Iranian plot foiled to assassinate ambassador to USA

jonsnow wrote: »

Why would they target a saudi ambassador instead of less secure capitals...

jonsnow wrote: »

...why would they use a drug cartel to carry it out instead of their own well trained agents

jonsnow wrote: »

...what would Iran gain from such a brazen action...

Leaked US State Department cables also make clear that the Saudi king, Abdullah, has repeatedly urged the US to "cut off the head of the snake" and attack Iran.

Against that backdrop, the assassination of the Saudi ambassador in Washington, with mass American casualties and perhaps an attack on the Israeli embassy too, would have ensured that the region went up in flames.

If the attack succeeded, it would set in train events dramatic enough to turn the rigid, dusty hierarchy of the clerical republic on its head, giving Ahmadinejad the chance to seize the advantage.

Or the plotters could be fanatics inside the military establishment, bent on bringing the Revolutionary Guard to the top of the regime pyramid, beginning an open race to develop a nuclear weapon and confronting Israel directly.

"If this is a bunch of crazies, then anything is possible," Baer said.

jonsnow wrote: »

The Iranians are very careful...

Chuck Stone wrote: »

What would Iran stand to gain from this plot?

The alleged plot also included plans to pay the cartel, Los Zetas, to bomb the Israeli Embassy in Washington and the Saudi and Israeli Embassies in Argentina, according to a law enforcement official.

The 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.

Saudi Arabia and Iran are locked in a bitter regional rivalry, one that has intensified as they have jockeyed for influence since the political upheavals of the Arab Spring. The Saudi Embassy in Washington denounced the plot against the ambassador, Adel al-Jubeir, as “a despicable violation of international norms, standards and conventions.”

Mr. Holder’s assertion and the F.B.I.’s account of official Iranian involvement in the plot, reportedly code-named “Chevrolet,” provoked puzzlement from specialists on Iran, who said it seemed unlikely that the government would back a brazen murder and bombing plan on American soil.

Investigators, too, were initially skeptical about ties to Iran, officials said. They said, though, that the F.B.I. monitored calls to Iran about the plot and found money had been wired from a Quds Force bank account. In addition, the Iranian-American accused in the scheme, Mansour J. Arbabsiar, correctly identified a known Quds Force officer from a photo array, and his cousin — who he said recruited him for the plot — is another Quds official.

It remained unclear, though, whether the plot was conceived by a rogue element or had approval from top officials of the Revolutionary Guards or the Iranian government.

“It’s so outside their normal track of activity,” said a senior law enforcement official who had been involved in the investigation and would speak only on the condition of anonymity. “It’s a rogue plan or they’re using very different tactics. We just don’t know.”

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed her incredulity in an interview with The Associated Press.

“The idea that they would attempt to go to a Mexican drug cartel to solicit murder-for-hire to kill the Saudi ambassador, nobody could make that up, right?” she asked, also saying that the plot “crosses a line that Iran needs to be held to account for.”

The case began in May, when a Drug Enforcement Administration informant with ties to high-level leaders of Los Zetas told agents of a bizarre conversation. He had been approached, he said, by an Iranian friend of his aunt’s in Corpus Christi — Mr. Arbabsiar — with a proposition to hire the cartel to carry out terrorist attacks inside the United States. Mr. Arbabsiar believed that the informant was an actual member of Los Zetas.

Over the next two months, Mr. Arbabsiar and the informant worked out a deal under which Mr. Arbabsiar would pay $1.5 million to Los Zetas to kill the Saudi ambassador at a restaurant in Washington, officials said.

The complaint quotes Mr. Arbabsiar as making conflicting statements about the possibility of bystander deaths; at one point he is said to say that killing the ambassador alone would be preferable, but on another occasion he said it would be “no big deal” if many others at the restaurant — possibly including United States senators — died in any bombing.

There was never any risk, officials said, because the informant was working for the drug agency, and their meetings in Mexico and telephone conversations, were being recorded by law enforcement authorities.

In early August, on a visit to Iran, Mr. Arbabsiar wired nearly $100,000 to the informant’s bank account as a down payment, according to court documents. In late September, he flew to Mexico City from Iran, intending to serve as human “collateral” to ensure that Los Zetas would be paid the rest of their money after killing the ambassador.

But the government of Mexico, at the request of the United States, denied entry to Mr. Arbabsiar and put him on a commercial flight with a stopover in New York, where he was arrested.

On Tuesday, the Justice Department released a letter to the court saying Mr. Arbabsiar had repeatedly waived his right to be quickly brought before a judge and to have a lawyer present during questioning. The letter said he had confessed to his role in the plot and had provided “extremely valuable intelligence.”

Experts on Iran expressed astonishment at both the apparently clumsy tradecraft and the uncertain goal of the intended mayhem on United States soil.

Rasool Nafisi, an Iranian-American scholar who studies the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, said he thought it unlikely that the plot was approved at a high level by Iranian officials. “It’s not typical of the Quds Force or the I.R.G.C. to operate in the U.S., for fear of retaliation,” Mr. Nafisi said. Iran’s last lethal operation on American soil, he said, was in 1980, when a critic of the Islamic government was murdered at his Bethesda, Md., home.

Mr. Nafisi said it was conceivable that elements of the Revolutionary Guards might have concocted the plot without top-level approval, perhaps to prevent reconciliation between Iran and the United States.

But Iran’s Islamic government has a long history of attempts to eliminate enemies living overseas, said Roya Hakakian, author of “Assassins of the Turquoise Palace,” a book on the murder of four Iranians in a Berlin restaurant in 1992. A German court found that the murders were approved at the highest levels of the Iranian government.

The gunman in the Berlin killings was also accused of plotting to kill the Saudi ambassador to Sweden, Ms. Hakakian said.

4leto wrote: »

They wont go to war with Iran, it would be a daunting task. But Israel maybe forced to if they continue with their nuclear plans.

I laugh at further sanctions been imposed, they could cripple the country economically if the world wished. All we would have to do is not take their oil.

Now that is not going to happen.

Brain Stroking wrote: »

Nothing to see here America. Go back to watching American Gladiators