Iran's Shadow War

"All available evidence clearly points to Iran [being behind a drone attack on July 29 against an Israel-linked tanker that killed a former British soldier and Romanian national]."

"This was a deliberate and targeted attack, and a clear violation of international law … There is no justification for this attack."

"Vessels must be allowed to navigate freely in accordance with international law. [We will] do our utmost to protect all shipping, upon which the global economy depends. Iran’s behaviour, alongside its support to proxy forces and non-state armed actors, threatens international peace and security."

G7 Foreign Ministers

 

"The UK knows that Iran was responsible for this attack. We know it was deliberate and targeted. [The evidence is] clear cut."

"The door for diplomacy and dialogue remains open. But if Iran chooses not to take that route, then we would seek to hold Iran to account and apply a cost to that."

British Ambassador to the UN Barbara Woodward

 

"[The accusations are] baseless."

"For those who are familiar with the history of the region, the design of such conspiracies at different junctures by the Israeli regime is nothing new."

"[Iran would not hesitate in defending its national interests and would respond to any] possible adventurism." 

"[Allegations that Iran was responsible] were contradictory, false and provocative."

Saeed Khatibzadeh, spokesman, Iranian Foreign Ministry

 

"[The attack may have been launched from the Iranian coast. The distance to the locations of the attacks] was within the range of documented Iranian one-way attack [drones]."

"Some of the material was transferred to US Fifth Fleet headquarters in Manama, Bahrain and subsequently to a US national laboratory for further testing and verification."

Central Command, which oversees US forces in the region

The Mercer Street was attacked off the coast of Oman, and two on board were killed   Johan Victor via Reuters

 

Intelligence agencies from the United Kingdom, Canada, Israel and the United States, all marked the Islamic State of Iran as the perpetrator of yet another attack on a vessel sailing in the norther Indian Ocean on July 30 off the coast of Oman. Two crew members of the ship named the Mercer Street managed by Zodiac Maritime based in the United Kingdom, owned by an Israeli shipping owner died in the attack. The Romanian captain of the ship and a British security guard lost their lives in the event. Those on board the ship reported having been targeted by two drones hours before the explosive drone hit the ship.

The attack appears to be yet another 'adventure' undertaken by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps which, with their armed speed boats, have taken to surrounding, harassing and attacking vessels in international waters claiming them to be in waters of Iranian jurisdiction. Following this most recent deadly attack, within days other foreign oil tankers reported they were both physically hijacked and digitally interfered with while sailing off the Gulf of Oman, in violation of international law.

This too is a hallmark operation of the Republic which has for years claimed ownership  of the Strait of Hormus, threatening to close it off to international shipping and navigation should an armed conflict break out. The waters off the United Arab Emirates have been roiled for the past two years by a series of explosions and hijackings. For which the U.S.Navy has blamed Iran, in limpet mine attacks damaging oil tankers. The Israel-owned ships Helios Ray and Hyperion Ray were similarly attacked.

Iran claims plausible deniability. The theocratic dictatorship that is known to be the major supporter of Islamist terrorism through its proxies Lebanese Hezbollah and Yemeni Houthis, as well as Shi'ite militias, and also Hamas, supplying them with weaponry and deploying their militias when it suits their purpose of sowing terror in specific targets, is no innocent bystander as it claims to be. Its deliberate, planned acts of violence and maritime sabotage and criminal attacks reflect its agenda to throw opponents into disarray and advance Iran's plans to lead a Shi'ite conquest in a majority Sunni Arab Middle East.

Its signing of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union was nothing but a smokescreen for its urgent search for enriched uranium to bring its nuclear program closer to completion. Despite signing the JCPOA, it continued enriching uranium covertly while advancing the updated technology of its medium-range ballistic missiles, designed to carry a nuclear warhead. And carrying on a clandestine connection with North Korea.

The region is under threat of constant violent provocation by Iran, through missions delivered by its proxy terrorist groups and its greatest asset, its state terrorist group, the IRGC. While the United States reignited a new series of negotiations to renew the JCPOA, Iran has been emboldened to threaten dire consequences for those interfering in its affairs. Affairs that include destabilizing the Middle East, and threatening to demolish Israel, for which a nuclear warhead would be an invaluable tool, and setting the entire region on edge, venturing outward from the Middle East to Venezuela, Nicaragua, Brazil, Cuba.

As two oil-producing countries under U.S. sanctions, Iran and Venezuela have been working in recent years to strengthen geopolitical ties to relieve U.S. pressure and find a solution to improve their economies.

Skirting U.S. Sanctions on Iran

"Homeland Security Investigations uses export control statutes to ensure sensitive technologies developed in the United States do not fall into the hands of those that intend to harm Americans or our allies."

"Iran has been subject to international sanctions for more than 40 years and has continuously and furtively tried to obtain items that could be used against U.S. soldiers in conflict or Americans abroad."

Vance Callender, special agent, Security Investigations, U.S. Homeland Security

A security car passes in front of the Natanz nuclear facility 300km south of Tehran [File/Reuters]

 

"The Iranian regime has escalated its nuclear program, further violating the 2015 nuclear deal, to increase pressure on the US and Europe."

"The International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran has constructed new underground nuclear infrastructure, where it has begun installing and operating advanced centrifuges in recent weeks. This infrastructure, which is designed to withstand airstrikes, replaces the centrifuge assembly facility allegedly sabotaged in July. "

"Tehran has also accumulated 12 times more low-enriched uranium than permitted by the nuclear deal after beginning to gradually stockpile last year. Iran likely does not seek a nuclear weapon at this time but will use its nuclear progress as a bargaining chip during potential negotiations with the next US administration."

Nicolas Carl, Critical Threats

With the use of subterfuge, lies and masquerades, two Iranian men living in Canada have succeeded in buying and shipping off to Iran "Highly sophisticated" manufacturing and transportation equipment. They managed to ship nine electrical discharge boards, a CPU for a precision fabrication machine, two servo motors and two railroad crankshafts from the United States to Iran, according to authorities.

The two men conspired with another Iranian national; all are accused of international money laundering spanning 11 countries, over a period of two years. Arash Yousefi Jam 32, and Amin Yousefi Jam, 33 both of the Greater Toronto area, conspired with 44-year-old Abdollah Momeni Roustani, living in Iran to skirt international sanctions and to export critical goods to the Islamic Republic of Iran through a plot begun five years ago and which ran for two years, according to a court indictment.

Orders were placed by the two men for precision metal fabrication and railway transportation equip9ment to be accessed through U.S.-based companies, with arrangements made for the acquired items to be shipped to Iran through the United Arab Emirates "to hide the true location and nature of the end users, who were in Iraq", reads the indictment.

The two men were nothing if not persistent in their ongoing efforts to convince various manufacturers in the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, to sell them the items they wanted for the purpose of supplying Iran, skirting sanctions. When they contacted a U.S. company for pricing for nine electrical discharge boards they claimed they were meant for use by the UAE. Sending the price on to their Iran-located contact the response was "God bless you, you really get it at this price."

A request was made to a firm in Britain which asked for the serial number of the machine the parts were meant for. When the serial number was forwarded to the firm as requested, that ended the link, with the firm refusing to do business with the men. Returning to an order placed with the American firm they were alerted from their experience with the U.K. company that providing the real serial number to the British company would result in a refusal.

They enterprisingly found a version of the same machine for sale, and requested its serial number, then used that serial number as their own, providing it to the U.S. company. This roused the suspicion of the Spanish company from whom the U.S. company was sourcing the requested goods since they were familiar with that very serial number as belonging to a different order, so they refused to honour the order. But the U.S. company decided it would work with them and electrical discharge boards were shipped to the UAE, then trans-shipped to Iran.

Next on their list was a central processing unit ordered from the same U.S. company using the fake serial number to acquire the CPU, subsequently paid for and shipped to the UAE then onward to Iran. In the event, the CPU, on receipt, failed to operate as it should have. A Croatian company was next in their crosshairs for railroad crankshafts for which the company referred the two men to a U.S. supplier who in turn emailed the comment: "I hope that this is not for Iran".

An American company agreed to the sale finally, and arrangements made for a shipper to pick them up and ship them off to the UAE, then forward them on to Iran. Arash told the shipper, to "not mention anything about the crossstuffing, only that the shipment is being taken to Dubai, UAE", the indictment outlined the shipment arrived in Iran and payment wired through various countries including Turkey and Uganda.

Arash Yousefi Jam was put out of business when he was arrested on December 23 in the United States, while his brother Amin Youseff Jam now faces an extradition hearing from Canada. 

'Homeland Security Investigations uses export control statutes to ensure sensitive technologies developed in the United States do not fall into the hands of those that intend to harm Americans or our allies,' said Vance Callender, a special agent. Photo by Jason Redmond / AFP

"No terrorists were present on the ground ... Martyr [Mohsen] Fakhrizadeh was driving when a weapon, using an advanced camera, zoomed in on him."

"[The machine gun was mounted on a Nissan pickup and] focused only on martyr Fakhrizadeh’s face in a way that his wife, despite being only 25 centimeters [10 inches] away, was not shot."

"[It was being] controlled online [via a satellite and used an] advanced camera and artificial intelligence [to make the target]."

"[Fakhrizadeh’s head of security took four bullets] as he threw himself [on the scientist, and there were] no terrorists at the scene."

Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, deputy commander, Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran 

"The perpetrators of this assassination, some of whom have been identified and even arrested by the security services, will not escape justice."

"Were the Zionists [Israel] able to do this alone and without the cooperation of, for example, the American [intelligence] service or another service? They certainly could not do that."

"[There were various pieces of evidence] about those who planned and carried out the assassination that prove the Zionists [Israelis] were involved. But whether the Zionists did so on their own and without the co-operation of, for example, the American [intelligence] service or another service? For sure, they could not have done so on their own."

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Iranian Parliamentary adviser

Military personnel stand near the flag-draped coffin of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, during a funeral ceremony in Tehran, Iran, November 30, 2020. (Iranian Defense Ministry via AP)

 

Little wonder Iranians despair, yet muster the courage to gather in protest, despite the peril, knowing that some among them will not be returning home alive. They despair over their living conditions, the increasing level of poverty under sanctions imposed on their country because of Tehran's policies. They are irate that their theocratic rulers are more invested in delivering oil to Venezuela than to Iranians in need. They are furious at the funding of Hezbollah, the cost to the Iranian Republic of posting the al Quds division of the IRGC in Syria and Iraq, while Iranians are desperate for the necessities of life.

The goal of the current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei is to continue the legacy direction of his predecessor the Islamic revolutionary Ayatollah Khomeini, to dominate the world of Islam as Shi'a superiors over the majority Sunni Muslim sect interpreted as a threat by Iran's Arab Muslim neighbours in the Middle East. The vicious threat of the Islamic Republic's nuclear aspirations has created a sectarian bloc in a rivalry between Sunni and Shi'a where Saudi Arabia, the custodian of the two holiest sites in Islam, Mecca and Medina, is challenged by Persian Iran which feels entitled to that role.

Above all, Tehran appears incapable of comprehending that in visibly and audibly, publicly and constantly threatening the existence of the State of Israel, supporting and directing its proxy militias in Lebanon and Gaza ensures that Jerusalem and its ultra-competent intelligence agencies gain the experience and the willing cooperation of covert intelligence-gathering and accomplices in missions to control Tehran's ambitions and to contain them. Jews have long since been victims, they know now how, when and where to take action to contain those eager to eradicate them from the state of the living.

The scene where Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed in Absard, a small city just east of the capital Tehran, Iran, November 27, 2020. (The semi-official Fars News Agency via AP)

Long identified as the scientific nuclear specialist who was the lynchpin of the Iranian nuclear program, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, like others in his field of endeavour before him, was marked for extinction. In Iranian defence minister Amir Hatami's words, the scientist was one of his deputies, heading the ministry's Defense and Research and Innovation Organization whose focus was the field of "nuclear defense". He was as well a senior officer in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an integral part of the Iranian government, and a recognized terrorist organization.

Immediately following Fakhrizadeh's unfortunate death, the defense ministry stated that their man had been killed in a shootout that took place between his bodyguards and several gunmen who had ambushed the motorcade just outside Tehran on its journey from a posh suburb. There were witnesses who credibly informed state media that a truck had exploded before a group of men with guns opened fire on the car in which Fakhrizadeh was being driven, that it appeared he exited the car in the belief it had struck something. In their rendition of the event, the man was outside the car when he was hit by gunfire.

 

The major suspect in the smoothly executed assassination was, of course, Israeli operatives working under orders from Mossad. Witnesses claimed that they saw the gunmen make their escape. Iranian authorities at first repeated the story of the truck, the bomb, the gunmen emerging to exchange fire with the eleven men guarding the nuclear scientist. And then, re-thinking the situation, that they were very well aware that their chief nuclear scientist would be in Israeli crosshairs, and surrounding him with protective guards, their best laid plans went awry by a superior intelligence.

A realization which gave life to an alternate explanation, hauling in the exiled opposition group, the People's Mujahedeen of Iran (MEK) for the assassination. Revenge was vowed, ostensible members of the group arrested, and it can be fairly well assured that a trial such as is routine in asserting justice anywhere else in the world  will not be taking place. Iran, which vengefully practices a wholesale capital punishment program for issues of all kinds requiring the ultimate punishment, will simply extinguish a few more lives.

And the more palatable story for Tehran's stricken pride is that a satellite-controlled machine gun with 'artificial intelligence' had been utilized in the assassination. According to the deputy commander of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards, Rear-Admiral Fadavi, Fakhrizadeh was driving on a highway outside the capital of Iran with his 11-member Guard on November 27, when suddenly the machine gun 'zoomed in' on the nuclear scientist's face, firing 13 rounds. Scrupulously avoiding harming his wife, who sat  beside him.

How diabolical, a satellite-controlled machine gun paired with artificial intelligence and an advanced camera.  The death of Iran's top nuclear scientist achieved remotely with artificial intelligence and a machine gun equipped with a 'satellite-controlled smart system'. Those clever Israelis and their dastardly determination to outwit those who threaten and plot their extermination....

Iranian mourners attend burial ceremony of slain nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh at Imamzadeh Saleh Shrine in northern Tehran on 30 November (AFP/File photo)