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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| An argument against Iran’s reputed roll in Qaeda/Iraq terrorism |
| 2004-05-22 |
| EFL The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 did not come as a surprise to the Iranian intelligence community, primarily because they had been engaged in their own covert war against the Taliban and its international Islamist allies for many years. Indeed, under different political circumstances, Iranian intelligence could have provided valuable help to the U.S. in the war against Salafi Islamist terrorism. Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence & National Security (VEVAK) and the intelligence directorate of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) arguably have a better understanding of Wahhabi/Salafi terrorist networks and their institutional and ideological roots in Saudi Arabia than most other major intelligence organizations. They have gained such knowledge through the penetration of Wahhabi missionary/terror groups in Pakistan, which has been a priority for Iranian intelligence over the past 20 years. This priority stems not only from Iran’s self-perceived responsibility to protect Pakistan’s Shi’a community, but more importantly from a desire to pre-empt Saudi-sponsored Wahhabi subversion amongst Iran’s tiny Sunni minority. I hadn’t heard about their infiltration about Pak Jihadis before, but I have read that the Indians and the British have had much in similar efforts, and it probably isn’t too hard to find Jihadis willing to be bought off.. Iran’s most formidable adversary is the Sipahe Sahaba Pakistan, a murderous Wahhabi-Deobandi organization that has received logistical and financial help both from Saudi intelligence and sympathetic elements in Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). After the assassination of its leader, Maulana Azzam Tariq, in October 2003, Sipahe Sahaba pointed the finger of blame at Pakistan’ Interior Minister, Faisal Saleh Hayyat (who happens to be a Shi’a Muslim) and Iranian intelligence operatives. [1] This bloody feuding between Iranian intelligence and hardline Pakistani Sunni groups dates back to the early 1990s, and until very recently was an important feature of urban strife in cities like Karachi, Lahore and Quetta. Many of these hardline Sunni groups were later co-opted into al-Qaeda or formed constituent parts of its broad satellite networks. The Jaish-e-Mohammad basically served as the Deobandis external Jihad arm, while the Sipah waged an internal Jihad against the Shia’s. There is a big overlap of membership and leadership between the two groups. More broadly, Iranian intelligence was alarmed by the growing power of the Taliban and the crucial support given to it by Pakistan’s ISI and Saudi Arabia’s Istikhbarat al-`Amm-with the tacit approval of the United States. Through well-established channels of communication, they warned several Western intelligence agencies of the potential disaster arising from an alliance between the Taliban and the network coalescing around Osama bin Laden. The tensions between Iran and the Taliban culminated in September 1998 with the slaying of 10 Iranian diplomats and a journalist by Pakistani members of the Taliban inside the compounds of the Iranian consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif. The diplomats were mostly officers of the intelligence directorate of the IRGC. Iran even considered military action against the Taliban in retaliation, but eventually backed off from a confrontation. It’s true that the Iranians were supporting the Northern Alliance throughout the nineties, I can remember news footage of the standoff back in 1998, when the Iranians stationed tens of thousands of soldiers on the Afghan border, literally walking distance from an invasion. Sadly nothing happened. Yet even before the emergence of the Taliban, the VEVAK designated Salafi/Wahhabi terrorism as the primary threat to Iranian national security in 1994 and, contrary to unsubstantiated reports in Arab and western media, has never had any friendly contacts with al-Qaeda. [2] Indeed, any suggestion of friendly contacts has to grapple with credible evidence pointing to bitter acrimony between the two sides. It is interesting to note, that Iranian intelligence has long been suspected by pro al-Qaeda Saudi security circles of masterminding the assassination of Abdullah Azzam in November 1989. Yes, but who hasn’t been suspected of wacking Azzam? While it is possible that other Iranian intelligence agencies-in particular the Qods force of the IRGC-may have facilitated the escape of al-Qaeda elements from Afghanistan in the closing stages of the war in October-December 2001, there is no reliable, publicly-available evidence to validate this. Furthermore, it is unlikely given the ideological vision and geo-strategic ambitions of the IRGC and al-Qaeda are hugely divergent, despite sharing an enemy in the U.S. There have been plenty of leaked intelligence reports to the press, from American and European sources. It remains to be seen how accurate they all are. I’ve found that people like Woolsey remain stuck in a cold war mindset, railing against the support given to al Qaeda by Iran, Syria and Iraq (all former Soviet clients), while casting a much more sympathetic eye on Saudi Arabia and Pakistan (US allies for decades). Of course there is no reason that all of them can’t be involved to different extents and for different reasons. Iraq More recent accusations that Iranian intelligence is fostering instability in occupied Iraq are also questionable for a simple reason: Iran has no interest in destabilizing Iraq. On the contrary, it has every reason to ensure that Iraq emerges from its current trauma as a stable and unitary state. The United States may have limited interests in Iraq-after all it will sooner or later depart the arena-but Iran has to contend with a volatile neighbor that invaded it in September 1980. Thus, reports in western and Arab media regarding Iranian intelligence activity in Iraq are not only grossly exaggerated but completely miss the essence of Iranian involvement in the country. A case in point is an ideologically-charged article by a former CPA official accusing Iranian intelligence of promoting instability in Iraq. [3] 
In the final analysis, Iran’s interests in Iraq do not diverge from its interests in post-war Afghanistan. In both cases, Iran desires peaceful and stable neighbors who do not export subversion inside its own borders. It is now widely acknowledged that Iran’s involvement in Afghanistan is not only benign, but positively helpful. In due course similar assessments may be made of Iran’s involvement in Iraq. Furthermore, the Iranians abandoned exporting their "Islamic revolution" to neighboring countries many years ago, and Iran’s allies in Iraq have little desire to recreate the Iranian experience. [4] That seems a pretty shaky argument Wider Issues Aside from the war on terror and the American led occupation of Iraq, broader misunderstandings of the Iranian intelligence community also exist. Major western intelligence agencies-including those in the U.S.-failed to grasp the institutional and ideological complexities that underpinned the evolution of the post-revolutionary Iranian intelligence community in the period 1980-84. The core event during this time was an intense rivalry between the nascent Intelligence Directorate of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the skeleton structure of the old SAVAK. The result was a compromise in the form of the creation of a Ministry of Intelligence & National Security (VEVAK) in 1984 that signified, first and foremost, a constitutional revolution in intelligence/security organization in Iran. The SAVAK was an "organization" largely outside the orbit of government control, whereas its post-revolutionary successor was positioned into the mainstream of the Iranian civil service in the form of a "ministry." Another feature of the compromise arrived at in 1984 was the powers granted to the IRGC to maintain its own separate intelligence directorate. [5] The VEVAK has around 15,000 officers and support staff, who, unlike the former SAVAK, are all civilians. The Ministry’s foreign intelligence directorate boasts around 2,000 officers whose top priority is intelligence gathering in Central Asia, Pakistan, Iraq, the Sheikhdoms of the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia. Although VEVAK officers are vetted for ideological conformity, very few of them can be considered "Islamists". Thus the loyalty of the individual VEVAK officer to the ruling clergy is, at best, haphazard. Broadly speaking, VEVAK officers subscribe to a civic-based Iranian nationalism accentuated by mild undertones of Shi’a Islam. U.S. intelligence officials are well aware of the professional qualities of the VEVAK and the ideological gulf that separates the Ministry from its clerical political masters. The implications of this ideological gulf are far-reaching, insofar as there is likely to be non-interference by the VEVAK in the evolutionary political transformation that is eroding the grips of the ruling clergy on the levers of power. The broadest implication is that, whatever consensual political system eventually succeeds the theocratic regime, it will be able to retain the country’s impressive security/intelligence system largely in its current form. From a wider geo-strategic perspective, it is likely that the priorities of the intelligence community of post-Islamic Iran will broadly resemble that of pre-Islamic Iran. This will involve terminating the country’s extremist pro-Arab stance and re-orientating intelligence cooperation in the region within an Iran-Israel-Turkey axis. This will truly transform the face of the Middle East and might even decisively turn the tide against Salafi Islamism and its Saudi patrons. NOTES: 1. Sipahe Sahaba made similar allegations in September 1998, after its then deputy secretary general Allama Shoaib Nadim and three of his companions were assassinated in Islamabad. 2. In June 1994, a huge bomb detonated inside the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, killing more than 20 worshippers. Initially Iranian authorities blamed the Iraqi-based Mojahedin-e-Khalq, but a report produced by the Ministry of Intelligence in October 1994 identified the culprits as operatives of Pakistan’s "Lashkare Jhangvi"-the sister organization of Sepahe Sahaba. 3. Bad Neighbor, The New Republic, 26 April 2004. 4. Refer to author’s interview with Dr. Hamid Bayati, European representative of SCIRI in the May 2003 edition of the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin. 5. The Intelligence Directorate of the IRGC is relatively small, boasting no more than 2,000 officers. Its officers are heavily vetted for ideological conformity, and unlike the VEVAK, their loyalty to the Islamic regime is beyond doubt. The IRGC’s intelligence organs are primarily involved in intelligence gathering in the Muslim world. The IRGC’s Sepahe Qods (Jerusalem Corps) is controlled by its Intelligence Directorate and caries out covert operations in countries as far afield as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and Bosnia. The Qods force’s national HQ is in the southwestern city of Ahvaz and it is headed by Qasem Soleimani. |
| Posted by:Paul Moloney |
| #4 Which nation originated the modem era's international movement for jihad? Iran beginning in 1979-80. It's first target was Lebanon, which Iran still controls though the fanatical Shi'ite terrorist group, also plays a part in the official Lebanese government. Syria, Iran's ally maintains some 30.000 troops in Lebanon making sure the old image Lebanon once relished as being the safe 'Switzerland of the Near-East' (banking capitol & tourist destination for European travellers) is never allowed again. Until Iran, Syria-Lebanon are confronted the war on Islamic terrorism will be stuck in neutral at best. This not taking on the source of jihad is a travesty of justice for our American troops serving in Iraq & Afghanistan countering suicidal jihadic zealots. Negotiations can never be fruitful with those dedicated to death as a so-called religion. |
| Posted by: Mark Espinola 2004-05-22 7:22:14 PM |
| #3 Yeah like Egypt has no role in Arafat's terrorism. They turn a blind eye to arms smuggling to terror groups defined as such by the US, but worse permit the movement of operatives of Hizbollah to use the same route. In short they co-operate with Iran. Let's play with words and sing kumbaya! Who controls Hizbollah and has a say in Syrian activities? Who and what crosses the Syrian border into Iraq? So they do it by proxy. |
| Posted by: Cynic 2004-05-22 1:15:12 PM |
#2 [Iran] had been engaged in their own covert war against the Taliban and its international Islamist allies for many yearsUh-huh. Sure they were. Pull the other one. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2004-05-22 10:22:46 AM |
| #1 This post is angelic at best. The present iranian goverment has a great interest in seeing US bogged down in irak and divert its attention from regime change in IRAN. Furthemore there's a religious background of rivalry between holy cities of najaf(irak) and qom (iran). For thoses interested check amir taheri writings at www.benadorassociates.com |
| Posted by: frenchfregoli 2004-05-22 3:17:15 AM |