BANGKOK - Since the mid-February bomb
blasts which struck Bangkok and New Delhi, and a
failed attack in the Georgian capital Tbilisi,
confusion over events on the ground has been
compounded by a predictable war of words between
Iran, widely viewed as behind the attacks, and its
arch-enemy Israel, the apparent target.
Amid the din of accusation and denial,
amplified by camp-followers of both parties,
puzzled independent observers have managed to
concur on only two aspects of the still
unexplained events.
First, the incidents
in India and Georgia on February 13, and in
Thailand the following day, were almost certainly
linked in a
coordinated plot intended to
assassinate Israeli diplomats using "sticky bombs"
attached to vehicles by magnets. The fact that the
same method was used successfully against Iranian
nuclear scientists assassinated in Iran in attacks
believed carried by Israeli agents clearly implied
an operation intended to be seen as tit-for-tat
retaliation.
Second, the operations in all
three cities were marked by a startling lack of
professionalism. In Bangkok, incompetence veered
into a bloody comedy of errors that in any work of
spy fiction would have been dismissed as
ludicrous. Now celebrated highlights include a
premature explosion in a rented house; panicked
flight by the apparent bomb makers; bungled bomb
attacks on a taxi and a police car that cost one
Iranian both of his own legs; and arrests of two
accomplices at Bangkok’s international
Suvannabhumi airport and in Malaysia.
The
Valentine's Day fiasco was followed by the
discovery of stickers bearing the Koranic term
"SEJEAL" plastered along a 1.5 kilometer stretch
of road in central Bangkok as well as in a house
rented by one of the apparent Iranian bomb making
team. Another was discovered on a motorcycle
believed to be intended for use in one or more
attacks. While Thai police initially speculated
the stickers marked out a getaway route, security
analysts who spoke to Asia Times Online are
skeptical they had any operational relevance,
suggesting instead some religiously auspicious
significance.
While less farcical, the
operations in Georgia and India were also marked
by remarkable mistakes. In Tbilisi, the would-be
assassin attached an explosive device - later
found and disarmed - not to a diplomatic vehicle
but to the car of the Israeli ambassador's
Georgian driver. The choice appeared to indicate
either a failure of reconnaissance or a
last-minute need to settle for a secondary,
related target rather than a primary one.
In New Delhi, an Israeli diplomat's wife
was actually wounded by a magnetic bomb and the
would-be assassin was able to escape. However, he
reportedly attached the device to the rear of the
vehicle near a tail light rather to its side,
significantly lessening the chance of killing his
target.
With the Iranian government now
seen as the most likely suspect behind the
bombings - and in many quarters already declared
guilty - it is worth fitting these events into the
context of what is known about Iranian external
intelligence operations. Viewed through this lens,
the recent incidents are puzzling in several
regards.
Iran is certainly no stranger to
foreign assassinations. Indeed, since shortly
after the Islamic revolution of 1979, Tehran has
been deeply implicated in directing and conducting
both assassinations and larger mass-casualty
terrorist attacks in Europe, the Middle East and
Latin America. Its primary targets have been
Iranian dissidents based in Europe perceived as
threats to the revolutionary regime.
Both
in terms of intelligence gathering and "direct
action", external operations are the
responsibility of two organizations understood to
work either independently or, occasionally, in
conjunction. The primary body is the Ministry of
Intelligence and National Security (Vezarat e
Etela'at va Amnita e Keshvar, or VEVAK); the
other, the elite Qods Force of the Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the branch of
the armed forces that answers directly to Iran's
senior most clerical leadership.
Established in 1984, VEVAK is responsible
for both internal and external security matters.
According to Israeli sources, notably
investigative journalist Ronen Bergman, the
ministry's external operations are undertaken by
its Department 15 which fields operatives working
under diplomatic cover in Iranian embassies
abroad. But VEVAK has also been known to use other
state organizations to provide cover, including
Iran Air, Iranian Shipping Lines and the Islamic
Republic News Agency (IRNA).
By contrast,
the Qods force fulfills an essentially military
and para-military mission and has been responsible
for providing instruction and support to
pro-Iranian guerilla and terrorist groups in
countries such as Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey,
Afghanistan, the Palestinian territories and
Sudan. Such training is conducted both in
facilities inside Iran and abroad: Qods Force
personnel have had a long and well-documented
presence in Lebanon as well as in Iraq during the
US occupation.
Official
assassinations European police and
judicial investigations dating from the 1980s and
1990s - the heyday of the Islamic Republic's
overseas assassination campaign - indicate that
Tehran's direct action operations abroad have
often been undertaken by Iranian nationals usually
working for VEVAK out of embassies or other
organizations providing cover, including private
businesses
During the wave of nearly 200
assassinations of dissident exiles, Iranian
"diplomats" were expelled from several countries
including Germany, Norway and Turkey. In 1997,
Iranian Intelligence and Security Minister Ali
Fallahian was himself the subject of an arrest
warrant issued by German prosecutors after
protracted investigations into the gunning down of
three Iranian Kurdish exiles in Berlin in
September 1992. Those arrested and found guilty of
the killings were VEVAK operatives whose orders
were traced back to Fallahian's desk.
Iran's extensive network of Middle Eastern
allies has also permitted the use of proxies for
deniable "direct action". Some such operations
involved mass-casualty attacks such as the bombing
of the Jewish Center in Buenos Aires in July 1994
which killed 85, wounded several hundred and which
was formally linked by Argentinean prosecutors to
Latin American-based elements of Lebanese
Hezbollah directed from Tehran.
Others
have been individual assassinations such as the
March 1992 killing of Ehud Sadan, a Israeli
security officer at Israel's embassy in Ankara,
Turkey, who died when a bomb detonated under his
car. The assassination came days after the Israeli
killing of Sheikh Abbas Moussavi, secretary
general of Lebanese Hezbollah and was later traced
to Iranian-trained Farhan Osman, an operative of
Turkish Hezbollah, a notably lethal branch of
Iran's external network. Osman was arrested by
Turkish authorities in 2000 and admitted at his
trial to carrying out attacks on orders from
Tehran.
Against this backdrop, it is
puzzling that a state with decades of experience
in conducting overseas operations and with access
to an extensive network of proxy operatives would
find itself abruptly reduced to deploying a team
of its own nationals with little evident training
or field support given to adorning Bangkok's busy
streets with bumper stickers in advance of an
attack.
Another puzzling aspect of the
Iranian state responsibility alleged by Israel
centers on the decision to conduct a coordinated
operation more or less simultaneously in three
foreign countries. Details of both Iranian and
Israeli assassination operations which have
emerged in recent years indicate clearly that
achieving a successful outcome in a single
operation is complex enough and requires careful
planning, reconnaissance and execution by skilled
operatives with plans for unforeseen
contingencies. Not least would be the need for
back-up travel documents and possibly an
alternative safe-house.
Even then success
is anything but guaranteed. The bungled attempt by
operatives of Israel's external intelligence
agency, the Mossad, to kill Khaled Mashal, a
senior figure in Palestinian Hamas, in Amman,
Jordan in September 1997 illustrates the risks of
even meticulously planned operations. After
administering a poisoned spray to their intended
victim, the two Israeli assassins - posing as
Canadian tourists - abandoned a get-away car in
traffic and were pursued and arrested.
Humiliatingly, Israel was obliged to provide
Jordanian authorities with an antidote to the
poison that saved Mashal's life.
By the
same token, a near-simultaneous assassination
operation by a single intelligence service against
three hard targets in three different countries is
almost certainly unprecedented in recent decades.
Even assuming a political need for multiple
strikes, such a scatter-gun approach is bound to
stretch resources in terms of planning and
execution and sharply raises the chances of
failure (as in Tbilisi) and disastrous blow-back
(as in Bangkok).
In short, if the Iranian
government was indeed responsible for the recent
attacks, it would have been almost setting itself
up for a fall in two countries (India and
Thailand) with which it shares valuable diplomatic
and trade relations and at a time when it has a
vital interest in not providing Israel with a
pretext for war.
There is arguably only
one explanation that might bridge the yawning
disconnect between events as they unfolded and
Tehran's known capabilities and operational
record, and its wider strategic interests. That is
that the Islamic Republic's senior most leadership
perceived an overriding political need to display
resolve in retaliating swiftly for the killing of
its nuclear scientists - and ordered action in
willful disregard of the operational risks
involved.
Explosive motivations Beyond Iran, however, other possible
perpetrators of the attacks have been suggested.
The favorite of Internet conspiracy-theorists and
Iranian officials is - predictably enough - Israel
itself.
According to this interpretation
of events, Israel organized a "false flag"
operation using Iranian nationals to further
isolate Iran and increase international support
for an attack against Tehran should a decision be
made in favor of a military option to check its
nuclear program.
While colorful, this
theory does not stand up to rational analysis. It
implies that Israel, a state which goes to
extraordinary lengths to protect and defend its
citizens, would be willing to target its own
diplomats in the pursuit of its wider campaign
against Iran.
A second theory centers on
the possibility of elements within Iran's security
and intelligence establishment acting without
sanction - and thus without access to trained
personnel and operational support - in outsourcing
an operation to non-official or semi-official
contractors. In a February 15 commentary for CNN,
Thailand-based security consultant Paul Quaglia,
himself a former intelligence official, posited
"outsourcing" as a possible explanation for the
amateur nature of the events in Bangkok.
The possibility of impatient "hawks"
circumventing reluctance at higher levels of the
state to retaliate for the assassinations of
Iranian scientists cannot be simply dismissed.
Iran's intelligence establishment is far from
monolithic and almost certainly factionalized.
Indeed, in a celebrated case in the late 1990s, a
rogue group in VEVAK was held responsible by
Iranian prosecutors for the murders inside Iran of
three dissident writers, a political leader and
his wife.
Nevertheless, the sheer level of
organization and number of personnel required for
simultaneous attacks in three foreign countries
are hardly consistent with a rogue operation.
Furthermore, such an operation would carry a high
risk of being traced back to those responsible
with potentially severe consequences.
A
third alternative that merits close attention
centers on the Iranian domestic opposition,
grouped loosely around the People's Mujahideen
Organization of Iran or Mujahideen e Khalq (MeK).
An Islamic-socialist group founded in 1965 in
opposition to the then US-backed shah regime, MeK
began an urban guerrilla campaign in the early
1970s and later took part in the Islamic
revolution of 1979.
Subsequently, however,
MeK broke violently with Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini's clerical regime and for years operated
out of Saddam Hussein's Iraq as an Iraqi-backed
conventional military force on the border as well
as an underground terrorist network within Iran.
MeK has been declared a Foreign Terrorist
Organization by the US government.
Following the 2003 US-led invasion of
Iraq, MeK's military units were disbanded by the
Americans but the organization has continued to
operate clandestinely inside Iran while conducting
a public relations campaign from Europe. Its
network in Iran is generally believed to have
provided the US and Israel with intelligence -
notably on Iran's nuclear program - as well as
with assets for the covert destabilization of the
Islamic regime.
At various levels, there
are grounds which might support the theory of an
independent MeK operation in Bangkok, New Delhi
and Tbilisi.
Strategically, the
organization has ample motive. The successful
assassination of Israeli diplomats would at the
least serve to further isolate the Iranian
government at a critical juncture. At most, it
might provide the impetus to push Israel into an
attack on Iran that would destabilize or even
topple the regime - a result MeK has no chance of
achieving itself.
The attempted
assassination of Israel's ambassador to London,
Argov Shlomo, by Palestinian terrorists on June 3,
1982, provides solid historical precedent for such
a calculation. The attack, which critically
wounded Shlomo (without killing him), provided a
convenient justification for the Israeli invasion
of Lebanon three days later and the routing of
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) forces
based there.
Operationally, the hand of
MeK or allied opposition elements also provides an
explanation for the otherwise puzzling blunders
displayed in mid-February. It can be safely
assumed that a small number of Iranian opposition
elements has been recruited, trained and deployed
by Israeli and/or US intelligence services in the
covert war against Iran's nuclear program.
However, MeK remains a larger - and largely
uncharted - group without access to specialized
training.
It is also worth noting that for
an opposition group to commit poorly-trained and
supported personnel openly using Iranian travel
documents would pose no real risk of blow-back: In
the event of failure or fiasco, the simple fact
that the operatives were Iranian would serve well
enough to implicate the Tehran regime in the eyes
of an already skeptical world.
The extent
to which the truth behind recent events emerges
will depend importantly on investigations
currently conducted by the Thai police, who
already hold two members of the Iranian team and
may soon have access to a third detained in
Malaysia.
The willingness of the Islamic
Republic to provide proactive assistance in the
investigation will also serve as an important
reflection of its interest in rebutting Israel's
accusations. Two suspected members of the
Bangkok-based bomb-making team, Leila Rohani and
Ali Akbar Norouzi, are both back in Iran with
their photos and return flight details already
made public by the Thai police.
It remains
to be seen, however, how aggressively the Thai
authorities - perennially reluctant to be dragged
into the maelstrom of Middle Eastern conflict -
will choose to pursue the investigations or
request assistance from Tehran. In the final
analysis, Thailand has little to gain and possibly
much to lose from establishing publicly and with
certainty either the innocence or guilt of the
Iranian government.
Indeed, the best
pointer to the affair's likely outcome is the fate
of Atris Hussein, the Lebanese-Swedish businessman
with suspected links to Iran-allied Lebanese
Hezbollah, whose January arrest was followed by
the seizure of four tons of explosives he and his
associates had amassed in a warehouse on the edge
of Bangkok. Hussein is to be charged with
possession of restricted substances and may serve
a few years in a Thai jail in a case that will
soon be quietly forgotten.
Anthony
Davis is a Bangkok-based security analyst for
IHS-Jane's.
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