A top intelligence official issued a warning on Monday to the United States not to spy on Iran, a message analysts said was aimed at the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama."It is necessary to warn the new American administration that they should not follow the path of the previous American government," the head of the counter-espionage unit of Iran's Intelligence Ministry said, according to the semi-official Fars News agency.
He described a "full fledged intelligence war" between the two nations and offered rare, detailed comments about what he described as "heavy damages" suffered by the United States in efforts to recruit agents among doctors, artists and fashion designers.
The official, who was not named by local media, said that two Iranian AIDS specialists, whose arrests last year sparked concern in the West, are part of a group of four "ringleaders" that was recently convicted of involvement in a U.S.-funded plot to overthrow the Islamic system of government. Dozens of others have been arrested and interrogated, the official said.
He accused the United States of stationing intelligence agents in neighboring countries and specifically mentioned the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Kuwait and Azerbaijan as places from where the United States is designing "plots" against Iran. The agents are seeking to create "social crisis, street demonstrations and ethnic disputes," he said. "A soft revolution has been programmed against our country and carried out in some instances, but it was suffocated in the cradle," Fars News quoted the official as saying.
"This is a well timed message to the incoming administration that following previous policies regarding Iran will turn out to be a failure," said Hermidas Bavand, a professor in international relations at Tehran's Allameh Tabatabaei University. "They want to show the new president that he should adopt a new, less confronting approach to Iran."
| "They contacted people we didn't expect to be of their interest: fashion designers, doctors, professors, clerics, athletes and artists. There they would be asked about passive air defense, infrastructure centers and the intelligence situation." |
The head of the counterintelligence unit said that his organization was surprised by the type of people that was approached by American intelligence agents.
"They contacted people we didn't expect to be of their interest: fashion designers, doctors, professors, clerics, athletes and artists," the official said, according to the Fars News agency. "These groups would be invited for month-long trips to the United States. They would attend gatherings and tours in America which would try to present the U.S. as the only savior of Iran. There they would be asked about passive air defense, infrastructure centers and the intelligence situation."