Posted on 03/07/2007 12:45:06 PM PST by radar101
TEHRAN, Iran The mystery of a missing former Iranian deputy defense minister deepened Wednesday with the report by an Arab newspaper that he is being interviewed somewhere in northern Europe before defecting to the U.S.
Retired Revolutionary Guards general Ali Reza Asghari disappeared in Turkey nearly a month ago and reportedly hopes to seek asylum in the United States, according to a report in the London-based al-Sharq al-Awsat.
The newspaper quoted senior Iranian sources as saying Asghari is headed for the United States "along with the secrets he carried."
A Senior U.S. official told FOX News that Asghari is not in CIA hands but said that it's a "mystery" why he disappeared "and the U.S. intelligence community is seeking more clarity."
Al-Sharq al-Awsat reported that Asghari is being questioned by intelligence personnel before being transferred to the United States.
Asghari was supposed to arrive at an Istanbul hotel nearly a month ago after being in Damascus but several reports said he never arrived.
Iran's top police chief said Tuesday he thought Asghari was abducted by Western intelligence services, an Iranian news agency reported.
Iran's top police chief, Gen. Esmaeil Ahmadi Moghaddam, said Iran was investigating the fate of Asghari through the Turkish police.
"It is likely that Asghari has been abducted by the Western intelligence services," IRNA quoted the Iranian police general as saying. The general did not elaborate.
In Turkey, the Interior Ministry said Tuesday it was investigating the matter, but would not confirm or deny that Asghari had disappeared or been kidnapped.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry had asked the Interior Ministry to investigate following a report from the Iranian Embassy in Ankara.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Lets hope they are right. He has knowledge of where the Nuke site are!!!!!!
Ah well we will never know.
This is huge news if true.
Great news, just hope it's true.
Isn't this the guy that Israel is concerned about since he is one of the founder of Hesballa(sp).
Do we really want him?
"...report by an Arab newspaper..."
I can't read this.
On another thread it is said that his family got out of Iran first. He's defected folks.
Release some pictures of this dude touring Disney World with a couple of Hooters waitresses so they can't keep shoving the 'abducted' talk around. Make sure the guy has a huge Cheshire Cat, cheese eatin' grin on his mug too.
This may be a set-up for finding him with a bullet in the back of the head.
Did this guy just choose a new retirement home? Perhaps so. And when will we see him announce it?
This is beyond interesting. The Iranians would hit him with one of their I'manutjob's export teams in a jiffy if they could.
So perhaps, we won't be hearing from him. And that puts I'manutjob's old job colleagues out to pasture. How ironic.
The Vanishing Iranian General: Did He Leave or Was He Taken?
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report with DEBKA-Net-Weekly Background
March 2, 2007, 10:49 PM (GMT+02:00)
Istanbul Ceyland Hotel. He never arrived
Irans dep. defense minister for eight years up until 2005 - and before that a prominent Revolutionary Guards General, Ali Reza Asquari, 63, has not been seen since his disappearance in mysterious circumstances in Istanbul on Feb. 7.
The missing general has been identified as the officer in charge of Iranian undercover operations in central Iraq, according to DEBKAfiles intelligence and Iranian sources. He is believed to have been linked to or participated in - the armed group which stormed the US-Iraqi command center in Karbala south of Baghdad Jan. 20 and snatched five American officers. They were shot outside the Shiite city.
An Middle East intelligence source told DEBKAfile that the Americans could not let this premeditated outrage go unanswered and had been hunting the Iranian general ever since.
The BAZTAB Web site reported that Feb. 6, two non-Turkish citizens made a reservation for Gen Asgari for three nights at the Istanbul Ceylan Hotel paying cash. He arrived the next day from Damascus and immediately disappeared.
The Turkish foreign ministry said only: It is a very sensitive intelligence matter and the Interior Ministry is dealing with this issue.
BAZTAB speaks for the faction associated with Mohsein Rezai, former Revolutionary Guards commander, deputy head of Irans most powerful governing council and a man very close to top intelligence circles in Tehran
The Iranian generals arrival at Ataturk international airport on a flight from Damascus is recorded at border control, but he never reached the hotel.
Instead, he booked himself into the more modest and cheaper Hotel Ghilan. He left his luggage in the room, walked out of the hotel and vanished.
A police official in Istanbul said: We are trying to find out whether he left or was taken. Clearly the reservation made for him at the luxurious Ceylan Hotel was made to mislead. Tehrans application to Interpol, which has issued a yellow bulletin, means that the Iranians are not treating Asquaris disappearance as a defection but as involuntary.
DEBKAfile adds: Tehran sees the hand of US undercover agencies or contract gunmen and believes Washington has stepped up its war against Iranian officers running Tehrans clandestine operations in Iraq. The kidnapping of an Iranian general outside Iraq would expand President Bushs permission for the capture or killing of Iranian agents helping Iraqi insurgents and al Qaeda murder Americans in Iraq.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly 288 reported on Feb. 2 that the gunmen who abducted the American soldiers in Karbala - and then shot them dead execution-style belonged to a special commando team of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, which was sent to Iraq especially for this mission.
To subscribe to DEBKA-Net-Weekly click HERE .
The team was made up of intelligence officers who speak American English and were trained to masquerade as US troops, kidnap US soldiers and hold them as hostages for bargaining.
These officers are from Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and other Arab countries, who studied in the US and can talk like Americans - even in the idiom of US troops. Teams of these masqueraders roam at large in Iraq, clad in American uniforms, armed with US weapons and driving stolen American vehicles.
Tehrans plan was to snatch a group of US soldiers and hold them hostage against the release of the 8 Revolutionary Guards paratroops in American custody. However, according to our intelligence sources, the plan went awry for some unknown reason and the Iranian commandos decided to execute their captives before making a fast getaway from the Karbala region.
Tehran views this operation as a fiasco because it did not achieve its goal. At the same time, Iranian intelligence has not been put off its plan to take American soldiers hostage in Iraq. Its chiefs are determined to do whatever it takes to obtain the release of the third top man of the Revolutionary Guards al Quds division, Col. Fars Hassami, who DEBKA-Net-Weekly reports is not the only high-profile Iranian officer in American hands. Another is Mohammad Jaafari Sahra-Rudi, who was the kingpin of Irans terrorist operations in large parts of Iraq. His long record includes leading the Iranian death squad which assassinated Irans Kurdish Democratic Party leader Dr. Abdol-Rahman Qasemlou in Vienna in 1989.
Austrian security services caught the assassin but sent him back to Iran as part of a secret transaction between the two countries.
Qasemlou operated in Iraq under his real identity and even met with Iraqi president Jalal Talabani just a few days before he was captured in the American raid of the Iranian liaison office in Irbil Jan 11.
The Iranians have explored every channel they can think of to break the agents out of American custody. When they realized that the United States was adamant about holding on to them, the heads of the Revolutionary Guards decided to go ahead with their campaign of abductions against US troops in Iraq. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad approved.
That was my first thought. I'm hesitant to believe someone trusted to keep Iranian military secrets would be so eager to tell the United States government everything he knows.
More likely you'll see him soon running the 7 11 down the block.
You can bet Iran will try and move those sites if they can. We need to hit them BEFORE they move anything.
Ahem.
All I'm saying is that nobody wakes up one day and decides to defect. Especially considering the direction he ran, you don't have to be Tom Clancy to figure out the plot behind this one.
Pay back's a bitch.
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