Israel Matzav

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Absolute nonsense!

Israel has described as 'absolute nonsense' a report in Foreign Policy by Mark Perry, a former aide to Yasser Arafat, that claimed that Mossad agents posed as CIA agents to recruit Jundallah terrorists to carry out operations in Iran (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).

A senior Israeli government official has called "absolute nonsense" a Friday report in Foreign Policy that Mossad agents posed as CIA officers in order to recruit members of a Pakistani terror group to carry out assassinations and attacks against the regime in Iran.

...

Israel generally refrains for responding to reports on alleged Mossad activities. However, in the wake of Perry's report as well as the official U.S. condemnation of the killing of an Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran earlier this week, Israeli officials were quick to issue a complete denial of the report.

The concern was that leaving Perry's report without a response would revive tensions that existed between the U.S. and Israeli intelligence communities following the Jonathan Pollard affair in the 1980s. Pollard was sentenced to life in a U.S. prison after being convicted of spying for Israel.

The senior Israeli government official said that if there were any truth the claims in Perry's report, Meir Dagan, the head of the Mossad at the time of the alleged operation, would have been declared a persona non grata in the U.S. and that "Dagan's foot would not have walked again in Washington".

Poor Mark Perry. He's been trying so hard to help Iran....

Labels: CIA, Iranian nuclear threat, Jundullah, Meir Dagan, Mossad

Thursday, November 04, 2010

Obama throws a bone to Ahmadinejad

On the day after the US midterm elections, President Obama threw yet another concession to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by designating the Sunni group Jundullah a terror organization. Jundullah is active in Iran in trying to overthrow the Iranian government.

The designation is interesting, because Iranian officials have voiced suspicions in the past that the United States may be providing covert support to the group which has carried out terrorist attacks that have killed Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps officers and civilians, which the United States has always denied.

Such designations take months to move through the bureaucracy and to develop the rationale and documentation to be able to withstand legal scrutiny.

Still, some Washington Iran experts saw the designation as a "signal" to Iran mindful of upcoming negotiations expected to take place in Europe later this month.

The designation of Jundullah shows "one bureaucratic fight in favor of engagement was won," one Washington Iran expert said on condition of anonymity. "But whether it's sufficient or not and how it is followed up remains to be seen."

Ahmadinejad has rejected every other overture from Obama. Why should this one be different?

Labels: designated terror organization, Iran, Jundullah, nuclear, P 5+1