Iran Military Forum

Iran "shadow war" intensifies, crosses borders


By Andrew R.C. Marshall and Peter Apps | Reuters – 2 mins 40 secs ago
FOX News  7:41 | 0 views

BANGKOK/LONDON (Reuters) - The loudest noise that Thongma Danoi had ever heard was followed 20 minutes later by the strangest sight: a dazed and bloodied Iranian carrying two wire-adorned devices through the usually sleepy Bangkok neighborhood.

"He was losing a lot of blood," said Thongma, 68, who saw the Iranian man, later identified as Saeid Moradi, fleeing a rented house blown apart by a massive explosion on Tuesday. "People were shouting, 'He's got a bomb!' I tried not to look at him."

Minutes later, he heard another explosion, as 28-year-old Moradi reportedly threw a second bomb at a taxi that wouldn't pick him up. His rampage ended nearby, outside a school, with a third explosion that ripped off one of the bomber's legs and damaged the other so badly it had to be amputated.

Israel said the Bangkok blasts were evidence of an "attempted terrorist attack" and blamed Iran. Tehran denied involvement.

As bombings go, this week's trio of apparent attempted attacks on Israeli targets -- which also included an attack on a car carrying the wife of an Israeli diplomat in New Delhi and a bomb found attached to an Israeli diplomatic vehicle in the Georgian capital Tbilisi -- seemed unusually inept.

But security experts believe they sent a clear message, the first serious retaliation for a quietly waged but increasingly bloody campaign of sabotage waged against Iran's nuclear program.

At least four Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed in recent years in attacks believed to have been carried out by or for Israel's intelligence services. While Israel invariably refuses to comment, some security analysts also suspect it has been involved in a string of major explosions at military and nuclear facilities in Iran, such as one in November that killed more than a dozen, including a senior Iranian general.

Tehran denied any involvement in this week's attacks, accusing Israel of staging them itself. But there are widespread suspicions that the real intent may have been to warn the Jewish state that Iran is prepared to retaliate in kind.

"I see in what happened a message to the effect of: 'Anything you can do, I can do too,'" said Gad Shimron, a former Mossad field officer who writes on intelligence matters. "In other words, if Israel uses terror for its security needs, it can expect reprisals from the other side."

In an environment of growing tension, paranoia and fear, there is a risk of escalation fuelled by worries over Iran's nuclear program, a potential Israeli strike on Iran and a devastating wider conflict in the Gulf.

"There is more and more pressure on all sides," says Anthony Cordesman, a former senior U.S. intelligence and defense official and now chair of strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Washington D.C.-based think tank. "All of them are interacting now in ways that make it harder and harder to anticipate the actions of each other."

MIRROR IMAGE ATTACK

While some Western officials say it is too soon to blame Tehran for this week's attacks, security analysts point to growing circumstantial evidence. Thai authorities said similar magnetic bombs were used in New Delhi, Tbilisi and Bangkok.

While they did not blame Iran directly, they said the two other men arrested in relation to the Bangkok blasts -- one in the Thai capital and the other in Kuala Lumpur airport in Malaysia as he bought a ticket to Tehran after fleeing Thailand -- were also Iranian.

The attack in Delhi -- in which a motorcycle attacker attached a magnetic or "sticky" bomb about the size of an iPad to an Israeli diplomatic vehicle -- appeared to be a virtual mirror image of the lethal January 11 attack on Iranian scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan in Tehran traffic.

Indian police say they have yet to track down the young man in a leather jacket riding a red motorcycle who eyewitnesses said attached the device before racing away. But they said they were investigating phone calls made to foreign numbers from the immediate area just after the attack, particularly four calls made to Iran, Lebanon and Pakistan.

Tal Yehoshua-Koren, the wife of Israel's defense attache to Delhi was injured in the attack. If the bomber had attached the device to the side of the car with the petrol tank, its occupants would have been less likely to survive, police said.

Iran has long used proxy groups such as Lebanon's Hezbollah and Hamas in the Palestinian territories to attack its enemies overseas, and intelligence experts believe they may have done so again in this case. Tehran's relationship with Hamas has frayed in recent years, but Iran remains close to Hezbollah.

Other analysts believe the culprits may be members of Tehran's hardline Revolutionary Guard, perhaps from the Quds Force, believed responsible for "extraterritorial operations".

Conspiracy theories are rife . Some even point to the possibility that Israel itself might have orchestrated the attacks to damage Iran's relationship with key Asian powers particularly India, a current main purchaser of Iran's oil.

"The situation is getting worse and worse and it of course provides a good excuse for anyone who wishes to engage in real hostilities," said Farhang Jahanpour of Oxford University's Faculty of Oriental Studies.

SHADOWY PROXY GROUPS

For most analysts, however, these attacks plus an alleged plot last year to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States -- which U.S. authorities say they thwarted -- suggest Iran is now taking new risks or has signaled its proxies may do so.

"We are now seeing evidence of Iranian willingness to go after foreign targets in a way that has not been that much in evidence before," says Nigel Inkster, a former deputy chief of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), now at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies.

"Whether we're talking about the Iranians themselves or proxies such as Hezbollah, it is very difficult to know. It's also not clear whether they are acting on direction from the top or have simply been given the impression they (now) have greater flexibility."

The relative ineptitude of the attacks suggests Tehran wanted to send a message rather than inflict heavy casualties.

"The Iranians aren't interested in a truck-bomb-level attack on an Israeli embassy because that could provoke a conflict," said Paul Quaglia, director of security consultancy PSA Asia and a 20-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency.

"But they're upset about having ... nuclear scientists hit. Farming out these low-level bomb attacks against diplomats is the next best thing."

Israel too is also suspected of using a range of shadowy local resistance groups in Iran. Some of their members may not be aware of who they are ultimately working for, a technique known as "false flagging".

Several reports suggest Israeli agents may have impersonated their US counterparts in recruiting or directing members of the People's Mujahideen of Iran -- often known by its initials MEK -- or Jundallah, a group sometimes linked to al Qaeda that is based largely in the province of Baluchistan.

"There is some evidence that this has been happening," said former MI6 deputy chief Inkster. "It may be one of the things that has soured the relationship between Israel and the US. The "false flag" issue always makes things more complicated."

LESSONS OF HISTORY

The United States denies any involvement in the lethal attacks within Iran -- even issuing a rare condemnation of the January car bomb killing.

One Gulf security source told Reuters he believed U.S. agencies were directly involved in some attacks, working alongside MEK. U.S. officials have denied such suggestions, saying they would never work with the resistance groups partly because they were suspected to have been infiltrated by Iranian intelligence.

Former and serving U.S. and other Western officials say the CIA does not have the authorization -- or "finding" -- from the White House to conduct lethal attacks within Iran, although few doubt they are involved in a wide range of other intelligence operations.

While the emerging "shadow war" might escalate in the months to come, not everyone believes it heightens the risk of a wider conflict that the United States, Iran and Israel are keen to avoid.

But the lesson of history -- particularly 1914, when the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in a Sarajevo sidestreet sparked a world war -- is that mistakes can happen.

"Everyone here is used to playing the long game," says former U.S. official Cordesman, saying he believed outright war was still likely to be avoided. "But you can still have someone on a street corner in the middle of nowhere... who sparks something that changes the course of history." (Additional reporting by Dan Williams in Jerusalem, Mark Hosenball and William Maclean in London, Sinsiri Tiwutanond in Bangkok, John Chalmers and Satarupa Battacharjya in New Delhi)

(Reporting By Peter Apps, editing by Rosalind Russell)

http://news.yahoo.com/iran-shadow-war-intensifies-crosses-borders-170007525.html

Maisar,

There is no doubt that most of the news and analysis we read that come from the West make Hitler's propaganda machine look like baby toys. However, I learned to "comb" through this stuff on daily basis and get what iI call credible portions and find out why a particular news was "allowwed" to be reflected in the Western media.

Here, what I take from this news piece is that Iran probably retaliated against the Zionists because of Zionists terrorism against the Iranian scientists. This is the core of the message.

People who are tuned with the news could clearly see that there has not been much uproar against Iran in targeting Zionist diplomats as it normally would. The reason is simple, the world is totally aware who started terrorist acts and pretty much are either saying "Zionists deserve it" or "it is non of my business ", I find this a major development in world affairs. I finf it more interesting even reading that the world will see more of Iranian retaliations against Zionists and the world is fine with that!


Catsoo

Maisar,

There is no doubt that most of the news and analysis we read that come from the West make Hitler's propaganda machine look like baby toys. However, I learned to "comb" through this stuff on daily basis and get what iI call credible portions and find out why a particular news was "allowwed" to be reflected in the Western media.

Here, what I take from this news piece is that Iran probably retaliated against the Zionists because of Zionists terrorism against the Iranian scientists. This is the core of the message.

People who are tuned with the news could clearly see that there has not been much uproar against Iran in targeting Zionist diplomats as it normally would. The reason is simple, the world is totally aware who started terrorist acts and pretty much are either saying "Zionists deserve it" or "it is non of my business ", I find this a major development in world affairs. I finf it more interesting even reading that the world will see more of Iranian retaliations against Zionists and the world is fine with that!


Catsoo

I agree one can sometimes understand the real meaning of such propaganda through filtering it. But in this case i think the real reason for this was not as you mentioned but the West doing what they can do damage Iranian reputation, while crying sheep on Israel (even legitimizing the killing of scientists etc).

But it does not really matter if the news is true. People in the west are being introduced to the idea of a war with Iran and, once the idea is normalized, any military action will be met with less popular outcry. Little by little peoples minds are being conditioned not to believe the lies, but to put up with them.

Mustavaris,

How are western powers not centrally controlled when, regardless of party, they are funded and brought to power by the same interest? Follow the trail of money leading from Europe's and  USA's leading parties, and you will most definitely end up in one place.  Centrally planned, or controlled, does not need to take the shape of some some politbureau of the past, it could just as well refer to the limited pool of people our politicians, bankers, media moguls, weapons manufacturers etc. originate from.

Yes, that is true. The way is being paved for war and the big players are pushing for it, definately. The alternative voices are strong too.

What comes to so called elite, I do not deny their existence but their control is really weak when comparing to what many people seem to believe. Eg. in case of Finland it is estimated that 1000 - 2000 people control most of the media, politics, business and are culturally the most influential. That is one thing, and the idea of the elite having shared interests another.

True..Those pushing for war might end up getting it..Those pushing for war are merely doing it for profit sakes..There's a massive arms industry and business interest in the West that profit from wars..They don't care about the consequences as long as their profit is assured..US generals however see a different picture..They know another war on the scale of Iraq will destroy the US from within..But the war profiteers don't care because they can simply move their wealth to different countries when the shit hits the fan..It happened in Europe after WW2..Most wealthy Europeans moved to US, Canada etc and profited greatly from the war too.

All they need to do now is to convince a tiny proportion of the people that matter before they can launch a war..This is why we see a huge increase in war propaganda against Iran recently.

... also war is great for business. Last time the USA was in such economic difficulties it took a world war to save it.

It used to.

But if you look at such a grandiose project like JSF, one of the biggest international projects on Earth, it employs just thousands of people. The military projects used to be very labour intensive but as of today a single job costs millions - thus they are in no way good for economy, but one way to waste money (when too much is spent). They are good for certain echelons of the society for sure.

... also war is great for business. Last time the USA was in such economic difficulties it took a world war to save it.

IMHO: democracy-wise we are just few steps from Iranian situation. Only in terms of freedom of speech, religion and expression we can still say that EU is much better. Democracy-wise... the gap is getting smaller and it is not Iran that is moving forward..

I believe Iran is a much more democratic country considering a few things; the context, the geography and the situation it is in. European countries don't have a 'democracy', they have a plutocracy that the people who have money dictate the direction, not the people who vote.

Also, the European union has taken any meaning of 'democracy' away. If a people of a country decide something that goes against the wishes of the EU, they would be punished, sanctioned, etc. 

Guys... I wrote:

As a whole, I am truly worried of the situation though as the direction EU has been moving to is very dreadful. IMHO: democracy-wise we are just few steps from Iranian situation. Only in terms of freedom of speech, religion and expression we can still say that EU is much better. Democracy-wise... the gap is getting smaller and it is not Iran that is moving forward..

By any reasonable standards Iran is not more democratical than EU but it has nothing to do with our flaws. The only working democracies in Europe are found in Switzerland and Iceland, Norway, Finland and bunch of others are "ok".

The Swiss have full religious freedom, they did make a stupid law banning minarets but that has nothing to do with religious freedom´s core (freedom to practise faith or change religion) and in the long run is likely to reversed. If you look at Swiss past you can see that they have retained their path even when threatened by such insignificant entities like Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. EU does not ban debate on Holocaust, in fact it was the Danes and bunch of others who stopped that nonsense from becomig EU-wide regulation. There are EU states that do not allow free expression on that matter, but considering that you compare these restrictions to Iran is kindly said odd. Our medias do not either define populations´thoughts.. far from that. "Media" is way to diverse and the population´s views way too divided.. nothing indicates that.

Guys...youve basically hijacked this thread.

I wanted to add that this article just have no quality of information. Its just another tool to vilify Iran for well known purposes. Im getting tired of reading some of these reports. No offense meant Catsoo, you keep posting what you want... but its my personal opinion that such (mis)information takes valid space away from newsletters and transforms it into garbage.

The results speak for themselves, the people and the states fare much better when there is more democracy (in wide sense) and just like in case of any theoretical concept, it exists nowhere in a "perfect" form.

What comes to those "flaws", they exist in undemocratical systems and are far more greater players in those than in the so called democracies.

Democracy is not a situation, but the direction to go.

If we do not rule ourselves, we are slaves. I´d rather be dead citizen who stood on his own feet  than a dog bound to serve the master and to be afraid of his wrath.

There is nothing between slavery and citizenship.

Your only as free as your wallet allows you to be. Your `choices` are all dictated by your financial situation. You practically have no choice and to think you do is rather naive.

I don`t know about the situation in Finland, but in practically all democracies they are ruled by the plutocracy. The people who have money, the people who control the media, the prints, the movies and especially the banks.

Once you put people in to debt, you create debt slaves. All these european democracies you talk about are  being fooled. They are essentially debt slaves. Most people in the west have no choice. They have to work their whole lives just to pay off their house, their collage/university loan and the other debts they have accumulated. The money they have saved in their pensions, disappears when they go to collect it because of hyperinflation.

What ''choices'' do you have when everyone's thoughts are controlled through what they see, what they read, and what popular culture which is created through media dictates.

So you rather fool yourself with the idea of a choice, this is essentially 'democracy'.