Interrogating General Ali Reza Asghari
By Richard Miniter, PJM Washington Editor
Does Iran have a network of sleeper cells inside the United States that could strike us if we bomb their nuclear facilities?
This is the key question that should be put to Ali Reza Asghari, Iran’s former deputy defense minister, who is believed to be in the custody of a western intelligence service. Whether he defected, disappeared, was kidnapped, rendered or captured remains an open question. Whatever the case, Asghari would be “an intelligence bonanza,” according to the Daily Telegraph in London. Indeed, some say, he was a CIA mole for the four years, before he was forced to flee. He is reportedly being held at a NATO base in western Germany.
Asghari was involved in the creation of Hezbollah (Arabic for “Army of God”) in 1982 and was the main liaison between the Lebanon-based terror group and its paymasters in Tehran. He is also a retired general in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.
The consensus view among intelligence analysts, in and out of government, is Hezbollah maintains an extensive network inside the U.S. and Western Europe.
The sleepers in the U.S. may number as many as 800.
This has been the consensus view for some time. There are “hundreds” of Hezbollah members here, a U.S. official told USA Today on May 13, 2003. A senior FBI official told the paper that some 20 potential Hezbollah cells are being investigated.
Senator Bob Graham reiterated to the Miami Herald on Nov. 13, 2002: “recent warnings that Hezbollah, backed by Iran and Syria, had a more established presence in the United States than al Qaeda, and was just as dangerous.”
The then-chairman of Senate Intelligence committee, Graham also told the Miami Herald about his frustration with the FBI over Hezbollah: ”How many Hezbollah agents are there in, say, Tampa?” Graham said. “What were they trained to do in the camps in Syria? Has the group been penetrated so we know their intentions? How do they get money? But we can’t get responses to this.”
The FBI might have been stalling the senator because it simply didn’t know the answers to his questions. There is little reason to believe the situation has improved.
Sen. Graham told the Miami Herald that Hezbollah has substantially greater numbers in the United States than al Qaeda.
Hezbollah has killed more Americans since 1982 than any other terrorist group, except al Qaeda.
Most of those are not “operational terrorists,” one American intelligence official cautioned Pajamas Media.
Many are here for illicit fundraising. Some channel donations from mosques or peddle videos and books. Others run criminal enterprises for the terror group, everything from car-theft rings to high-end cons.
One cell was involved in cigarette smuggling, capturing the difference between the wholesale price and the high-tax price paid by consumers. Cigarette taxes range from $1 to $3 per pack. The North Carolina cigarette operation was apprehended by the FBI and prosecuted by the Justice department.
Three Yemeni-born men in Rochester, New York were charged with funneling some $15 million to Hezbollah between 2002 and 2004, according to a filing at the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York on Feb. 27, 2007. They were caught thanks to a sting operation by the FBI, conspiring to send $200,000 to Hezbollah. The three owned or operated delis, mini-marts and restaurants, from which they allegedly sold fake green cards and engaged in credit card fraud.
Other Hezbollah operatives are here to gather information on potential targets, searching for weak points in schools, malls and office towers.
Still others are foot soldiers who are loaned out Mexican drug cartels, where they serve as bodyguards and enforcers. The Mexicans call them “Turcos.”
This would not be the first time that an anti-American terror organization set up operations in the U.S.
Michael Ledeen, a consultant to President Reagan’s National Security Council, remembering reading intelligence reports that the Abu Nidal organization had cells in 12 American cities in the 1980s. One cell was broken up by the FBI, after a surveillance recording device picked up the harrowing murder of the daughter of a suspected Hezbollah leader. The killer? Her father. The teenage girl was seen talking to a boy who was not a blood relative.
While the FBI continues to monitor a number of suspected terrorists here at home, the bureau usually cannot intervene unless a federal crime has been committed.
“Going to Lebanon on vacation is not a crime,” notes one intelligence analyst.
In Europe, British and French intelligence services have strengthened security after receiving “reliable information” from Israel’s Mossad about Hezbollah’s plans Israeli interests in Europe, according to the Kuwaiti daily Al Seyassah. “Keep in mind that Hezbollah already successfully orchestrated a wave of terror attacks in France killing over a dozen and injuring 300,” writes Olivier Guitta, a native French speaker, on the respected Counter Terrorism Blog.
It could happen here.
Fundraising for foreign terrorist groups under the nose of the federal government is easier than one might expect. Take the case of Al Haramian Foundation of Ashland, Oregon, a Saudi-backed charity accused of funding Islamic militants in Chechnya.
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross spent almost a year working for the foundation and chronicled his experiences in “My Year Inside Radical Islam.” Later he became an FBI informant. “It was extremely easy to operate even though the literature was openly radical and anti-democratic. Any participation in secular democracy, even voting, was haram or forbidden.”
Could Hezbollah operate just as freely? “Yes,” he said.
While Hezbollah may have a presence here, the U.S. is developing on their home turf. President Bush has authorized the CIA, in a “non-lethal presidential funding,” to covertly finance anti-Hezbollah groups in Lebanon, the terror group’s home base, according to the Daily Telegraph.
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14 Comments
1. william jonas:The real question in this situation is Asghari genuine or a double agent?
Mar 29, 2007 - 7:36 am 2. Bob Farrell:It will take a long time to determine if his defection was authentic. Given our history with cold war defectors I suspect this guy will be tough to caregorize. Most likely he is a double agent. Checking the magnitude and timing of the defection it all seems too good to be true.
It probably is.
Current military preparations for an attack on Iran could very well be the result of now having a good handle on sleeper cells in the U.S. and Europe.
Iran’s abduction of British marines could also be an indication that the value of their sleeper cells is decreasing at an alarming rate.
Mar 29, 2007 - 7:50 am 3. Sue:And the answer is YES! Wow, how hard was that. Where are you people living, actually. What universe? Why reality? Of course, there are cells here and there is all other the world. Lets get real.
Mar 29, 2007 - 8:24 am 4. Alex:Just a minor correction:
Hizbollah is actually correctly translated “Party of God” (Hizb = “party” in Arabic), not “Army of God” as incorrectly stated above.
Mar 29, 2007 - 8:55 am 5. Bob Levin:I tend to think like a novelist–so, for instance, not only do I still think Sadaam had WMDs, I think it’s about the only thing he lived for. I just don’t think it’s feasible for an evil dictator to be obsessed with, say, orchids. (In Hollywood this would be considered a brilliant portrayal against character.) No, if you’re an evil dictator you get up in the morning thinking about how to accumulate power, how to eliminate your many enemies, and how to apply new technology to terrorize your populace. And you think about this all day while staring at your portraits in the public square and watching the news about how saintly you are.
Regarding Iran. Of course they have sleeper cells in the US. They are now and have been since 1979, unfortunately, a highly skilled terrorist organization. They have shown over and over that they can do pretty much whatever they want and suffer no consequences. They are expert strategists, and they are astute analysts of the psychology and traits of their enemies. They would be incompetent if they didn’t have US sleepers. They’re anything but incompetent.
It’s like asking whether Barry Bonds will be holding a baseball bat the next time he comes to plate during a regular season game.
Mar 29, 2007 - 8:59 am 6. MarkD:To elaborate on Sue’s reply, Yes, and so what? Iran has been attacking us and our interests for almost 30 years now. It’s been a 30 year war, but only one side has been fighting.
Mar 29, 2007 - 9:04 am 7. Rupert:The cigarette smuggling cell mentioned was chronicled in the book “Lightning Out of Lebanon” and the authors were interviewed on Fresh Air.
Mar 29, 2007 - 9:22 am 8. Sue:That is precisely the point: so what? Not until our heads are floating down the bloodied street like a Katrina flood will anyone pay attention or do anything about it. So, so what indeed! We have become a nation of profounds full of hatred for one another if you are left or blind if you are right. We get the politicians we voted for and we will get the future we are deciding on today.
Mar 29, 2007 - 10:04 am 9. Joseph Baker:I agree with Sue the cells are in the USA. I also believe the Persian community in the US is also very much aware of Iranian cells and is very much involved in exposing them to the federal authorites. At lest I hope so…
Mar 29, 2007 - 12:43 pm 10. Apex:The real question is, “Does the US have sleeper cells in any other country?”
And the answer is,,”We would never do anything like that!!”
Mar 29, 2007 - 1:05 pm 11. GCA:America continues to sleepwalk into a very scary future. Most of the public has not a clue that the world is changing very rapidly and very negatively. Anecdotally, my boat partner, a nice, reasonably intelligent guy, and I got into a discussion about American politics and Iraq last Saturday as we worked on the boat. It turns out that we both like Giuliani, but for different reasons. I see Giuliani as strong on defense and view his support of the Iraq war as a positive. My partner likes him, but thinks his support of the war is a negative, and sees it as costing him more votes in the general election than it will get him. My partner thinks that we should get out of Iraq right now, despite the fact that his son in law, who thinks more along my lines and with whom he has conversed, returned last November from a year patrolling the streets of Baghdad. My boat partner fails to see any adverse consequences to capitulation in Iraq. Indeed, he fails to see withdrawal as capitulation and thinks we can go merrily on our way to “concentrate our fight” on what he calls “the real enemy”, al-qaida, in Afghanistan. He fails to see that capitulation will have all kinds of negative consequences far beyond Iraq.
Sleeper cells? I would be surprised if they were not here. Hopefully our intelligence operatives have some kind of handle on them. Sadly, I am now convinced that we, as a nation, will continue our sleepwalk until there is another mass slaughter of some sort perpetrated by some radical islamic group. A nuked Las Vegas or San Francisco just might get our attention. Perhaps the activation of Iranian proxies (awakening Hezbollah sleeper cells?) will awaken our body politic from its somnambulence before some jihadi wretches are able to perpetrate the next big act of terrorism. Perhaps not.
Mar 29, 2007 - 8:10 pm 12. pirhana brother:Bring it on. I think you would see a whole kind of different reaction to this bs in the U.S. It’s why dudes here own guns.
Mar 29, 2007 - 8:11 pm 13. grant:Go ahead, push for Iran’s invasion. Just three little problems:
1) The sleeper cells, purposely ignored by the FBI even when spotted eating at Denny’s in Colorado (FBI arrived 2 HOURS LATER and didn’t even collect evidence) will probably melt a dozen major US cities the second we invade.
2) Russia is already prepping for war with the US/Nato over what it see as the West’s effort to cut off Russian oil pipelines via the Caucasus and Iran. The Russians feel like they’re trapped by their former satellites which are now allowing US access to their bases. Let’s not forget it’s the Russians investing in the Bushehr nuclear program.
3) China’s military will not appreciate America’s effort at undermining the $200 BILLION energy deal it has with Iran. If that goes up in smoke, guess what they’ll do? DUMP THE DOLLAR, and then we’ll see hyperinflation – on top of the nuclear annihilation of the US.
Good job, GOP and Dems! >:(
Mar 29, 2007 - 8:38 pm 14. Steven Reed:We’re screwed.
Israel already has the bomb and must be forced to develop a missile shield; Israel must defend herself. With the border open to terrorists, it’s just too late to act brash and invade w/o causing a holocaust in America.
To the People of Springfield I have enjoyed meeting so many of you and hearing about what is important to you and your hopes and dreams.
I hope you go vote Tuesday. We hope to get word any minute from saying that all the votes will count! Yes you can call the media and others and tell them we need more Democracy! Please print flyers and help spread the Word!
THANKS Steven Reed
click here to read more!
“The Department of Justice is taking a look”
The response:
11:26 AM 3/26/07
ASKDOJ (ASKDOJ@usdoj.gov)
To: steven reed (stevenlloydreed@hotmail.com)
Subject: RE:
Thank you for contacting the Department of Justice. This is an automatic acknowledgement that your e-mail was received. It will be reviewed in the order it was received.
The notice:
Please read the following motion that was filed at 2:00 p.m. on March 29, 2007 by clicking here.
People are asked to e-mail Secretary of State Robin Carnahan at elections@sos.mo.gov and tell her that write in candidates should be allowed this coming Tuesday and that she should inform the City of Springfield as such. Also please send a copy to the Department of Justice at askdoj@usdoj.gov
People are also asked to consider filing a friend of the court brief stating that write in candidates should be allowed and counted on election day next Tuesday, April 3, 2007.
This can be in the form of a letter and needs to be dropped off to the Federal Building in Springfield on Friday March 30 or Monday April 2.
Please address to:
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
WESTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI
SOUTHERNDIVISION
Case No. 05-3133-CV-S-SWH
Attention: United States Magistrate Judge SARAH W. HAYES with an additional attention to Jo Rita Gicinto the Court Room Deputy. For additional information on mailing it call 816-512-5789.
Thanks Steven Reed
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The Proof is coming in that the City of Springfield is the only City in Missouri not allowing Write in Candidates!
1. The Board of Election Commissioners for the City of St. Louis says that Write In Candidates areallowed in Mayor Elections when they are held. See the current sample ballot which shows in April3, 2007 General Municipal Election – Sample Ballot Write Ins are being allowed.
Click here for more…
2. FAYETTE Missouri is allowing Write In Candidates:
Click here for more…
3. Joplin is allowing Write In Candidates for Mayor
Published March 06, 2007 11:32 pm -
Jasper mayor fires fire chief, chief’s son
By Dustin Shipman dshipman@joplinglobe.com
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4. KANSAS CITY | Write-in candidates declare
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5. Branson allowing Mayor Write In Candidate
Click here for more…
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