http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/10/11...ran/?hpt=hp_t1
QuoteThe FBI and the DEA have disrupted a plot involving Iran to commit terrorism inside the United States, a senior U.S. official told CNN Tuesday. The official said the alleged plan was directed by elements of the Iranian government and involved a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States.
...
FBI Director Robert Mueller said the alleged terror plot involving Iran "reads like the pages of a Hollywood script."
Oh shit.
"Page not found."
:(
Just click on the front page, they keep updating the story.
If this was bush there would be troops in Iran already, what are the chances of the war on terror going to resource rich, strategically placed Iran?
http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/11/justice/iran-saudi-plot/
QuoteWashington (CNN) -- U.S. agents have disrupted an Iranian assassination-for-hire scheme targeting Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday.
Elements of the Iranian government directed the alleged plan, Holder said. A naturalized U.S. citizen holding Iranian and U.S. passports and a member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard were directly involved, the FBI said in a statement.
"The U.S. is committed to holding Iran accountable," Holder told reporters.
A spokesman for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that the alleged plot was "a fabrication."
The Iranian government was awaiting details about the accusations, spokesman Ali Akbar Javanfekr said. He suggested U.S. authorities were attempting to distract American citizens.
"They want to take the public's mind off the serious domestic problems they're facing these days and scare them with fabricated problems outside the country," he said.
The Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington issued a statement Tuesday thanking U.S. authorities for stepping in.
"The attempted plot is a despicable violation of international norms, standards and conventions and is not in accord with the principles of humanity," the embassy's statement said.
The Saudi ambassador was not the only intended target, U.S. officials said. Suspects also discussed attacking Israeli and Saudi embassies in Washington and possibly Buenos Aires, Argentina, a senior U.S. official said.
It is unclear why Iran targeted the Saudi ambassador, the senior U.S. official said, or how widespread knowledge or approval of the plot was within Ahmadinejad's government.
Manssor Arbabsiar, a 56-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen, and Gholam Shakuri, an Iran-based member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, began planning this spring to kill Saudi Ambassador Adel Al-Jubeir, an FBI agent's affidavit released Tuesday alleged.
Charges against them include conspiracy to murder a foreign official, conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism, the affidavit said.
Authorities unraveled the plot with the help of an informant posing as an associate of a Mexican drug cartel, Holder said.
Arbabsiar and the undercover informant allegedly discussed using explosives to kill the ambassador and possibly attacking a crowded restaurant, according to the affidavit.
Arbabsiar also told the informant he wanted to target additional government facilities associated with Saudi Arabia and a second, undisclosed country within and outside of the United States, FBI agent O. Robert Woloszyn's affidavit said.
The alleged plot read "like the pages of a Hollywood script," but the implications were real, FBI Director Robert Mueller said.
"This case illustrates that we live in a world where borders and boundaries are increasingly irrelevant -- a world where individuals from one country sought to conspire with a drug trafficking cartel in another country to assassinate a foreign official on United States soil," he said.
The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, told reporters Tuesday that the alleged $1.5 million plot was "well-funded and pernicious."
"Details of that murder plot are chilling," he said.
A U.S. official said Tuesday that the United States is likely to respond with additional sanctions against Iran. The United States will also be taking up the issue with the U.N. Security Council and other members of the international community, the official said.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that additional actions to further isolate the Iranian regime will be considered.
The U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions Tuesday targeting Arbabsiar, Shakuri and three others tied to the alleged plot.
In the affidavit, Woloszyn alleged the case involves a branch of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that is suspected of being involved in a number of foreign operations.
The branch, the Quds Force, is accused by U.S. officials of sponsoring attacks against U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq, and in October 2007, the Treasury Department designated it as "providing material to the Taliban and other terrorist organizations," the affidavit said.
Often considered regional rivals, the oil-rich Saudi Kingdom has been at odds with its Iranian counterpart.
The country's Sunni leaders have at times discussed directly intervening in Iraq following the U.S. military withdrawal, according to a Council on Foreign Relations report. Iran has largely supported Shiite militias in Iraq.
Quote from: Cain on October 11, 2011, 10:41:51 PM
Oh shit.
Let's see, we have 50,000 troops in Iraq, and what, 70,000 in Afghanistan now? ANyone willing to make a little wager?
This, from the BBC article, immediately strikes me as suspicious
QuoteOn 24 May 2011 Mr Arbabsiar made contact with an informant for the US Drug Enforcement Agency, under the impression that he was an operative of a Mexican drugs cartel.
Over a series of meetings, details emerged of a conspiracy that involved members of the Iranian government to pay $1.5m for the assassination of Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir on US soil.
I'm not saying that is the case here, but lets remember that a lot of "terror plots" were planned entirely in the heads of undercover FBI agents, who then went out of their way to recruit dupes to take part, who could then be paraded around as terrorists later.
"Hey, Mister Unscrupulous Criminal, I am going to tell you details of my top secret, state-sponsored act of assassination on American soil." Uh, that don't sound likely.
What sounds even less likely are the allegations that this was going to involve a combined attack on the Israeli and Saudi Embassies...not only in the USA, but in Argentina as well. Because nothing says "covert assassination plot" like planning a random bombing campaign to coincide with it.
Well, at least it happened when there are massive protests going on all over the country. Nothing to scare the peasants back into their hovels like a nice scary dragon/werewolf/terrorist sighting.
Quote from: Cain on October 11, 2011, 10:50:21 PM
"Hey, Mister Unscrupulous Criminal, I am going to tell you details of my top secret, state-sponsored act of assassination on American soil." Uh, that don't sound likely.
That sounds
retarded.
Quote from: kingyak on October 11, 2011, 10:56:50 PM
Well, at least it happened when there are massive protests going on all over the country. Nothing to scare the peasants back into their hovels like a nice scary dragon/werewolf/terrorist sighting.
funny I was thinking the same
CNN is the Fear Network™. I assume that anything they say is as reliable as Fox or WND.
I'll bow to Cain's assessment of the BBC, should he have time to give it.
I'm a little at a loss why a Mexican cartel would be willing to cooperate with the Iranians for an assassination of a Saudi, come to think of it. Is there something I'm missing here?
Quote from: Secret Agent GARBO on October 11, 2011, 11:04:53 PM
I'm a little at a loss why a Mexican cartel would be willing to cooperate with the Iranians for an assassination of a Saudi, come to think of it. Is there something I'm missing here?
The truth, maybe??? In my bones I think the U.S. has been just itching for a reason to invade Iran, and why would it surprise anyone if they finally had to fabricate that reason?
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 11, 2011, 11:03:05 PM
CNN is the Fear Network™. I assume that anything they say is as reliable as Fox or WND.
I'll bow to Cain's assessment of the BBC, should he have time to give it.
With the BBC, they wont dress it up, as a rule, but you have to consider their sources. The BBC got hit very badly over its coverage of the Iraq War and the negative aspects thereof (pointing out Tony Blair was lying led to the BBC being branded the Baghdad Broadcasting Network - hilarious I'm sure you'll agree), and so tend to toe the line more carefully when reporting based on government sources.
Not sensationalist, but in some ways that makes it harder to tell when they're passing along a line of bullshit.
Quote from: Charley Brown on October 11, 2011, 11:09:13 PM
Quote from: Secret Agent GARBO on October 11, 2011, 11:04:53 PM
I'm a little at a loss why a Mexican cartel would be willing to cooperate with the Iranians for an assassination of a Saudi, come to think of it. Is there something I'm missing here?
The truth, maybe??? In my bones I think the U.S. has been just itching for a reason to invade Iran, and why would it surprise anyone if they finally had to fabricate that reason?
That was my way of saying I found it fishy. And, yeah, that's kind of what I'm thinking.
Quote from: Secret Agent GARBO on October 11, 2011, 11:04:53 PM
I'm a little at a loss why a Mexican cartel would be willing to cooperate with the Iranians for an assassination of a Saudi, come to think of it. Is there something I'm missing here?
Mexican cartels are only in it for the money. If they were supplying arms for the hit, that could explain their involvement. To be honest, the Mexican groups would be the first people I would attempt to contact as well. They can move people and drugs across borders fairly easily, so they should be able to move weapons as well.
Since Iran has no embassy in the US, and so no diplomatic pouch to smuggle them in with, another method for obtaining weapons would be needed.
Hezbollah also has links with some drug cartels further south. Of course, the media always over-exaggerate the links between Iran and Hezbollah anyway (amazingly, Hezbollah is not purely an extension of the Iranian state's will - not least because the "Iranian state" as a unitary actor is a laughable fiction), but it could be some calls were put into the Bekaa Valley and some questions about groups and people to contact were asked.
I'd like to know more about this bank transfer, as well. I'm a little more familiar with Iranian banking operations, having spent a (very tedious) evening browsing such documents from Wikileaks, and would be more inclined to believe it if certain names were involved.
Quote from: Cain on October 11, 2011, 11:16:34 PM
Quote from: Secret Agent GARBO on October 11, 2011, 11:04:53 PM
I'm a little at a loss why a Mexican cartel would be willing to cooperate with the Iranians for an assassination of a Saudi, come to think of it. Is there something I'm missing here?
Mexican cartels are only in it for the money. If they were supplying arms for the hit, that could explain their involvement. To be honest, the Mexican groups would be the first people I would attempt to contact as well. They can move people and drugs across borders fairly easily, so they should be able to move weapons as well.
Since Iran has no embassy in the US, and so no diplomatic pouch to smuggle them in with, another method for obtaining weapons would be needed.
Hezbollah also has links with some drug cartels further south. Of course, the media always over-exaggerate the links between Iran and Hezbollah anyway (amazingly, Hezbollah is not purely an extension of the Iranian state's will - not least because the "Iranian state" as a unitary actor is a laughable fiction), but it could be some calls were put into the Bekaa Valley and some questions about groups and people to contact were asked.
Ah yeah, that makes sense. I was perusing an article on it (http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=46795) just now, which was saying they were looking to borrow some muscle for it.
No idea what quality Human Events is, but I need to run to class so D: it'll do for now.
Human Events are terrible quality. They syndicate Coulter and Pat Buchanan, among others. The "outside muscle" angle sounds even less likely than the "multiple bombings" angle. You do not bring in outsiders on a sensitive job. You do not complicate the plot. You kill the fucker you came for, and that's it. You don't go off and bomb 4 different embassies on two different continents, to show off or whatever. You don't tell random Mexican cartel members what you intend to do.
Couple questions for those smarter than me:
1) Why are they releasing this to the news today? I believe the plot actually happened, and this isn't a total fabrication, but I also believe there have been a dozen or so of these in the last couple years (at least), but there was some sort of political motivations behind releasing the info now. Do you think the military contractors are doing it so the budget superdupercommittee doesn't cut their budget?
2) Is anyone else more concerned by the fact that drug cartels are now conspiring with major governments? (Besides, you know... the biggest one...) That's the part that's scaring the hell out of me. These drug cartels are gearing up for an actual, shit's goin' down WAR. Am I over thinking this?
Gee, if only there was some simple way to take the revenue stream away from these drug cartels...
"Gearing up"?
Circa 2010 15,273 people had died in the Drug War. In comparison the US has only lost about 5,000 troops in Iraq. This has been an actual shits goin down war for awhile now.
Good point.
Quote from: Cain on October 11, 2011, 11:24:32 PM
Human Events are terrible quality. They syndicate Coulter and Pat Buchanan, among others. The "outside muscle" angle sounds even less likely than the "multiple bombings" angle. You do not bring in outsiders on a sensitive job. You do not complicate the plot. You kill the fucker you came for, and that's it. You don't go off and bomb 4 different embassies on two different continents, to show off or whatever. You don't tell random Mexican cartel members what you intend to do.
Yeah, I had never heard of them and was skimming the article before I ran off. Good to know it's shit. And ew.
Quote from: I_Kicked_Kennedy on October 12, 2011, 12:28:59 AM
Couple questions for those smarter than me:
1) Why are they releasing this to the news today? I believe the plot actually happened, and this isn't a total fabrication, but I also believe there have been a dozen or so of these in the last couple years (at least), but there was some sort of political motivations behind releasing the info now. Do you think the military contractors are doing it so the budget superdupercommittee doesn't cut their budget?
2) Is anyone else more concerned by the fact that drug cartels are now conspiring with major governments? (Besides, you know... the biggest one...) That's the part that's scaring the hell out of me. These drug cartels are gearing up for an actual, shit's goin' down WAR. Am I over thinking this?
Gee, if only there was some simple way to take the revenue stream away from these drug cartels...
I don't think mercs are worried about a budget cut. If there is one thing that is guaranteed, it is that mercenaries will be paid. Obama has virtually doubled US dependency on them in foreign conflict zones.
*shrug* One of the worst Mexican gangs, the Zetas, were former police and special forces. Besides, lets remember, this wasn't an actual Cartel member they were talking to, it was a covert US DEA officer. The cartels are already fighting an actual war against the Mexican government, and are winning, without much in the way of government assistance.
Here's a good question, however, that is always worth asking.
Why now?
The US has had the same Saudi Arabian ambsassador in Washington since 2006. What has changed so significantly that killing him is considered a necessity? He does seem to be a critical node in US-Saudi intelligence sharing on terrorism...but lets be honest, any idiot could do that. What's the expected outcome here, the payoff for Iran? As a rule, nations don't just engage in assassination plots for the hell of it, they do it because either they want to prevent something happening, they want to send a message (which requires the assassination to be linked to a wider context) or because they will benefit from the replacement for the person who is being removed (in intelligence tradecraft, if you had a mole in an enemy service, it was terribly easy to manage their rise to positions of influence, simply by expelling or otherwise compromising the other spies in the network and getting your guy promoted. Assassination tends to work best in similar circumstances).
I'm not even going to speculate that Iran has a mole in the top of the Saudi Arabian foreign ministry because, aside from being a great plot for a novel, we'd never know if that was true or nor anyway.
So what could Iran want to prevent from happening? Well...it could be that US or Saudi intelligence were planning something Iran-directed. Maybe the US was going to transfer yet more high-tech arms to the Kingdom - precision bombs, something like that - which would really ruin Iran's day should a Middle East war break out. Of course, such an arms deal was actually agreed, about a year ago now.
Another possibility is the Gulf Cooperation Group agitation over what is going on in Syria. The Syrian regime is, of course, close to Tehran. After the success of Qatari-backed, Al-Qaeda linked militants in Libya, Tehran no doubt surmises the GCG are riding high on success, and planning to export the Sunni counterrevolution to Damascus next. However, the GCG wont act without at least some kind of NATO backing, I am fairly confident of that. Therefore, lobbying the US for involvement beyond sanctions would be necessary - another bombing campaign, while the Arab dictatorships took care of the dirty work on the ground. Tehran would then lose access to an ally very strategically placed in the heart of the Arab world - a real blow. It would also probably have a knock-on effect on Hezbollah's ability to fight Israel - a vulnerability that Bibi would be keen to exploit, given his own internal woes.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/10/would-iran-really-want-to-blow-up-the-saudi-ambassador-to-the-us/246505/
Worth reading
QuoteThe Iranian leadership, for all their twisted human rights abuses and policies that often serve the regime at the cost of actual Iranians, are not idiots. Though they use terrorism as a foreign policy tool, the attacks in Iraq and Lebanon and elsewhere have clearly been driven by just that -- a cool-headed pragmatic desire to further Iranian foreign policy interests. Unifying the U.S. and Saudi Arabia at a time when they are drifting apart with a plot that would galvanize American publics and policymakers to support Saudi Arabia, and all without actually doing much strategic damage to either country, would be monumentally stupid. They've made serious, ideology-driven mistakes before -- as government often do -- but this plot comes so far out of left field that it should raise more questions than accusations.
If they would go through all the trouble to organize a bombing attack on U.S. soil -- no easy thing to do -- why target someone so low-level? For that matter, why launch an attack on U.S. soil at all, something Iran has never done in the tumultuous decade since September 11? Why now, as opposed to, for example, during the height of the Iraq war? Why incur the wrath of the U.S. now, so soon after releasing the U.S. hikers detained in Tehran? (Their release was a modest and long overdue concession, but one that suggests the path of Iranian diplomacy.)
And why get involved with Mexican drug cartels? Is that really someplace where Iran has good contacts these days? As Ken Gude of the Center for American Progress asked, "Wiring money into US? Talking about plot on phone? Does that sound like an intel service to you?"
Yeah, something really stinks about this entire thing.
Cain, instead of taking direct action, wouldn't it be far more likely that Tehran would sponsor a terrorist group for this sort of thing? I just can't accept that they would benefit from any direct action against U.S. soil, when the U.S. has quantifiable history of readily invading ME countries.
Would you trust a terrorist group to do this right? Apart from Hezbollah, which would give the whole thing away anyway.
Peter Lee, the Asia Times correspondent, has his doubts about this story as well:
QuoteSince everybody else is tiptoeing around the issue, I might as well put my hoof in:
The "Iranian bomb plot" smells like BS.
The idea that the Iranian regime or Quds Force decided to pull this off should be fourth or fifth down the list of plausible explanations, if not lower.
It looks more like a black flag operation by Israel or Saudi Arabia.
The fact that the US decided to take the allegation and run with it should itself be a matter of interest and investigation.
After all, just as Iran is trying once again to break out of its diplomatic isolation by refloating the Teheran Research Reactor nuclear fuel swap, the State Department comes up with a new load of manure to dump on the situation.
Makes me think, the Obama administration decided to give the Jose Padilla treatment to this ridiculous scheme in order to reclaim leadership of the anti-Iran jihad, which threatened to run off under the incitement of Saudi Arabia and Israel, both of whom now regard the US as a dubious ally who no longer deserves either a leadership role or even a veto in skullduggery involving Teheran.
Good point I suppose.
I remember in the 70's, we were always told people in Russia and China didn't know what was going on in the world because the state run media only told the people what the state wanted them to hear.
Thanks for the info from the Asian Times.
I'll be damned, CNN has a story along the lines of questioning the truth of the accusations.
Did an elite branch of Iran's military handpick a divorced, 56-year-old Iranian-American used-car salesman from Texas to hire a hitman from a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the ambassador to Saudi Arabia by blowing up a bomb in a crowded restaurant in Washington?
U.S. officials say they are certain the bizarre plot against Ambassador Adel Jubeir was real.
But some analysts say they are not. They find it unlikely that the Iranian government, or legitimate factions within, would be involved in such a tangled plot.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/12/us/analysis-iran-saudi-plot/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
There is a LOT of uncertainty about this. The likes of Robert Baer, the CIA Mid-East specialist, have already pointed out Qods do not make a mistake like this. If they want you dead, you wouldn't know about it until you were dead.
Lets put it this way: do some googling on the Karbala attacks by the Qods. Then look at the current event. You'll see a marked difference in the level of professionalism and lethality.
http://www.acus.org/new_atlanticist/alleged-iranian-assassination-plot-suspicious
QuoteUS Justice Department charges that elements of Iran's government were behind a foiled plot on the life of Saudi Arabia's U.S. ambassador have boggled the minds of many Americans knowledgeable about both Iran and terrorism.
The alleged target and modus operandi – employing a Mexican drug cartel to blow up Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir at a Washington restaurant – are unusual, to say the least, for a government that has focused on political dissidents and theatres of war closer to home.
"Fishy, fishy, fishy,'' Bruce Riedel, a CIA veteran who was formerly in charge of the Near East and South Asia on the White House National Security Council, told IPS. "That Iran engages in assassinations is old news. That it would use a Mexican drug cartel would be new."
Iran has not been behind a political assassination in the United States since a year after the 1979 revolution, when an African-American convert to Islam, Daoud Salahuddin, killed the former press attaché at the Iranian Embassy, Ali Akbar Tabatabai, in a Washington suburb.
Iran was also responsible for assassinations of Iranian dissidents in Europe in the 1980s and early 1990s but used its own agents or members of Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shiite organization that Iran helped create following the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
Hezbollah is believed responsible for the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut and a spate of other bombings and abductions in Lebanon.
More recently, Iran has allegedly backed local proxies responsible for the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
U.S. experts on Iranian spy agencies and tradecraft say the hare-brained scheme described in the Justice Department complaint does not resemble the operations of the Quds Force, the external arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). Al-Quds means Jerusalem in Arabic.
"Nothing about this adds up," said Kenneth Katzman, author of a book on the IRGC and expert on Iran at the Congressional Research Service.
"Iran does not use non-Muslim groups or people who are not trusted members or associates of the Quds force," Katzman said. "Iran does not blow up buildings in Washington that invites retaliation against the Iranian homeland."
Indeed, the timing would be extremely awkward for Iran, which is already facing growing isolation because of its nuclear program and domestic abuses of human rights.
The whole thing stinks to high heaven. Why kill an Ambassador? They're messenger boys, essentially. Why now? Why is it so important? Doing so would be an act of war against the USA, which is not to Iran's benefit. Why would Iran want to provoke a war after a decade of careful manipulation of regional events and diplomatic missions designed to reduce tensions?
I'm starting to warm to the idea that his may have an Israeli or Saudi angle to it.
I'm still not unconvinced that the U.S. isn't fabricating the whole damn thing.
Too risky. Fallout would be huge if something went wrong. While my initial thoughts were along the lines of the FBI's "make your own terror cells" plot, this has elements to it which only an intelligence agency could undertake. CIA too busy playing with predator drones for this kind of thing.
Quote from: Cain on October 13, 2011, 03:33:16 PM
Too risky. Fallout would be huge if something went wrong. While my initial thoughts were along the lines of the FBI's "make your own terror cells" plot, this has elements to it which only an intelligence agency could undertake. CIA too busy playing with predator drones for this kind of thing.
You're probably right.One thing kind of stands out though, whoever was behind it seems to have wanted it to be found out.
Well, if it was the Israelis, they've been fucking up pretty much everything else lately....
Also, I am starting to see the outlines of a plan...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/13/us-iran-usa-plot-treaty-idUSTRE79C0SE20111013
QuoteIf they were involved in a plot to kill Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir, that would likely violate the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Internationally Protected Persons.
[snip]
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a point on Wednesday of noting that Iran had agreed to the U.N. treaty.
"This kind of reckless act undermines international norms and the international system. Iran must be held accountable for its actions," she said.
The United States has two options if Iran officially rejects the case, including pursuing action at the U.N. Security Council. That was done when Libya refused to hand over two men accused of the Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland.
The United States or Saudi Arabia could bring it to the United Nations and argue that "these are very obvious violations and for the Security Council to do nothing in light of this major attempted violation cheapens the words" of the treaty, Kaye said.
In other words, the UN could demand Qods force leaders be extradited for trial. Which is the equivalent of taking in Navy SEAL Team 6 for questioning, ie; utterly disarming Iran's pre-eminent irregular warfare and special forces troops.
Pretty sure Iran won't bend over that particular log for anyone. Iran and the UN both know that Iran would be well within its rights to demand hard evidence, and the US isn't the big UN power it thought it once was.
I don't see a happy ending here.
Ioz really does have a way with words...
http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/2011/10/option-it.html
So the Iranians were going to use an American to hire a Mexican to assassinate a Saudi in Washington. Oh, ok. Let me just read from last night's NPR transcript for you. I have excerpted all you need to know:
QuoteSIEGEL: Now, the Iranians have called this a fabrication, someone called it a distraction to keep Americans from thinking about our domestic problems. How convincing is the evidence of Iran's involvement here?
GJELTEN: We really don't know.
Obviously this is going to turn into another case where the FBI tells some half-homeless loser that they're going to set him up with his own moon base and spacekreig Nazi saucer command; dude goes down to the public libarary, poops and shaves in the bathroom, gets online and tells facebook that he is going to launch an interstellar invasion of all the capitals of the planet earth; the Feds pinch the guy; and Eric Holder goes before the American People to cry Klatuu Barada Nikto until the terror cows come home. Robert Meuller says it sounds like a Hollywood script. Like the one that your waiter "accidentally" left at your table, maybe.
The legal paperwork surrounding this plot
makes no sense. Above and beyond the usual ways in which legal documents make no sense.
Marcy Wheeler, one of the few bloggers out there who deserves a proper journalism gig, has been looking at the various documents being filed:
http://www.emptywheel.net/2011/10/11/bank-transfers-of-mass-destruction/
QuoteThis complaint charges Arbabsiar and Ali Gholam Shakuri, who is apparently a Colonel in the Quds force. But the whole plot was originally conceived of by his cousin (called "Individual 1″ or "Iranian Official 1″ in the complaint), who is a Quds General "wanted in America." In addition, Arbabsiar spoke with another high-ranking Quds official. His cousin provided him the money for the plot, and directed him to carry it out.
And the FBI has evidence of the cousin's involvement; as part of Arbabsiar's confession (he waived the right to lawyer), he said,
Quotemen he understood to be senior Qods Force officials were aware of and approved, among other things, the use of [Narc] in connection with the plot; payments to [Narc]; and the means by which the Ambassador would be killed in the United States and the casualties that would likely result.
So the FBI had a Quds general directly implicated by his own cousin in a terrorist attack in the US, and another senior Quds official at least tangentially involved. But they don't indict those two, too? (Note, Fran Townsend just tweeted that Treasury imposed sanctions on these guys; will update when I get that information. Update: see below.)
The complaint may suggest they had an entirely different plan. After Arbabsiar was arrested on September 29, the FBI had him call Shakuri on several different occasions–October 4, October 5, and October 7. Claiming to be in Mexico has guarantor for the remaining 1.4 million promised for the hit, Arbabsiar told Shakuri–the complaint describes, "among other things"–that Narc wanted more money. Shakuri refused to give it to him, reminding him that he was himself the guarantee Narc would get paid. Before Abrbabsiar purportedly went to Mexico, Shakuri had warned him not to go.
All this suggests the FBI was after something else–though it's not clear what. The obvious thing is that they would use Arbabsiar as bait to get first Shakuri and possibly his cousin.
But I also note that the complaint refers to the cousin and the other Quds officer as men Arbabsiar knew to be Quds officers–as if they might be something else.
In any case, this indictment seems like a recruitment gone bad. If so, should we really have told the world we're using Los Zetas members we flipped to try to recruit Iranian spies?
http://www.emptywheel.net/2011/10/13/gaps-in-the-iran-plot-docket-to-go-along-with-the-gaps-in-the-story/
QuoteThere are a couple of weird aspects to the docket (click to enlarge).
First (and this is what got me looking at the docket in the first place), the complaint is an amended complaint. That says there's a previous complaint. But that complaint is not in the docket. Not only is it not in the docket, but the docket starts with the arrest on September 29 (notice the docket lists his arrest twice, on both September 29 and October 11), but the numbering starts with the amended complaint (normally, even if there were a sealed original complaint, it would be incorporated within the numbering, such that the docket might start with the amended complaint but start with number 8 or something).
Two things might explain this. First, that there was an earlier unrelated complaint–say on drug charges, but the charges are tied closely enough to this op such that this counts as an amended complaint. Alternately, that Arbabsiar was charged with a bunch of things when he was arrested on September 29, but then, after at least 12 days of cooperation (during which he waived Miranda rights each day), he was charged with something else and the new complaint incorporated Ali Gholam Shakuri's involvement, based entirely on Arbabsiar's confession and Shakuri's coded conversations with Arbabsiar while the latter was in US custody.
Both of those scenarios suggest that what we see–the WMD and terror charges–might be totally different charges than what the original complaint included (or just focused less closely on Arbabsiar). In any case, the presence of an original complaint, even putting the docket weirdness aside, makes it pretty likely that Arbabsiar decided to cooperate because of what was in that complaint.
Now look at his status. "Detention on consent without prejudice." Arbabsiar wants to be in jail. Given that his cooperation and implication of the Qods Force has turned into an international incident, I don't blame the guy.
All of which does sort of make you wonder what medical attention the court ordered for Arbabsiar.
http://www.emptywheel.net/2011/10/14/the-four-month-warning-of-a-not-yet-ripe-plot/
QuoteI suspect Ha'aretz and Reuters think they're helping build credibility for the Scary Iran Plot by reporting that the Saudis warned the Argentines of the plot four months ago.
But it seems to introduce more questions than credibility.
Four months ago–assuming the anonymous Argentine diplomat is correct–would mean they were tipped off in mid-June. As Reuters points out, that may be around the time Obama first got briefed on the purported plot.
According to the complaint, the only piece of evidence the US had at that time was one unrecorded meeting between Manssor Arbabsiar and Narc. The complaint only supports that Narc learned Arbabsiar wanted to attack an embassy–consistent with the possibility of attacking the Saudi Embassy in Argentina–or maybe wanted to kidnap Adel Al-Jubeir, not kill him.
Perhaps the anonymous diplomat is off by a few weeks, and she was tipped by the Saudis in late June, after Arbabsiar had returned to Mexico on June 23, and after Arbabsiar had had another unrecorded meeting or more with Narc.
Even if that were the case, the Argentines (and Saudis) were purportedly warned before any recordings of Arbabsiar's statements were made and before any money got transferred–in spite of the fact that sources say the Administration didn't really believe in this plot until that transfer.
http://www.emptywheel.net/2011/10/14/government-remains-mum-about-when-it-first-charged-arbabsiar-and-for-what/
QuoteYesterday, I pointed out some oddities of the docket for Manssor Arbabsiar, the accused plotter in the Iran assassination plot. Most notably, the docket for this crime starts with the amended complaint. That indicated there was an original complaint. But the numbering on the docket–which starts with the amendment complaint–suggested the original complaint might relate to an entirely different crime.
bmaz called the court house to try to figure out the oddity. And court personnel did some checking–and consulted directly with the AUSA trying this case–they explained only that there had been a prior complaint in SDNY which Chief Judge Loretta Preska had approved having sealed. The court house offered no insight on when all this happened.
The government's unwillingness to unseal that original complaint is just another weird aspect of this case, as it suggests Arbabsiar might have been arrested for totally different charges. Or he might have been charged months ago.
http://www.emptywheel.net/2011/10/17/scary-iran-plot-follow-the-money/
QuoteMoney was exchanged, but for what?
Before I lay out what the money details show, though, let's lay out the many possible operations the money paid for. According to Manssor Arbabsiar's confession, his cousin Abdul Reza Shahlai told him to go get drug traffickers to kidnap the Saudi Ambassador. Arbabsiar's confession says it evolved into a capture or kill deal (though says it did so in conversations with Gholam Shakuri and Hamed Abdollahi, not Shahlai). The complaint also mentions plans of "attacking an embassy of Saudi Arabia" (Narc's account of the May 24 meeting with Arbabsiar), for "a number of violent missions" (Narc's account of purportedly unrecorded June-July meetings), "the murder of the Ambassador" (Narc's account of purportedly unrecorded June-July meetings), and targeting foreign government facilities located outside of the United States, associated with Saudi Arabia and with another country [reported to be Israel]" (footnote 6 describing what Narc reported from these earlier meetings). The quotes from July 14 are ambiguous whether they refer to kidnapping or assassination of al-Jubeir. The quotes from July 17 include clear reference to killing what is presumably (thought not specified as) al-Jubeir. And note what the complaint rather damningly doesn't mention, though Administration leakers admit?
QuoteThe plotters also discussed a side deal between the Quds Force, part of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, and Los Zetas to funnel tons of opium from the Middle East to Mexico, the official said.
In other words, several things were being negotiated: the kidnapping and/or assassination of al-Jubeir, hits on embassies in Argentina, possibly some other horrible things, and drug deals. So we need to be careful to tie any payments to specific ops.
The use of two different codes in the taped conversations doesn't make tying payments to specific ops any easier–the complaint mentions "painting," or "doing" a building (September 2, 20, and October 4), which the FBI Agent interprets without stated confirmation in Arbabsiar's confession as the murder, as well as the "Chevrolet" (October 5 and 7), which Arbabsiar's confession says also referred to the murder (syntactically, though, the Chevrolet sounds like a drug deal, while the building seems more closely connected to the murder).
Finally, a conversation on September 12 seems to suggest (though the FBI Agent doesn't interpret it this way) that Arbabsiar had presented Narc several choices of operations, and the plotters just wanted them to pick one to carry out. After insisting the price would be "one point five," Arbabsiar told Narc, for example, that he could "prepare for those too [two] ... but we need at least one of them" [ellipsis original]. He went on to say that if Narc did "at least one ... I'll send the balance for you" [ellipsis original]. Particularly given the two different codes–building and Chevrolet–it seems possible there were still at least two different operations (both Arbabsiar and Shakuri offer up the building, not the Chevrolet, when they are not being coached as the operation they're most anxious about). At the very least, this means that two months after the two meetings supposedly finalizing the plan for the assassination, both the price and the objective remained unclear.
No quoted passage ties the $100,000, the $1.5 million, and the assassination
See what I mean?
No, I'm completely lost, sorry :(
There is no proof the money transfer was for an assassination.
Arbabsiar discussed a number of deals with the Los Zetas narc, and it just so happens the one involving assassinating the Saudi Ambassador was not recorded.
Arbabsiar was originally under arrest for different charges than he is now. The previous reasons for his arrests are sealed.
Arbabsiar wants to be in custody.
The recorded phone discussions sound more like a drugs deal than a hit.
Arbabsiar's attorney seems pretty convinced there is going to be some kind of deal, and that he will never see a courtroom.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/1017/iran.html
Funny timing. Glad the world has found its new villian.
Quote from: Faust on October 18, 2011, 01:40:09 PM
http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/1017/iran.html
Funny timing. Glad the world has found its new villian.
I wonder if anyone has taken the time to vet Ahmed Shaheed's report.