UK paper: Missing Iranian general at NATO base, spied on Iran for years
posted at 1:26 pm on March 11, 2007 by Allahpundit
If not for Captain Ed, I might have missed this entirely. Which would have been tragic, because it. is. sweet.
AN Iranian general who defected to the West last month had been spying on Iran since 2003 when he was recruited on an overseas business trip, according to Iranian sources.
This weekend Brigadier General Ali Reza Asgari, 63, the former deputy defence minister, is understood to be undergoing debriefing at a Nato base in Germany after he escaped from Iran, followed by his family.
A daring getaway via Damascus was organised by western intelligence agencies after it became clear that his cover was about to be blown. Iran’s notorious secret service, the Vavak, is believed to have suspected that he was a high-level mole…
Asgari is said to have carried with him documents disclosing Iran’s links to terrorists in the Middle East. It is not thought that he had details of the country’s nuclear programme.
An Israeli newspaper, Yedioth Aharonot, claimed this weekend that Mossad, Israel’s external security service, had orchestrated his defection.
Ed thinks this might especially help with code-breaking. There’s something I don’t get, though: if this guy’s been on our side for years and if his main value as an intel asset is his encyclopedic knowledge of Hezbollah’s operations, why didn’t Israel have an easier time in Lebanon this summer? Granted, rarely will a single informant determine the outcome of a war, but I saw a quote from one Israeli analyst the other day referring to Asgari as the de facto “founder” of Hezbollah. Hard to believe the IDF armed with that kind of information advantage couldn’t have broken the organization.
Update: Iranian expat Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi is following Turkish media on this and tells Gateway Pundit Asgari might have info on the Hezbollah bombing in Argentina in 1994. That could be hugely embarrassing given whom Argentina has issued an arrest warrant for — Akbar Hasehmi Rafsanjani, the former president and likely future supreme leader of Iran.
Blowback
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Allah, Thanks for working on the weekends. Keeps some of us sunday shift working tech geeks from going nuts.
Here’s hoping for more good news.
One Angry Christian on March 11, 2007 at 1:35 PM
This guy is like fly poop, he is everywhere.
Wade on March 11, 2007 at 1:48 PM
Allah,
It could be that they had the information, but acting on it may have tipped their hand to early.
Like during WWII, when we had broken the Japanese codes, we very rarely acted directly on that information. To do so might have tipped the Japanese off and we would have lost a valuable intel source.
Just a thought,
V5
V5 on March 11, 2007 at 1:52 PM
This is actually a disappointment than sweet to me…I think it means loss of a strategic advantage more than anything. Let’s hope he give us a nice surge of information here at the end though.
starflyer on March 11, 2007 at 2:24 PM
Dam… they need to produce this guy…
He is, literaly, the smoking gun.
Romeo13 on March 11, 2007 at 2:26 PM
Ditto what OAC said. Thanks AP.
V5 is probably right in that we wanted to squeeze as much intel as we could before he got exposed. Who knows, it’s possible that some footwork on his part in re the Israel/Hezbollah war was what got him pinched. Stuck his head too far out.
spmat on March 11, 2007 at 2:26 PM
Headlines tomorrow….. “We don’t have him……”
Cue the music for “Midnight Express” ……….
PinkyBigglesworth on March 11, 2007 at 2:29 PM
Two words: Ehud Olmert.
Two more words: Dan Halutz.
Misha I on March 11, 2007 at 2:37 PM
Olmert’s incompetence. Read Caroline Glick’s articles for the Jerusalem Post, really interesting stuff.
aengus on March 11, 2007 at 3:37 PM
MMMMmoooollllleeee…
MOLE-Y MOLE-Y MOLE-Y MOLE-Y MOLE-Y MOLE-Y MOLE-Y MOLE-Y !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mazztek on March 11, 2007 at 4:08 PM
Allahpundit asks: “if this guy’s been on our side for years and if his main value as an intel asset is his encyclopedic knowledge of Hezbollah’s operations.”
Ans: For the same reason that Churchill allowed the bombing of Coventry after having broken Enigma messages; to prevent the enemy from knowing that the west had a high-level mole deep inside of Iran’s government.
georgej on March 11, 2007 at 4:32 PM
Intelligence is difficult… you need to use it without appearing to have it. Technical means are expensive to replace (Clinton revealing that Osama’s phone was tapped) and humint leads to dead bodies.
You need to manipulate your opponent into thinking that you have other reasons for what you’re doing or use your channels to feed disinformation. If you have humint, you make it look like it’s technical means and get the enemy to go to elaborate, useless security measures that wastes tons of money. If you have technical means, you make it look like you have a mole so that the enemy hangs people left and right and over-compartmentalises their organizations.
This summer wasn’t an important enough conflict to use a high-level source. Sure it was important, but you don’t burn a source like that unless it’s a truly existential conflict or threat (burning him to destroy the nuke program would be worth it, not a minor police action).
This story is excellent because it will really mess with the Iranians heads. They now have to go on a mole hunt in their most senior people and also have to rethink how their power struggles work – it seems that his forced retirement lead him to cross over. This is an excellent strategic victory regardless of the truth of the story and regardless of the information he brings over.
libertarianuberalles on March 11, 2007 at 5:00 PM
Shrug maybe the release of intel would have tipped the enemy to the fact that a mole was present.
Theworldisnotenough on March 11, 2007 at 6:09 PM
This would be absolutely beautiful. Not only does it give the US bargaining power, but it gives the world a true glimpse at Iran.
It must be good news because the leftists have been awfully quiet about this.
darwin on March 11, 2007 at 6:21 PM
I’m inclined to think this is who all the rumors were about and like all rumors, they get jumbled and people embellish.
- The Cat
MirCat on March 11, 2007 at 6:23 PM
because Moshe Dayan wasn’t driving one of the tanks.
There is as much misinformation being fed out as actual information. We will never get this whole story, not even when Mike Wallace comes out of retirement and puts this poor innocent kidnap victim on 60 minutes.
Limerick on March 11, 2007 at 8:39 PM
And trying to conduct a war with one eye on international opinion–you know, the way the “greatest president of the last 25 years” would conduct a war–if he had the stones.
smellthecoffee on March 11, 2007 at 10:09 PM