising against the regime, the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran‘s nuclear facilities and the fight to overthrow Bashar Assad in Syria, which Iran calls its red line, the regime gave the go-ahead to unleash its proxy terrorists on America and its economy and change the focus from the Middle East to America itself.

Targets have been chosen within America, and the terrorist teams have now cut communications with the operational center in Iran, a sign they are moving ahead with the attacks, according to a high-level intelligence officer within the regime….

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Iranian, Hezbollah Terror Cells Re-Activated

by Clare M. Lopez

….The Washington Institute’s Matthew Levitt believes that Iran has tasked Hezbollah with reviving the operational capabilities of its sagging international terrorist unit, the Islamic Jihad Organization (IJO). In part due to Hezbollah’s decision to keep a lower profile following its deep involvement in the 9/11 attacks, and in particular since the February 2008 assassination of Hezbollah’s terror chieftain, Imad Mughniyeh, IJO performance had declined.

The uptick in Hezbollah plots since 2012, however, points to a decision at the top level of the Iranian regime to rejuvenate IJO capabilities and terror activity, not only to avenge Mughniyeh’s killing, but to respond to Tehran’s tasking in the “shadow war” against Israel.

As Levitt described in a late April 2013 piece for the West Point Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) “Sentinel” publication, the Cyprus trial that month of Hossam Yaacoub, a Lebanese-Swedish dual national Hezbollah operative, provided a revealing look at the terror group’s current tradecraft training and procedures.

Under interrogation, Yaacoub admitted that he was recruited by Hezbollah in 2007 and underwent extensive training in building a cover story, conducting pre-attack casing of potential targets (frequented by Israeli tourists), and mastering communications codes and signals before being dispatched to Cyprus for the first time in 2009.

Although Yaacoub eventually was arrested in July 2012 by the Cypriot police before any attack there could be carried out, Levitt concludes that the lengthy, professional tradecraft training he had received, along with the “successful” Hezbollah attack against the Israeli tourist bus in Bulgaria, together indicate a return to traditional tradecraft standards by Hezbollah.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force operatives serve under cover in Iranian embassies worldwide; they are tasked with liaison to Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations, narcotrafficking cartels and organized crime groups.

Together with the Iranian intelligence service, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), the Qods Force and Hezbollah operate as integral elements of the global Shi’ite terror network. That narcotrafficking, organized crime, terror network is very much present and functioning in the Western Hemisphere, where the Iranian presence is anchored by its outpost in Venezuela, which it uses as a staging ground for supervising an extensive network of Hezbollah operational cells whose activities stretch northward through Mexico and into the U.S. and Canada.

The accelerating pace of attack and counterattack by the Shi’ite terror network has alerted U.S. security officialsand their Israeli partners that the threat to both countries’ interests at home and abroad is becoming increasingly critical.

As the Syrian conflict spirals ever more out of control, with the U.S. already deeply involved in supporting the al-Qa’eda and Muslim Brotherhood rebels (and looking to become more so), the potential for retaliatory strikes from Hezbollah, acting alone or in conjunction with its Qods Force handlers, will only increase.

Given the renewed emphasis on operational tradecraft plus its well-established bases throughout the Western Hemisphere, Hezbollah is a menace to be monitored.

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Why Nuclear Talks with Iran is a Fool’s Errand

by REZA KAHLILI

Although a new round of talks begin on Friday in Almaty, Kazakhstan, between the six world powers and Iran, the Islamic regime has no intention of giving up its goal of achieving nuclear weapons status.

Despite years of failed negotiations, the P5-plus-1 group of nations (the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France plus Germany) will once again try to solve the nuclear impasse diplomatically.

It won’t work.

Mashregh News, a media outlet run by the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence unit, dissected why the Obama administration’s plan will continue to fail.

“Barack Obama’s look on Iran in his second term of presidency is that he will want to achieve some results,” a Mashregh analysis said. “He, of course, does not want to reach an agreement with Iran but rather wants to force Iran to retreat. As he said himself: ‘We don’t want to control Iran but rather stop it.’ He believes that since science cannot be bombed, Iran can be stopped before reaching full nuclear science.

“It is obvious [the United States is] not after an agreement and believes if they present a reduction of sanctions to Iran [in the negotiations], the Islamic Republic will change its nuclear direction, which [already] is completely in line with the regulations of [the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty].”

U.S. pressure on Iran will only increase, the analysis said, although President Obama knows that pressure for sanctions within the United Nations has peaked and that he does not have many cards to play. Despite the sanctions, Mr. Obama has failed to persuade Iran to change course, the report said, and Iran has left no doubt about the direction of its nuclear program.

The analysis, which reflects the view of the Islamic regime, concludes that the continuation of the nuclear program will help expand the country’s anti-American policies in the region, which would force the United States to leave the Islamic world, from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean, and it would not be farfetched to conclude that in the near future, the region would be controlled by the Islamic movement.

I have believed for a long time that the Islamic regime truly believes the West and, specifically, the United States under Mr. Obama has a military confrontation as a red line they won’t cross and that, ultimately, containment will be their policy of choice. That policy is already failing, though, because the regime is close to developing nuclear weapons….

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Secret Iranian Nuclear Program Site Has ‘Crossed Every Red Line’

By BRYAN PRESTON

This video was sent to us by Reza Kahlili. He was a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and was a CIA operative in the 1980s and 1990s. In the video, he details evidence of an Iranian nuclear site that so far has not been disclosed or reported on. He says the site’s existence is evidence that Iran’s nuclear program has already crossed the “red line,” into the production of nuclear warheads.

Kahlili says a high-ranking officer of the Islamic regime provided him the evidence of the site’s existence.

The site, approximately 14 miles long and 7.5 miles wide, consists of two facilities built deep into a mountain along with a missile facility that is surrounded by barbed wire, 45 security towers and several security posts.

The new secret nuclear site, named Quds (Jerusalem), is almost 15 miles from another site, previously secret but exposed in 2009, the Fordow nuclear facility. The power to this site comes from the same source as Fordow – the Shahid Rajaei power plant – with high power towers surrounding the site.

Construction of the site started about the same time as Fordow, and in the second half of 2010 all industrial tests were completed. The site became 60 percent operational in 2011.

Gen. Ahmad Vahid Dastjerdi, who works in the supreme leader’s office to protect the regime’s information and counterintelligence, manages the site. His deputy, Hojatolislam Ramezani, was appointed to the protection of intelligence at the Defense Ministry after several leaks about the country’s nuclear operations….

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