U.S. thwarts alleged Iranian government plot to assassinate Saudi envoy, bomb embassies
WASHINGTON— From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
Published Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2011 2:20PM EDT
Last updated Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2011 8:08AM EDT
The Obama administration accused elements of Tehran’s Islamic regime of backing a terrorist plot to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Washington. The accusation signals a major escalation in already-hostile U.S.-Iranian relations.
After a summer-long investigation involving repeated clandestine meetings in Texas and Mexico with Tehran’s operatives, U.S. agents foiled the “murder for hire” with an arrest late last month, officials said.
On Tuesday, Washington publicly labelled Tehran as the backer and paymaster of a planned terrorist attack on U.S. soil. According to senior Obama administration officials, Iranian agents recruited Mexican drug-cartel gangsters to bomb a Washington restaurant while the ambassador dined, unaware that their hired guns were already working for U.S. authorities.
“This conspiracy was conceived, sponsored and directed from Iran and constitutes a flagrant violation of U.S. and international law,” U.S. Attorney-General Eric Holder said. “The United States is committed to holding Iran accountable for its actions,”
Mr. Holder said Manssor Arbabsiar, an Iranian-born U.S. citizen, was in custody in New York after being tailed by U.S. agents on a flight from Mexico. Within hours of his court appearance, local media flooded the street of his home in a well-manicured suburb of Austin, Tex. A neighbour said Mr. Arbabsiar moved in with a woman and they were raising three boys, all of whom have graduated from high school.
His alleged co-conspirator, Gholam Shakuri, described as an operative of Iran’s special forces, remains at large and is believed to be in Iran.
The United States “will be taking further action” Mr. Holder vowed, saying the combination assassination and bombing plot “was directed and approved by elements of the Iranian government, and specifically, senior members of the Quds Force, which is a part of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Iranian military.”
Mr. Arbabsiar was covertly taped by U.S. agents, who asked if his Tehran masters worried whether mass casualties would result from the bombing. “They want that guy done – if a hundred go with him, fuck ’em,” Mr. Arbabsiar replied, according to the criminal complaint released Tuesday. The plotters also mused about follow-on bombings of the Saudi Arabian and Israeli embassies in various capitals and discussed how much plastic explosives would be needed.
Short of war, Washington has few options to further tighten screws on Tehran. Washington has already slapped Iran with tough sanctions – mostly connected to its ambitious, outlawed and not fully disclosed nuclear-enrichment effort, which the United States regards as a clandestine effort to build nuclear warheads. The two nations broke diplomatic relations decades ago.
Iran is locked in a fierce struggle for supremacy with Saudi Arabia. Their rivalry casts complicating shadows on the entire Middle East peace effort.
“Long story short: Iran often conducts rogue operations and promotes those who participate,” said Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the right-wing American Enterprise Institute. He predicted no “smoking gun” pointing to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei or its unpredictable, hard-line President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Late Tuesday, three high-ranking officers in Iran’s Quds Force were designated for sanctions by the U.S. Treasury Department. Also named were the two indicated conspirators.
The Quds Force, including elite military units, have long been linked to covert overseas operations as well as controlling valuable chunks of Iran’s economy and reporting to the ruling mullahs.
Iran has long been labelled a terrorist-sponsoring nation by successive American governments, but Mr. Holder dodged when asked whether the Obama administration was directly accusing high-ranking Iranian political or religious officials of backing the plot. “We are not making that charge at this point,” he said.
The State Department late Tuesday warned Americans around the world of the potential for terrorist attacks against U.S. interests. It said Iranian-sponsored attacks could include strikes in the United States.
Tehran dismissed the accusations, calling them a “fabrication” and suggesting beleaguered President Barack Obama was trying to divert attention from an economic malaise with “a new propaganda campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Iran's parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, called the Justice Department's claims a “childish game.”
“These are cheap claims. By giving it a wide media coverage, it was evident that they are trying to cover up their own problems,” Mr. Larijani told an open session of the parliament Wednesday.
But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton insisted the far-fetched plot was real. “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 said.
The actual plot didn’t apparently progress beyond planning. Throughout, those “hired” by the Iranian agents were already on U.S. drug-enforcement payrolls and only posed as assassins and bomb makers. No explosives were purchased, but $100,000 – billed as a down payment on the full $1.5-million agreed for the attack – was transferred.
With a report from Associated Press
