Mossad's Dirty Secrets in Iran

By MEL FRYKBERG

JERUSALEM -- As the Israeli government continues to express concern about U.S. President Barack Obama's desire to hold dialogue with Tehran a British media report has accused Israel of sponsoring subversive political groups and sabotage in Iran as well as assassinating a number of Iranian scientists.

According to The Telegraph Western intelligence sources have stated that Tel Aviv is using front companies and double agents to disrupt Iran's illicit weapons project as an alternative to direct military strikes.

This comes in the wake of Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak warning senior military figures that Iran's continued nuclear program development could pose and "existential threat to the Jewish state."

Barak made the allegations during a meeting with top Israeli military commanders on Monday as he prepared them psychologically for what could be Israel taking unilateral action against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government.

Barak explained that not only did the threat come from the regime in Tehran itself but also from the groups that are supported by Iran such as the Lebanese resistance organization Hezbollah and the Palestinian movement Hamas, which controls Gaza.

"It will be very difficult to stop the trickling of nuclear capabilities, even if primitive, to terrorist organizations," he said.

The defense minister also warned that once the Obama administration began to negotiate with Iran any military strike would become that much more difficult as he said Tehran would engage in steps and gestures aimed at obfuscating the issue of its nuclear program.

Meanwhile The Telegraph's report came against the background of Israeli officials privately acknowledging that the new U.S. administration was unlikely to approve any air attack on Iran.

According to a report in The New York Times several months ago, the George W. Bush administration, too, prevented an Israeli Air Force (AIF) strike on Tehran's alleged nuclear installation in Natanz.

American journalist James Risen reported recently that the CIA and Mossad had co-planned a number of sabotage operations against the Iranian program, including damaging power lines to nuclear sites in order to cause harm to computer systems and equipment.

Israel's plan is to delay Iran's development of nuclear weapons for as long as possible. Ultimately Tel Aviv acknowledges that this strategy will not prevent the Islamic republic's nuclear arsenal from becoming a reality, only delay it.

"Disruption is designed to slow progress on the program, done in such a way that they don't realize what's happening. You are never going to stop it," a former CIA officer on Iran was quoted as saying.

"The goal is delay, delay, delay until you can come up with some other solution or approach," he added.

"We certainly don't want the current Iranian government to have those weapons. It's a good policy, short of taking them out militarily, which probably carries unacceptable risks."

And another strategy the Israelis and American intelligence agencies have been involved with is the assassination of key figures involved in Iran's nuclear program.

Aardeshire Hassanpour, a top nuclear scientist at Iran's Isfahan uranium plant died in mysterious circumstances in 2007. It was reported that "gas poisoning" had lead to his demise.

But there have been a number of other individuals involved in the procurement and enrichment process in both Iran and Europe who have met premature ends at what is believed to be Israeli hit squads or agents working for the Israelis.

"With cooperation from the United States, Israeli covert operations have focused both on eliminating key human assets involved in the nuclear program and in sabotaging the Iranian nuclear supply chain," said Reva Bhalla, a senior analyst with Stratfor, the U.S. private intelligence company with strong government security connections.

"As U.S.-Israeli relations are bound to come under strain over the Obama administration's outreach to Iran, and as the political atmosphere grows in complexity, an intensification of Israeli covert activity against Iran is likely to result," she added.

This would not be the first time Israeli agents were involved in assassinating scientists involved in developing the nuclear arsenal of countries Tel Aviv did not want to see acquire them.

Gerald Bull, a Canadian scientist, was the world's greatest expert on barrel ballistics. Israel had made several unsuccessful attempts to buy his expertise, but Bull had made clear his disdain for the Jewish state.

He instead offered his services to Saddam Hussein to build a supergun capable of launching shells containing nuclear, chemical or biological warheads from Iraq directly into Israel.

In 1989 Saddam ordered three of the weapons to be built at a cost of $20 million while Bull was retained as a consultant. The project was codenamed Babylon.

Former Mossad head Nahum Admoni consulted with Israeli premier Yitzhak Shamir and both men agreed Bull had to die.

On Mar. 22, 1990, three men drove a hired car to Bull's apartment in Brussels. As the 61-year-old Bull opened the door, he received five bullets in his head and neck according to the book "Gideon's Spies" by Gordon Thomas.