Israel on war alert: Jewish state fears Iran ally will attack

Israel on war alert

Jewish state fears Iran ally will attack

By Aaron Klein

JERUSALEM – Israel is on heightened alert for possible attacks by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah organization in Lebanon, according to a senior Israeli defense official speaking to WND.

The official said the Jewish state is concerned Hezbollah might try to spark a conflict to deflect attention from an international tribunal investigating the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who died in a car bomb explosion in 2005.

The probe is reportedly set to indict members of Hezbollah for the murder. The indictments may come as soon as the next few weeks, reports have claimed.

Hezbollah is deeply concerned about the political fallout within Lebanon if its members are accused of murdering Hariri, the defense official said.

As such, Hezbollah may try to carry out attacks against Israel similar to those that prompted the 2006 Lebanon War. During that conflict, Hezbollah fired constant rocket barrages into Israel, killing 43 Israelis and wounding more than 4,200.

Hezbollah and Syria have attempted to discredit the U.N. probe. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has delivered television addresses claiming Israel was behind Hariri's killing and that spies working for Israel planted "false evidence" blaming Hezbollah.

Earlier this week, Syria issued arrest warrants against 33 people for allegedly misleading the U.N. investigation. The targets include figures close to Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri – Rafiq Hariri's son – including his media adviser, senior security officers and journalists working in Hariri-owned media outlets.

In a Computer Worm, a Possible Biblical Clue

In a Computer Worm, a Possible Biblical Clue

By JOHN MARKOFF and DAVID E. SANGER



Deep inside the computer worm that some specialists suspect is aimed at slowing Iran’s race for a nuclear weapon lies what could be a fleeting reference to the Book of Esther, the Old Testament tale in which the Jews pre-empt a Persian plot to destroy them.

That use of the word “Myrtus” — which can be read as an allusion to Esther — to name a file inside the code is one of several murky clues that have emerged as computer experts try to trace the origin and purpose of the rogue Stuxnet program, which seeks out a specific kind of command module for industrial equipment.

Not surprisingly, the Israelis are not saying whether Stuxnet has any connection to the secretive cyberwar unit it has built inside Israel’s intelligence service. Nor is the Obama administration, which while talking about cyberdefenses has also rapidly ramped up a broad covert program, inherited from the Bush administration, to undermine Iran’s nuclear program. In interviews in several countries, experts in both cyberwar and nuclear enrichment technology say the Stuxnet mystery may never be solved.

There are many competing explanations for myrtus, which could simply signify myrtle, a plant important to many cultures in the region. But some security experts see the reference as a signature allusion to Esther, a clear warning in a mounting technological and psychological battle as Israel and its allies try to breach Tehran’s most heavily guarded project. Others doubt the Israelis were involved and say the word could have been inserted as deliberate misinformation, to implicate Israel.

“The Iranians are already paranoid about the fact that some of their scientists have defected and several of their secret nuclear sites have been revealed,” one former intelligence official who still works on Iran issues said recently. “Whatever the origin and purpose of Stuxnet, it ramps up the psychological pressure.”

So a calling card in the code could be part of a mind game, or sloppiness or whimsy from the coders.

The malicious code has appeared in many countries, notably China, India, Indonesia and Iran. But there are tantalizing hints that Iran’s nuclear program was the primary target. Officials in both the United States and Israel have made no secret of the fact that undermining the computer systems that control Iran’s huge enrichment plant at Natanz is a high priority. (The Iranians know it, too: They have never let international inspectors into the control room of the plant, the inspectors report, presumably to keep secret what kind of equipment they are using.)

The fact that Stuxnet appears designed to attack a certain type of Siemens industrial control computer, used widely to manage oil pipelines, electrical power grids and many kinds of nuclear plants, may be telling. Just last year officials in Dubai seized a large shipment of those controllers — known as the Simatic S-7 — after Western intelligence agencies warned that the shipment was bound for Iran and would likely be used in its nuclear program.

“What we were told by many sources,” said Olli Heinonen, who retired last month as the head of inspections at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, “was that the Iranian nuclear program was acquiring this kind of equipment.”

Also, starting in the summer of 2009, the Iranians began having tremendous difficulty running their centrifuges, the tall, silvery machines that spin at supersonic speed to enrich uranium — and which can explode spectacularly if they become unstable. In New York last week, Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, shrugged off suggestions that the country was having trouble keeping its enrichment plants going.

Yet something — perhaps the worm or some other form of sabotage, bad parts or a dearth of skilled technicians — is indeed slowing Iran’s advance.

The reports on Iran show a fairly steady drop in the number of centrifuges used to enrich uranium at the main Natanz plant. After reaching a peak of 4,920 machines in May 2009, the numbers declined to 3,772 centrifuges this past August, the most recent reporting period. That is a decline of 23 percent. (At the same time, production of low-enriched uranium has remained fairly constant, indicating the Iranians have learned how to make better use of fewer working machines.)

Computer experts say the first versions of the worm appeared as early as 2009 and that the sophisticated version contained an internal time stamp from January of this year.

These events add up to a mass of suspicions, not proof. Moreover, the difficulty experts have had in figuring out the origin of Stuxnet points to both the appeal and the danger of computer attacks in a new age of cyberwar.

For intelligence agencies they are an almost irresistible weapon, free of fingerprints. Israel has poured huge resources into Unit 8200, its secretive cyberwar operation, and the United States has built its capacity inside the National Security Agency and inside the military, which just opened a Cyber Command.

But the near impossibility of figuring out where they came from makes deterrence a huge problem — and explains why many have warned against the use of cyberweapons. No country, President Obama was warned even before he took office, is more vulnerable to cyberattack than the United States.

For now, it is hard to determine if the worm has infected centrifuge controllers at Natanz. While the S-7 industrial controller is used widely in Iran, and many other countries, even Siemens says it does not know where it is being used. Alexander Machowetz, a spokesman in Germany for Siemens, said the company did no business with Iran’s nuclear program. “It could be that there is equipment,” he said in a telephone interview. “But we never delivered it to Natanz.”

But Siemens industrial controllers are unregulated commodities that are sold and resold all over the world — the controllers intercepted in Dubai traveled through China, according to officials familiar with the seizure.

Ralph Langner, a German computer security consultant who was the first independent expert to assert that the malware had been “weaponized” and designed to attack the Iranian centrifuge array, argues that the Stuxnet worm could have been brought into the Iranian nuclear complex by Russian contractors.

“It would be an absolute no-brainer to leave an infected USB stick near one of these guys,” he said, “and there would be more than a 50 percent chance of having him pick it up and infect his computer.”
There are many reasons to suspect Israel’s involvement in Stuxnet. Intelligence is the single largest section of its military and the unit devoted to signal, electronic and computer network intelligence, known as Unit 8200, is the largest group within intelligence.

Yossi Melman, who covers intelligence for the newspaper Haaretz and is at work on a book about Israeli intelligence over the past decade, said in a telephone interview that he suspected that Israel was involved.

He noted that Meir Dagan, head of Mossad, had his term extended last year partly because he was said to be involved in important projects. He added that in the past year Israeli estimates of when Iran will have a nuclear weapon had been extended to 2014.

“They seem to know something, that they have more time than originally thought,” he said.

Then there is the allusion to myrtus — which may be telling, or may be a red herring.

Several of the teams of computer security researchers who have been dissecting the software found a text string that suggests that the attackers named their project Myrtus. The guava fruit is part of the Myrtus family, and one of the code modules is identified as Guava.

It was Mr. Langner who first noted that Myrtus is an allusion to the Hebrew word for Esther. The Book of Esther tells the story of a Persian plot against the Jews, who attacked their enemies pre-emptively.

“If you read the Bible you can make a guess,” said Mr. Langner, in a telephone interview from Germany on Wednesday.

Carol Newsom, an Old Testament scholar at Emory University, confirmed the linguistic connection between the plant family and the Old Testament figure, noting that Queen Esther’s original name in Hebrew was Hadassah, which is similar to the Hebrew word for myrtle. Perhaps, she said, “someone was making a learned cross-linguistic wordplay.”

But other Israeli experts said they doubted Israel’s involvement. Shai Blitzblau, the technical director and head of the computer warfare laboratory at Maglan, an Israeli company specializing in information security, said he was “convinced that Israel had nothing to do with Stuxnet.”

“We did a complete simulation of it and we sliced the code to its deepest level,” he said. “We have studied its protocols and functionality. Our two main suspects for this are high-level industrial espionage against Siemens and a kind of academic experiment.”

Mr. Blitzblau noted that the worm hit India, Indonesia and Russia before it hit Iran, though the worm has been found disproportionately in Iranian computers. He also noted that the Stuxnet worm has no code that reports back the results of the infection it creates. Presumably, a good intelligence agency would like to trace its work.


Ethan Bronner contributed reporting from Israel, and William J. Broad from New York.

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The Mullahs’ Murder of Americans

The Mullahs’ Murder of Americans

 by Jamie Glazov

 

Michael Ledeen sheds light on how Iran kills our troops – and why nothing is said or done about it....


Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Michael A. Ledeen, a noted political analyst and a Freedom Scholar at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. He is the author of The Iranian Time Bomb, Machiavelli on Modern Leadership and Tocqueville on American Character, and he is a contributor to The Wall Street Journal. His latest book is Accomplice to Evil: Iran and the War Against the West.

FP: Michael A. Ledeen, welcome back to Frontpage Interview.

I would like to talk to you today about how Iran is killing our troops and why nobody is really doing anything about it.

Share with us what is going on.


Ledeen: They have been killing Americans for 30 years. That’s what the chants of “Death to America!” are all about. From the Hezbollah suicide attacks on the US Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut in the early 1980s, to the use of Iranian-made roadside bombs and mines in Iraq and Afghanistan by terrorists trained in Iran, to armed assaults against American troops by members of the Quds force, Iran is at war with us.
 
Every so often a military leader calls attention to this fact, but no publication, and no political leader, makes it a central theme of our national debate. Why? Because if you accept the fact that the Iranian regime is killing Americans almost every day, you are compelled to do something about it. And hardly anyone is willing to do anything effective. The only evil action by the mullahs that interests the West is the nuclear program, even though they have demonstrated very clearly that they don’t need nukes to murder and maim thousands of Americans.

FP: Why did Iran declare war on us? Why is it waging war on us? Is there anything we can do to get them to stop?

Ledeen: Declaring war on us is at the heart of the Iranian Revolution; war on the modern world was Khomeini’s dream. That’s why he called us The Great Satan. I don’t think we can talk them out of their core values. As Jonathan Swift said, you can’t reason a man out of something he didn’t reason himself into in the first place.


FP: Can you expand for us a bit on the process by which Iran kills our troops today? You mention Iranian-made roadside bombs and mines in Iraq and Afghanistan and armed assaults against American troops by members of the Quds force. Tell us some more what’s happening here.


Ledeen: Thousands of Americans have been killed and wounded.  Those who plant the mines and bombs–the IEDs and the EFPs–are often trained by Iranians in Iran.  And many of the suicide bombers are also trained by Iranians.

FP: Let us suppose someone like Newt Gingrich becomes President in 2012 and gets the courage to make this a central theme of our national debate. He calls you and says, “Michael, what can and should my administration do about this?” What do you tell him?


Ledeen: Support the Iranian opposition. Talk to them, ask them what they need, and then get it to them.


FP: What are the prospects, do you think, of Iranians overthrowing the tyranny that oppresses them? In other words, can a revolution against the Mullahs succeed in the near future?


Ledeen: Yes it can succeed. The overwhelming majority of Iranians want it to succeed, and it would have succeeded long since, IMHO, if the opposition had had some outside help. But no Western country has helped.


FP: Your thoughts on Obama?


Ledeen: I think of him like a typical Ivy League undergraduate, gulled by political correctness, who doesn’t understand American greatness, and instead blames us for most of the world’s problems and injustices.  He wants to cut America down to size.


FP: Looking back at your career and experiences, what are some of the key lessons you have learned that you think are crucial for an American administration to absorb and act upon?


Ledeen: There’s a lot to learn, and I’ve only learned a small part of it.  But the main thing is what Machiavelli says to leaders:  you will be judged on whether you win or lose, and everybody hates a loser.  Unfortunately we have a generation of Western leaders who prefer to be nice losers.  The other big thing is that the world looks to America for guidance; there is no escape from our role as a superpower…like it or not.

FP: Your perspective on Russia’s role vis-à-vis Iran?


Ledeen: Hah! My favorite mystery. There is no doubt that the Russians played a significant role in the creation of the Islamic Republic’s terror apparatus and intelligence services. That said, we (or at least I) don’t know nearly enough. I can’t believe that the Russians want the mullahs to have nuclear weapons; they know that the ayatollahs are constantly stirring up jihad in the Balkans. So, for example, when I hear about this computer “worm” I wonder if it’s the Russians…I think the Russians work very hard to get control over at least part of the Islamic Republic, but the Iranians do not trust them, and so there’s a kind of “balance of paranoia.” It’s a great subject. Ask Pacepa about it.


FP: Your thoughts on the Left’s behavior in our terror war in general?


Ledeen: What can I say?  Too many of them want us to lose.


FP: Are you optimistic or pessimistic about our civilization’s will and capacity to defend itself from radical Islam?

Ledeen: I’m an optimist by nature, as my father was. I cannot imagine losing to a group that is locked in the 12th century. We are more adaptive, and stronger by orders of magnitude. They will lose every major battle, and eventually they will lose standing with the umma. When Iran finally comes down, the whole world will change for the better, and we will have a much easier time of it. It’s maddening to see that our leaders don’t seem to see the war whole, and don’t agree that regime change in Tehran is the best single stroke in the war against the terror masters. As it has been from day one. Somebody said that.

FP: Michael A. Ledeen, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.


Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine's editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in Russian, U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He is the author of Canadian Policy Toward Khrushchev’s Soviet Union and is the co-editor (with David Horowitz) of The Hate America Left. He edited and wrote the introduction to David Horowitz’s Left Illusions. His new book is United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror. Email him at jamieglazov11@gmail.com

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Psycho in Town

Psycho in Town

by Rich Trzupek



Ahmadinejad enlightens the UN about his longing for the return of the 12th Imam — and his solidarity with 9/11 Truthers.



The United Nations played host to the latest version of the president of Iran’s road show yesterday. This was a subtly different Ahmadinejad than we’ve seen addressing world leaders in New York heretofore. His trademark mixture of insufferable smugness and blustering defiance was on display to be sure, but this speech was more about the former than the latter and that’s something of a change. It appears that there’s no need to spew much vitriol at the president of the United States any longer, for the leader of the Great Satan has rendered himself all but impotent without much Muslim assistance. Why would Ahmadinejad waste his breath denouncing or threatening the paper tiger currently occupying the White House?
 
Instead, Ahmadinejad used the global stage that the UN provided in order to show the world that nobody understands the problems confronting humanity better than he does. Religious scholar, champion of the poor, master of geo-politics, economic guru – these are but some of the many facets that define the President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and if you have any doubt about that, just ask him.

Ahmadinejad, if not quite declaring Islam victorious, seems more confident of the final outcome than ever. He said that the era of capitalism is coming to an end, after “one hundred years of domination.” Selling Adam Smith short by a couple of centuries, Ahmadinejad would – in typical fashion – later contradict his confused understanding of world history by asserting that the Western powers were responsible for ravaging the rest of the world through colonialism and slavery. The fact that colonialism and slavery were features of Western societies before the “one hundred years of domination” seemed to be entirely lost on him.

The solution to the world’s problems, he declared, was to turn to God, a sentiment that tens of millions of Americans would agree with in the broadest of terms. But of course when Ahmadinejad speaks of God, he’s really referring to the only acceptable version of the Deity that Islam tolerates. He parroted the Qur’an’s assertion that the people who refuse to accept the God of Muhammad deny the most obvious of truths because of selfishness and greed. Every prophet was confronted by similar unbelievers, were they not? Moses had Pharaoh and Jesus had the Pharisees. What’s the analogous group when it comes to Muhammad? Well, that would be us: we stubborn, egotistical Westerners who can’t bring ourselves to understand that God appointed a succession of prophets and that it is our duty to keep up with the program.

He asked the UN to proclaim 2011 the year of nuclear disarmament, and even helpfully provided a slogan: “Nuclear energy for all, nuclear weapons for none.” The first half of that couplet has a certain attraction, especially in the third world countries desperate for cheap power. But, it makes no sense in a nation like Iran, where the billions that Ahmadinejad has invested in his nuclear program could have provided so much cheap power if it were used to turn its vast oil supplies into domestic electricity and gas. The Iranian president is as comfortable with the Big Lie as any Democrat and he repeated it once again: his nation has no interest in building nuclear weapons. The sanctions that the UN has imposed as a result of his nuclear ambitions clearly chafed however, no matter how ineffective those measures have been. Ahmadinejad chided the UN for maintaining its five nation security council and mused about how much more effective the body would be if only Iran had veto power too.

Though he tried very hard to appear statesmanlike, Ahmadinejad couldn’t help but lapse into being Ahmadinejad, which is to say that the crazy bubbled over at times. Talking about the 9-11 attacks for example, he declared that there was little evidence that Islamic terrorists were involved. Instead, he revealed his version of the true nature of the attacks:

[S]ome segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining American economy and its grips on the Middle East in order to save the Zionist regime. The majority of the American people as well as other nations and politicians agree with this view.

The supposition that the American economy was in decline in 2001, or that toppling the Twin Towers, attacking the Pentagon and crashing an airliner into a field in Pennsylvania was the formula to fix our supposed fiscal ills is certainly a unique view of history. How those attacks strengthened our position among our tenuous allies in the Arab world, or how 9/11 “saved” Israel are two equally mysterious concepts. The events of September 11, 2001 emboldened Islamic fanatics rather than cow them. And the only people who benefited economically from the attacks were those Muslims “in the know” who sold short on United and American stocks. The rest of us dealt with a recession.

The “plight” of the Palestinian people is never far from the Iranian president’s aggrieved heart, and he once again cried crocodile tears over their fate before the UN. Ahmadinejad doesn’t care about Palestinian refugees any more than he cares about the tens of millions of his countrymen wallowing in poverty in Iran while the mullahs live like royalty. Palestinian refugees are however useful pawns that can be played as he pursues his ultimate goal of destroying Israel. He said that Palestinians are being “deprived of food, water and medicine in their own homeland,” although he did not complain that Hamas or Hezbollah lacks for AK-47s, mortars or RPGs. Ahmadinejad rather stuck to the script, even if he didn’t call for the outright destruction of Israel this time. Instead, he said that Palestinians should be awarded jurisdiction over their “homeland,” which sounds a little nicer than “nuke Israel,” even if it achieves the same result.

Ahmadinejad’s true feelings and motivations were revealed on the cover page which accompanied the official transcript of his remarks. This quote appears on it: “Oh, God; hasten the arrival of Imam Al-Mahdi and grant him good health and victory and make us his followers and those who attest to his rightfulness.” Shia’ Muslims believe that Al-Mahdi is the legendary “twelfth Imam” who has been in hiding for over a millennium, but who will reappear to lead the righteous to victory over evil when the world is in chaos. Appealing to Al-Mahdi is therefore to wish for chaos – a world in flames which only the ultimate holy-warrior can rescue. Ahmadinejad is a fanatic who longs for that kind of righteous victory, but his contradictory, disturbing and delusional remarks before the UN have revealed once again that he yearns for the chaos that must proceed Islam’s ultimate triumph.


**Write to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at http://www.president.ir/en/ **

Ahmadinejad: Israeli PM Netanyahu a 'skilled killer'

Ahmadinejad: Israeli PM Netanyahu a 'skilled killer'

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the Israeli prime minister is a professional assassin, who should be tried for his crimes against the people of Palestine.


"[Benjamin] Netanyahu should be tried in court for blockading Gaza and massacring innocent Palestinian women and children," Ahmadinejad said in an interview with CNN's Larry King on Wednesday.

"Netanyahu is a professional assassin. All dictators in history accuse others to turn the spotlight away from themselves," the Iranian president said when asked about the Israeli prime minister's worries about Iran.

"It is questionable [why] American media feel responsible for this person (Netanyahu)," Ahmadinejad said, adding that "you (American media) are afraid of Netanyahu's warmongering."

The Iranian president said the US and Israel's nuclear weapons are the main threat to the world, and they are mistaken to think they can divert attention from this issue by using propaganda campaigns and spreading lies about others.

"Iran is firmly after the nuclear disarmament of the US and Israel."

Ahmadinejad added that Israel is an "illegitimate regime" and an "occupier" and that the US easily starts wars and massacres people, "they are not qualified to have nuclear weapons and should be disarmed as soon as possible."

When asked about the fate of a former FBI agent who allegedly disappeared on Kish Island, the Iranian president said a "joint Iranian-American intelligence committee is to investigate the matter."

Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent, disappeared on March 9, 2007 on Kish Island where he was doing investigative work for a private security firm.

US officials have dismissed suggestions that Levinson was on assignment for a US government agency.

Iranian authorities have announced that Tehran has no information on the matter but they stand ready to work with the FBI if asked by Washington.

Former Mossad head calls for Western air forces to strike at Teheran’s nuclear facilities.

Yatom: Only attack will stop Iran

By YAAKOV KATZ

Former Mossad head calls for Western air forces to strike at Teheran’s nuclear facilities.

Western countries need to form a coalition of air forces now and attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, former Mossad director Danny Yatom said on Sunday.


Only military force can stop Iran, the former Labor MK said, speaking at an International Institute for Counter-Terrorism conference at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya.

“Since the sanctions are not enough, I am hopeful that the world will come to its senses and reach the conclusion that to stop the Iranian nuclear arms race, we will have to attack some of their nuclear facilities,” Yatom said, in rare comments by a former top Israeli security official regarding the use of force against the Islamic Republic.


While some of Iran’s nuclear facilities are scattered throughout the country and are in fortified bunkers deep underground, if the world “mobilizes its capabilities” it would be possible to cause enough damage to delay the program.

“If the modern air forces led by the United States mobilize their capabilities it is possible, if not to completely remove the threat, at least to delay it for years to come,” Yatom said.

While refraining from discussing specific Israeli capabilities, he said that if the world failed to meet the challenge, Israel would “retain the right to self-defense.”

“Figure out for yourselves what that means,” he told the audience.

Yatom said that Israel could not live with a nuclear Iran.

“I don’t want to be in a situation that I will be sitting in Israel and my fate will be in the hands of others, especially when we are talking about a lunatic regime,” he said. “I don’t want to be the subject of an Iranian experiment.”

Yatom’s predecessor as Mossad chief, Shabtai Shavit, weighed in on the recent socalled “Galant Document” scandal that rocked the IDF and said that Col. Erez Weiner, Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi’s top aide, could not be promoted due to his involvement in the affair.

Weiner gave a copy of the document to a former IDF officer, who then leaked it to Channel 2.

“We need to immediately clear the IDF of extraneous considerations,” Shavit said.

He also warned against appointing one of the majorgenerals who lost the bid to replace Ashkenazi as the next head of the Mossad.

“For the defense minister, this is another ploy to build coalitions and garner support for his policies by appointing people who will be in his debt,” Shavit said.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak met on Sunday with a group of senior IDF officers who are candidates for new positions, as incoming chief of General Staff Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant leaves the reins at the Southern Command in the coming weeks.

Barak held meetings with the head of the IDF Operations Directorate Maj.-Gen. Tal Russo and OC Northern Command Maj.-Gen. Gadi Eizenkot.

Russo is rumored to be a candidate to replace Galant as OC Southern Command, and Eizenkot has asked to remain as OC Northern Command or be appointed deputy chief of General Staff under Galant.

Hezbollah builds a Western base

Hezbollah builds a Western base

From inside South America’s Tri-border area, Iran-linked militia targets U.S.

 

 

By Pablo Gato and Robert Windrem

Telemundo and MSNBC.com

 

 

CIUDAD DEL ESTE, Paraguay — The Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia has taken root in South America, fostering a well-financed force of Islamist radicals boiling with hatred for the United States and ready to die to prove it, according to militia members, U.S. officials and police agencies across the continent.

From its Western base in a remote region divided by the borders of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina known as the Tri-border, or the Triple Frontier, Hezbollah has mined the frustrations of many Muslims among about 25,000 Arab residents whose families immigrated mainly from Lebanon in two waves, after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and after the 1985 Lebanese civil war.

An investigation by Telemundo and NBC News has uncovered details of an extensive smuggling network run by Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim group founded in Lebanon in 1982 that the United States has labeled an international terrorist organization. The operation funnels large sums of money to militia leaders in the Middle East and finances training camps, propaganda operations and bomb attacks in South America, according to U.S. and South American officials.

U.S. officials fear that poorly patrolled borders and rampant corruption in the Tri-border region could make it easy for Hezbollah terrorists to infiltrate the southern U.S. border. From the largely lawless region, it is easy for potential terrorists, without detection, to book passage to the United States through Brazil and then Mexico simply by posing as tourists.

They are men like Mustafa Khalil Meri, a young Arab Muslim whom Telemundo interviewed in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay’s second-largest city and the center of the Tri-border region. There is nothing particularly distinctive about him, but beneath the everyday T-shirt he wears beats the heart of a devoted Hezbollah militiaman.

“If he attacks Iran, in two minutes Bush is dead,” Meri said. “We are Muslims. I am Hezbollah. We are Muslims, and we will defend our countries at any time they are attacked.”


Straight shot to the U.S.


U.S. and South American officials warn that Meri’s is more than a rhetorical threat.

It is surprisingly easy to move across borders in the Triple Frontier, where motorbikes are permitted to cross without documents. A smuggler can bike from Paraguay into Brazil and return without ever being asked for a passport, and it is not much harder for cars and trucks.

The implications of such lawlessness could be dire, U.S. and Paraguayan officials said. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Hezbollah militiamen would raise no suspicions because they have Latin American passports, speak Spanish and look like Hispanic tourists.

The CIA singles out the Mexican border as an especially inviting target for Hezbollah operatives. “Many alien smuggling networks that facilitate the movement of non-Mexicans have established links to Muslim communities in Mexico,” its Counter Terrorism Center said in a 2004 threat paper.

“Non-Mexicans often are more difficult to intercept because they typically pay high-end smugglers a large sum of money to efficiently assist them across the border, rather than haphazardly traverse it on their own.”
 
 
Deadly legacy of a lawless frontier



Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Tri-border has become a top-level, if little-publicized, concern for Washington, particularly as tension mounts with Iran, Hezbollah’s main sponsor. Paraguayan government officials told Telemundo that CIA operatives and agents of Israel’s Mossad security force were known to be in the region seeking to neutralize what they believe could be an imminent threat.

But long before that, U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies regarded the region as a “free zone for significant criminal activity, including people who are organized to commit acts of terrorism,” Louis Freeh, then the director of the FBI, said in 1998.

Edward Luttwak, a counterterrorism expert with the Pentagon’s National Security Study Group, described the Tri-border as the most important base for Hezbollah outside Lebanon itself, home to “a community of dangerous fanatics that send their money for financial support to Hezbollah.”

“People kill with that, and they have planned terrorist attacks from there,” said Luttwak, who has been a terrorism consultant to the CIA and the National Security Council. “The northern region of Argentina, the eastern region of Paraguay and even Brazil are large terrains, and they have an organized training and recruitment camp for terrorists.”

“Our experience is that if you see one roach, there are a lot more,” said Frank Urbancic, principal deputy director of the State Department’s counterterrorism office, who has spent most of his career in the Middle East.


A mother lode of money


Operating out of the Tri-border, Hezbollah is accused of killing more than 100 people in attacks in nearby Buenos Aires, Argentina, during the early 1990s in operations personally masterminded by Hezbollah’s military commander, Imad Mugniyah.

Mugniyah is on the most-wanted terrorist lists of both the FBI and the European Union, and he is believed to work frequently out of Ciudad del Este.

For President Bush and the U.S.-led “war on terror,” the flourishing of Hezbollah in the Western Hemisphere demonstrates the worrying worldwide reach of Islamist radicalism. In the Tri-border, Hezbollah and other radical anti-U.S. groups have found a lucrative base from which to finance many of their operations.

Smuggling has long been the lifeblood of the Tri-border, accounting for $2 billion to $3 billion in the region, according to congressional officials. Several U.S. agencies said that Arab merchants were involved in smuggling cigarettes and livestock to avoid taxes, as well as cocaine and marijuana through the border with Brazil on their way to Europe. Some of the proceeds are sent to Hezbollah, they said.


Many Arabs in the Tri-border openly acknowledge that they send money to Hezbollah to help their families, and the man in charge of the local mosque in Ciudad del Este, who asked not to be identified by name, declared that Shiite Muslim mosques had “an obligation to finance it.”

But the U.S. government maintains that the money ends up stained with blood when it goes through Hezbollah, which is blamed for the bombings of the U.S. Embassy and the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, in the 1980s, as well as the kidnappings of Americans, two of whom were tortured and killed.

Patrick M. O’Brien, the assistant secretary of the Treasury in charge of fighting terrorist financing, acknowledged flatly that “we are worried.”

“Hezbollah has penetrated the area, and part of that smuggling money is used to finance terrorist attacks,” he said.


In Paraguay, looking the other way


The biggest obstacle in the U.S. campaign to counter Hezbollah close to home is Paraguay, whose “judicial system remains severely hampered by a lack of strong anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism legislation,” the State Department said in a “Patterns of Global Terrorism” report.

Since 2004, a draft bill to strengthen money laundering laws has been stalled in the Paraguayan legislature, and the government of President Nicanor Duarte has introduced no draft legislation of its own.

Hampering reform efforts is an endemic reluctance in Paraguay to acknowledge the problem.

Interior Minister Rogelio Benitez Vargas, who supervises the national police, claimed that Hezbollah-linked smuggling was a relic of the 1980s. Today, he said, the Triple Frontier is a safe and regulated “commercial paradise.”

But authorities from the U.S. State and Treasury departments to Interpol to the front-line Paraguayan police agencies all paint a different picture. Eduardo Arce, secretary of the Paraguayan Union of Journalists, said the government was widely considered to be under the control of drug traffickers and smugglers.

Without interference, thousands of people cross the River Parana every day from Paraguay to Brazil over the Bridge of Friendship loaded with products on which they pay no taxes. As police look the other way, he said, some smugglers cross the border 10 to 20 times a day. Earlier this year, Telemundo cameras were present as smugglers in Ciudad del Este loaded trucks headed for Brazil. They could have been laden with drugs or weapons, but no authorities ever checked.


Direct link to Iran alleged


José Adasco knows better than most why Hezbollah has the region in a grip of fear.

In 1992 and 1994, terrorists believed to be linked to Hezbollah carried out two attacks against Jewish targets in Buenos Aires, the Argentine capital. In the first, a car bomb exploded at the Israeli Embassy, killing 29 people. Two years later, a suicide bomber attacked the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association, a Jewish community center, killing 85 more.


Adasco, who represents the Jewish association, has never been able to forget that day and the friends he lost.

“Really, to see the knocked-down building, [to hear] the screams, the cries, people running — it was total chaos. Chaos, chaos. It is inexpressible,” he said.

An investigation by Interpol and the FBI found not only Hezbollah’s involvement, but Iran’s, as well. The Argentine prosecutor’s office said the Iranian president at the time, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, ordered the attack to retaliate against Argentina for suspending nuclear cooperation with Iran.

A warrant for Rafsanjani’s arrest remains outstanding, and the prosecutor’s office continues its investigation 13 years later.


Hezbollah tells its story


Alberto Nisman, the Argentine district attorney leading the investigation, said the connection between the Hezbollah attack and the Tri-border is unquestionable. Among other things, he said, the suicide bomber passed through the area to receive instructions.

In the intervening years, Hezbollah has spread throughout Latin America.

On their Web page, local Hezbollah militants in Venezuela call their fight against the United States a “holy war” and post photographs of would-be suicide terrorists with masks and bombs. There are also Web sites for Hezbollah in Chile, El Salvador, Argentina and most other Latin American countries.

“The Paraguayan justice [ministry] and the national police have found propaganda materials for Hezbollah” across the hemisphere, said Augusto Anibal Lima of Paraguay’s Tri-border Police.

And it is not only propaganda. In October, homemade bombs were left in front of the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, which is next to a school.

Police arrested a student carrying Hezbollah propaganda in Spanish. One of the pamphlets showed a picture of children and said, “Combat is our highest expression of love and the only way to offer a healthy and uncorrupted world.”

Caracas police were able to detonate the bombs safely. Police Commissioner Wilfredo Borras said they appeared to be “explosive devices made to make noise and publicity” — very different from what would be used if the United States attacked Iran.

“In [the] United States, there are many Arabs — in Canada, too,” said Meri, the Hezbollah member who spoke with Telemundo. “If one bomb [strikes] Iran, one bomb, [Bush] will see the world burning.

“... If an order arrives, all the Arabs that are here, in other parts in the world, all will go to take bombs, bombs for everybody if he bombs Iran.”



Pablo Gato is a correspondent for Telemundo. Robert Windrem is an investigative producer for NBC News. Alex Johnson of MSNBC.com contributed to this report.

Iranian student group releases anti-Israel computer games

Iranian student group releases anti-Israel computer games

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF

Government back group produced games to celebrate al-Quds day; Iranian chief of staff: Teheran could strike "Israeli nuclear site" if attacked.

 

A government-backed Iranian student group released two anti-Israeli computer games, “Devil Den 2” and “Freedom Convoy,” to commemorate the last Friday of Ramadan, referred to by Shi’ites as al-Quds Day.

Both games were produced by the School Students Basij Organization, which is affiliated with Iran’s Education Ministry.

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Devil Den 2 is about “the Israeli protocols,” the director of the organization, Muhammad Saleh Jokar, said during a ceremony announcing the release of the two games on Thursday, the eve of Quds Day.


“The illegitimate regime has said in its protocols that they will abolish all beliefs,” Jokar was quoted as saying by the Iranian Mehr News Agency.

“We have witnessed that the foundations of the illegitimate Zionist regime have been weakened and our younger generation must be familiarized with the protocols and the inhuman ideology of the regime,” he added.

The second game, Freedom Convoy, is based on the Israel Navy’s May 31 raid on the Mavi Marmara. Jokar described the maneuver, part of an Israeli effort to prevent ships from breaking the blockade of the Gaza Strip, as an Israeli attack, referring to the six foreign vessels as the “Freedom Flotilla.”

A number of Iranian military commanders, including Basij (volunteer forces) Commander Brig.-Gen. Muhammad Reza Naqdi and the deputy commander of the Armed Forces Headquarters, Masud Jazayeri, attended the ceremony.

“The downfall of oppressors is carried out by God...In the most pessimistic view, there will be no trace of the Zionist regime in 15 years,” Naqdi was quoted by Mehr as saying during the ceremony.

The “Zionist regime’s” place in history will be similar to those of the former Soviet regime and South Africa’s apartheid government, Naqdi added.

Jazayeri said that the games have been produced as an alternative for users who are being flooded with games manufactured by the US and Israel. He typified computer games as “soft weapons” – nonviolent measures used to change the population’s point of view – and said the US and Israel were using soft weapons against Iran alongside the “hard weapons” at their disposal.

According to the report, Iran plans to produce six additional sequels to “Devil Den.” The first installment in the series was released in 2009.

Many copies of the two new games were distributed free of charge to demonstrators participating in the al- Quds Day rally in Teheran.

Also at the rally, Iran’s military chief of staff said Teheran could strike Israel’s alleged nuclear facility if the Jewish state were to attack Iran’s nuclear sites.

Gen. Hasan Firouzabadi said Iran hopes there won’t “be a need to target the nuclear facility of the Zionist regime,” but if there is, Israel would receive “dreadful retribution.”

The rally is often used by Iranian officials to issue threats against Israel.


AP contributed to this report.

'Jerusalem Day paves the way for Israel's collapse'

'Jerusalem Day paves the way for Israel's collapse'

By JPOST.COM STAFF AND AP

09/03/2010 11:07

 Ahmadinejad says "the Zionists are hypocrite racists" at rally on Quds Day, the last Friday of Ramadan; mob attacks home of opposition leader.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Israel "hypocrite racists" and a Western invention as Iranians celebrated International Jerusalem Day on Friday, the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, with rallies against the "Israeli occupation of Palestinian land by Israel" being held across the country, according to a report by Iranian news source PressTV.


Iranians held rallies in cities including Teheran, Isfahan, Shiraz and Mashhad.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reportedly adressed a Jerusalem Day rally in Teheran, saying "the Zionists are groups of hypocrite racists who have been operating under the pretext of following Jewish religion principles."


Ahmadinejad added that Israel is a Western invention meant to promote colonialism and materialism.

He also said that direct talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority are a ruse, and that American negotiators are accomplices to Israeli "crimes" against Palestinians.

"Only Palestinians can decide on their own lands, not foreign powers," PressTV quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

Iran's ambassador to the United Arab Emirates Hamid-Reza Asefi said that Jerusalem Day threatens Israel more than any diplomatic or non-diplomatic measure, according to PressTV.

"By their glorious presence [in the Jerusalem Day rally], the Muslims of the world will tell the oppressed nation of Palestine that they are still beside the Palestinian people and ideals," Asefi reportedly said on Thursday.

According to Asefi, Jerusalem Day, also known as Quds day, has given the Muslim world confidence.

On Thursday, Iranian Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri told Iranian news agency IRNA that Jerusalem day "appears to pave the way for the collapse of Israel and its allies, namely the US and Britain."

"Now that the world public opinion has changed over the Israeli atrocities, and the popular resistance has gained momentum, the Zionists appear to be waning," Jazayeri added.

He also said that the talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority were bound to fail.

The late Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeinei declared Jerusalem Day to mark the last Friday of Ramadan and called for world rallies in favor of the Palestinians and against Israel.

PressTV quoted the Khomeinei as having said Jerusalem Day is "a day of confrontation between the oppressed and the oppressors."

Crowds attack home of Iranian opposition leader

Pro-government militiamen attacked the home of an Iranian opposition leader with homemade bombs and beat one of his bodyguards unconscious, an opposition website reported, in an apparent attempt to keep him from attending a key rally on Friday.

Mahdi Karroubi's guards had to fire gunshots in the air to clear crowds that broke down the door of his home on Thursday night after days of gatherings outside, said the Sahamnews website, which supports Iran's pro-reform movement.

The report said the attackers were members of the plainclothes Basij militia that led the crackdown on the protests that swept the country in response to allegations of fraud in President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's June 2009 re-election. Karroubi was one of the pro-reform candidates who ran against Ahmadinejad.

Crowds again encircled Karroubi's residence on Friday, as Iranians filled a central Teheran square for the annual state-sponsored rally known as Quds Day, or Jerusalem Day.

The government uses the occasion as an anti-Israel outpouring and to show its support for the Palestinians. But last year, Karroubi and other opposition leaders used the day to gather tens of thousands of their own supporters into the streets, and violent clashes broke out with security forces.

Crowds of hard-line protesters have gathered at the gate of his building for several days, apparently because they believed he would try to attend the rally again this year, though none of the opposition leaders has called for demonstrations.

Karroubi's son, Hossein, told The Associated Press Friday that dozens of hard-liners were continuing to damage the opposition leader's home and that police were not responding to the scene.

Karroubi, a cleric, and Mir Hossein Mousavi were the two pro-reform candidates who ran against Ahmadinejad in 2009. Mousavi claims he won the election but that it was stolen from him through massive fraud.

On Friday, Mousavi condemned the attack on Karroubi's home, saying it proved the government's "enmity against Israel is an excuse" for attacking opposition figures. "Karroubi and figures like him and other freedom-seekers are the real enemies of authoritarians."