[WCUSP] Fw: The botched US raid that led to the hostage crisis

Wed Apr 4 06:30:11 CDT 2007

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Subject: The botched US raid that led to the hostage crisis


> The botched US raid that led to the hostage crisis
> Exclusive Report: How a bid to kidnap Iranian security
> officials sparked a diplomatic crisis
> 
> By Patrick Cockburn
> 
> The Independent (UK) - Published: 03 April 2007
> 
> http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2414760.ece
> 
> A failed American attempt to abduct two senior Iranian
> security officers on an official visit to northern Iraq
> was the starting pistol for a crisis that 10 weeks
> later led to Iranians seizing 15 British sailors and
> Marines.
> 
> Early on the morning of 11 January, helicopter-born US
> forces launched a surprise raid on a long-established
> Iranian liaison office in the city of Arbil in Iraqi
> Kurdistan. They captured five relatively junior Iranian
> officials whom the US accuses of being intelligence
> agents and still holds.
> 
> In reality the US attack had a far more ambitious
> objective, The Independent has learned. The aim of the
> raid, launched without informing the Kurdish
> authorities, was to seize two men at the very heart of
> the Iranian security establishment.
> 
> Better understanding of the seriousness of the US
> action in Arbil - and the angry Iranian response to it
> - should have led Downing Street and the Ministry of
> Defence to realise that Iran was likely to retaliate
> against American or British forces such as highly
> vulnerable Navy search parties in the Gulf. The two
> senior Iranian officers the US sought to capture were
> Mohammed Jafari, the powerful deputy head of the
> Iranian National Security Council, and General
> Minojahar Frouzanda, the chief of intelligence of the
> Iranian Revolutionary Guard, according to Kurdish
> officials.
> 
> The two men were in Kurdistan on an official visit
> during which they met the Iraqi President, Jalal
> Talabani, and later saw Massoud Barzani, the President
> of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), at his
> mountain headquarters overlooking Arbil.
> 
> "They were after Jafari," Fuad Hussein, the chief of
> staff of Massoud Barzani, told The Independent. He
> confirmed that the Iranian office had been established
> in Arbil for a long time and was often visited by Kurds
> obtaining documents to visit Iran. "The Americans
> thought he [Jafari] was there," said Mr Hussein.
> 
> Mr Jafari was accompanied by a second, high-ranking
> Iranian official. "His name was General Minojahar
> Frouzanda, the head of intelligence of the Pasdaran
> [Iranian Revolutionary Guard]," said Sadi Ahmed Pire,
> now head of the Diwan (office) of President Talabani in
> Baghdad. Mr Pire previously lived in Arbil, where he
> headed the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Mr
> Talabani's political party.
> 
> The attempt by the US to seize the two high-ranking
> Iranian security officers openly meeting with Iraqi
> leaders is somewhat as if Iran had tried to kidnap the
> heads of the CIA and MI6 while they were on an official
> visit to a country neighbouring Iran, such as Pakistan
> or Afghanistan. There is no doubt that Iran believes
> that Mr Jafari and Mr Frouzanda were targeted by the
> Americans. Mr Jafari confirmed to the official Iranian
> news agency, IRNA, that he was in Arbil at the time of
> the raid.
> 
> In a little-noticed remark, Manouchehr Mottaki, the
> Iranian Foreign Minister, told IRNA: "The objective of
> the Americans was to arrest Iranian security officials
> who had gone to Iraq to develop co-operation in the
> area of bilateral security."
> 
> US officials in Washington subsequently claimed that
> the five Iranian officials they did seize, who have not
> been seen since, were "suspected of being closely tied
> to activities targeting Iraq and coalition forces".
> This explanation never made much sense. No member of
> the US-led coalition has been killed in Arbil and there
> were no Sunni-Arab insurgents or Shia militiamen there.
> 
> The raid on Arbil took place within hours of President
> George Bush making an address to the nation on 10
> January in which he claimed: "Iran is providing
> material support for attacks on American troops." He
> identified Iran and Syria as America's main enemies in
> Iraq though the four-year-old guerrilla war against US-
> led forces is being conducted by the strongly anti-
> Iranian Sunni-Arab community. Mr Jafari himself later
> complained about US allegations. "So far has there been
> a single Iranian among suicide bombers in the war-
> battered country?" he asked. "Almost all who involved
> in the suicide attacks are from Arab countries."
> 
> It seemed strange at the time that the US would so
> openly flout the authority of the Iraqi President and
> the head of the KRG simply to raid an Iranian liaison
> office that was being upgraded to a consulate, though
> this had not yet happened on 11 January. US officials,
> who must have been privy to the White House's new anti-
> Iranian stance, may have thought that bruised Kurdish
> pride was a small price to pay if the US could grab
> such senior Iranian officials.
> 
> For more than a year the US and its allies have been
> trying to put pressure on Iran. Security sources in
> Iraqi Kurdistan have long said that the US is backing
> Iranian Kurdish guerrillas in Iran. The US is also
> reportedly backing Sunni Arab dissidents in Khuzestan
> in southern Iran who are opposed to the government in
> Tehran. On 4 February soldiers from the Iraqi army 36th
> Commando battalion in Baghdad, considered to be under
> American control, seized Jalal Sharafi, an Iranian
> diplomat.
> 
> The raid in Arbil was a far more serious and aggressive
> act. It was not carried out by proxies but by US forces
> directly. The abortive Arbil raid provoked a dangerous
> escalation in the confrontation between the US and Iran
> which ultimately led to the capture of the 15 British
> sailors and Marines - apparently considered a more
> vulnerable coalition target than their American
> comrades.
> 
> The targeted generals:
> 
> * Mohammed Jafari
> 
> Powerful deputy head of the Iranian National Security
> Council, responsible for internal security. He has
> accused the United States of seeking to "hold Iran
> responsible for insecurity in Iraq... and [US] failure
> in the country."
> 
> * General Minojahar Frouzanda
> 
> Chief of intelligence of the Iranian Revolutionary
> Guard, the military unit which maintains its own
> intelligence service separate from the state, as well
> as a parallel army, navy and air force
> 
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