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FLASH 14: PREPARATIONS FOR ANOTHER WAR: IRAN? (1/14/02)
Provocative stories about Iran have been much in the news this past week, with respect to both Afghanistan and Palestine. On Thursday, January 10, President Bush warned Iran against trying to destabilize the new government in Afghanistan or harboring any fleeing Al Qaeda terrorists. The warning carried a hint of possible military retaliation, when he cautioned Iran that the U.S.-led coalition against international terrorism "will deal with them diplomatically, initially," if Afghanistan is destabilized.
Bush's warning followed a week of stories in which Iran was identified as the source of 50 tons of arms seized by the Israelis in the Red Sea, and allegedly bound to a PLO faction controlled by Arafat. After this seizure, Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon for the first time defined Iran as a worse threat to Israel than the Palestinians.
Israeli sources have stepped up the charges against Iran in both respects. On January 12 the Israeli source debka.com claimed that "Osama bin Laden, his family, Ayman Zuheiri and thousands of al Qaeda fighters made good their escape from Afghanistan through the illicit sea route created by Lebanese-Iranian super terrorist Imad Mughniyeh for smuggling operations in the service of terrorist organizations. They are believed to have made their getaway from Afghanistan in the first week of December, crossing secretly into Iran and heading out through the Persian Gulf - only to disappear again."
( ABC NEWS reported on 1/15/02 that the CIA has also concluded Osama bin Laden has most likely fled the region by sea.)
The same debka.com story linked Mughniyeh and his ships to both bin Laden's escape and the arms shipment on the Karine-A seized by the Israelis:
"DEBKAfile's intelligence sources believe that the ferry which carried the Iranian arms freight from Bandar Abbas to the Iranian island of Kish, for loading aboard the Karine-A, also brought bin Laden and his men to the vessel that took them to their onward destinations: a Persian Gulf port, one of the Yemeni or Saudi Red Sea ports, the Horn of Africa or East Africa. Mughniyeh's arms-smuggling fleet is believed to consist of six to eight cargo vessels. One was the Karine-A captured by the Israeli navy ten days ago with its contraband arms freight. The containers aboard the other ships are thought to have carried al Qaida and Egyptian Jihad Islami fugitives. These discoveries make it clear that Iran was up to its neck in the al Qaeda escape conspiracy. Imad Mughniyeh, top terrorist operations chief for Iran’s radical spiritual leader, Ali Khamenei, organized the logistics; the escapees were led overland through Iran to its main Gulf outlet, under the protection of Iranian intelligence officers. Bin Laden and co. sailed from an Iranian port to their new hideouts aboard vessels of the same smuggling fleet that delivered Iranian arms to the Palestinian Authority."
There seems no question that Washington has been listening to Israeli sources recently about Iran. Newsday on January 11 reported that "After being briefed by Israeli intelligence, the Bush administration has concluded there is evidence the Palestinian Authority and a PLO faction controlled by Arafat were involved in the arms-smuggling scheme, a senior U.S. official said."
But what is this evidence? William Safire, who makes no secret of his Israeli sources, has summarized it as follows(Baltimore Sun, 1/14/02):
"The arms were marked in the Iranian language, Farsi, loaded aboard just off Iran's shoreline, packed in watertight containers to be transferred to small boats and floated ashore in Gaza. The ship, the Karine-A, was purchased by the Palestinian Authority's chief arms buyer for $400,000 14 months ago, just after Mr. Arafat rejected President Bill Clinton's Camp David offer and launched his terror campaign.
The Karine-A's captain, Omar Akawi, a loyal officer in Mr. Arafat's naval smuggling operation, promptly confessed the damning details of the purchase and transport of the weaponry, giving the lie to the terrorists' initial denials."
It is clearly impossible to reconcile Debka.com's story, that Karine-A was owned by Mughaniyah, with that of Safire (and many others) that it was owned by an official of the Palestinian Authority. Mughaniyah has been identified by Yossef Bodansky (who also relies on Israeli sources) as the organizer of Iranian support for Hamas, dedicated to the overthrow of Arafat and the destruction of his peace process with Israel.
In its issue of January 14, the London Guardian demonstrates that the Safire story, at least, is false:
"The Israeli charge that points most directly towards Mr Arafat is that the ship is owned by the Palestinian Authority. Israeli officials have made this claim repeatedly, from the very first day, but have produced no evidence to support it. The ship's registration documents show that it is owned by an Iraqi based in Yemen. On August 31 last year, a Lebanese shipping company sold the ship - known at the time as Rim K - for $400,000 (£275,000) to a man who gave his name as Ali Mohamad Abass. The bill of sale states that he is an Iraqi national, passport number N173170."
(If the ship was sold last August, Safire was wrong to have pointed to an alleged purchase of the ship fourteen months ago.)
The Guardian also points out many anomalies in the Karine-A affair: "The most puzzling question in the whole affair is what Iran hoped to achieve by supplying weapons to the Palestinian Authority (or elements within the Authority) - if that is what it really did. Anyone deciding to supply weapons from the Gulf would have to take into account not only the effects of a successful delivery but also the very high probability of being caught. The area is constantly monitored, partly because of Iraqi oil smuggling but latterly also in the hunt for fugitive supporters of Osama bin Laden."
Among the possibilities they list is that "hardline elements inside the Iranian regime" might have "aimed at stopping rapprochement with the west and at embarrassing President Mohammed Khatami and the reformers."
If this were the explanation, it could have consequences for Afghanistan as well. The irony is that hardliners in Iran, Israeli, and the United States, all share a common goal with bin Laden: to prevent peaaceful arrangements between Muslims and non-Muslims from working.
However nothing reported as yet from Afghanistan would indicate that so far Iran has done more than give support to the cause of its ally in Herat, Ismail Khan, and to assure that it will play a role, along with Afghanistan's other neighbors, in determining that country's future. In my story of 1/4/02 for Pacific News Service I expressed concern that Ismail Khan had said no international troops would be allowed into his territory. But since that time he has provided protection with his own troops for humanitarian aid entering his region.
On Monday, January 14, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and Afghan Prime Minister Hamid Karzai spoke by telephone, after which both stressed the good relations existing between them. According to the Tehran Times of 1/15/02,
"Khatami emphasized Tehran's support for the interim government in Afghanistan, calling it "a friend and brother", and said it was important for the international community to assist in the Afghan reconstruction "without interfering in its internal affairs....In a related report, the Afghan leader said that despite U.S. concerns about Iranian attempts to hinder the war on terrorism, the Islamic Republic was not sheltering members of the terrorist Al-Qaeda organization and was in fact apprehending them. In an interview with the U.S.-based Fox News network, Karzai said that Iran would not let supporters of Osama bin Laden take refuge on its soil."
Of course the Afghan border with Iran is as impossible to seal off as the border with Pakistan. Likewise it is unlikely that Khatami can control what Ayatollah Khamenei has in mind. Nevertheless, one would hope that President Bush and the CIA would wish to reinforce peace initiatives between Khatami and Karzai, not undermine them with uncertain and perhaps dubious intelligence.
It remains to be seen whether President Bush's warning to Iran will be followed by a further deterioration of U.S.-Iran relations. One thing to watch for will be hawkish propaganda.
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