Iran’s claim to
arresting 12 CIA agents in its territory is linked to
clandestine efforts by Tehran to disperse missiles around the country, a senior
Iran analyst in the US told
The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.
Professor
Raymond Tanter, adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy, and founder of the Washingtonbased Iran Policy Committee, said the
Iranians were moving and testing missiles “that would form the first response”
to an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear sites.
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western spies in Iran involves the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC),”
Tanter said, adding that this organization “operates all of Iran’s Scud missiles
and provides the military leadership for Iranian missile
production.
“Events in Iran concern surreptitious testing and movement of
missiles at an IRGC facility during mid- November to harden and hide them from
surprise attack,” he added.
Referring to a mysterious and
powerful blast
that rocked a missile base on the outskirts of Tehran earlier this month,
killing Gen. Hassan Moghaddam, the architect of Iran’s missile program,
and at least 16 other Iranian officials, Tanter said, “The accident in Iran is
consistent with statements by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak that Tehran
seeks to create a ‘zone of immunity,’ which spreads missile sites around the
country. The goals are to increase the costs of an Israeli first strike, lower
the likelihood of success, and decrease the time window of opportunity for
Israel to attack Iran.”
Earlier on Thursday, Iran’s IRNA official media
outlet said the supposed agents were planning to attack Iranian targets. The
report quoted a senior Iranian security official as saying that the alleged
spies were planning to carry out espionage attacks to “damage Iran both from
inside and outside with a heavy blow, using regional intelligence
services.
“Fortunately, with swift reaction by the Iranian intelligence
department, the actions failed to bear fruit,” said the official, named as
Parviz Sorouri, a member of Iran’s foreign policy and national security
committee. Sourouri also said the alleged agents were working with “the Zionist
regime.”
Tanter said that “there is a humongous need for human
intelligence from inside Iran,” adding, “The best source to complement Western
intelligence on the IRGC is the main Iranian opposition organization, the
Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MeK), which is under siege in Iraq but still maintains an
effective intelligence network in the Iranian national security
establishment.”
On Tuesday, unnamed US officials were quoted by Reuters
as saying that Hezbollah too “succeeded in identifying and arresting informants
within its ranks who were working for the CIA,” and described the development as
an apparent “serious setback for US intelligence.”
“Some former US
officials said that the CIA informants, believed to be local recruits rather
than US citizens, were uncovered, at least in part, due to sloppy procedures –
known in the espionage world as ’tradecraft’ – used by the agency,” Reuters
said.
