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In March of 2007 Iranian Revolutionary Guards General Ali-Reza Ashgari defected to the West through Turkey. General Ashgari is the highest-ranking defector from Iran ever, a huge bonanza for our understanding of the Khomeinist regime's intentions and capabilities with regard to nuclear weapons. If he is for real. Troubling circumstantial evidence suggests that he is not. This week, a public summary of the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran made worldwide headlines.  Contrary to endless public statements made over three decades from Khomeini to Ahmadi-Nejad, contrary to the 2005 NIE, contrary to the recent UN report, and contrary to Israeli intelligence, the...

Missing Iranian general’s family suspects Israel Family of Ali Reza Asgari, Iran’s former deputy defense minister who disappeared from Turkey last month, visits Turkish embassy in Tehran demanding information on his whereabouts. Asgari’s wife rejects reports he defected to West, smuggled family out of Iran: ‘We are here, those are our enemies lies’ The family of Ali Reza Asgari , the Iranian general and former deputy defense minister who disappeared from Turkey last month, snubbed recent newspaper reports claiming he defected to the West and insisted instead that he was kidnapped by foreign agents. His wife Ziba Asgari, 46, contended...

AN Iranian general who defected to the West last month had been spying on Iran since 2003 when he was recruited on an overseas business trip, according to Iranian sources. This weekend Brigadier General Ali Reza Asgari, 63, the former deputy defence minister, is understood to be undergoing debriefing at a Nato base in Germany after he escaped from Iran, followed by his family. A daring getaway via Damascus was organised by western intelligence agencies after it became clear that his cover was about to be blown. Iran’s notorious secret service, the Vavak, is believed to have suspected that he...

Qayis and Layith Qazali. Click to view. The kidnapping of five British contractors - four security guards and a financial consultant - has long been suspected of being an Iranian-backed job. A recent report in the Times Online confirmed an Iranian extremist group has demanded the release of Qais Qazali, the leader of the Iranian-backed Qazali network, in exchange for the five Britons. "Senior Iraqi government sources say their captors have promised they will not be harmed but any rescue attempt would endanger them," the Times Online reported. "They claimed the hostages will remain prisoners 'for as long as...

Tehran's Blood-soaked Hands July 11, 2007 The Washington Times As American and Iraqi casualties mount, U.S. military commanders have become increasingly willing to criticize Tehran's role in fueling the violence in Iraq — something senators would do well to bear in mind this week while going on about the need to withdraw or "redeploy" American troops there. According to Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, Tehran had a direct role in a Jan. 20 attack on the Karbala Provincial Joint Coordination Center in which five American soldiers were killed — four of them murdered after being abducted by Iranian-backed radicals who wore...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A top special operations officer from Lebanon's Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah has been captured in Iraq, where U.S. officials say he played a key role in a January attack that killed five Americans. Ali Mussa Daqduq, an explosives expert, was captured in March in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, where he was helping train and lead Shiite militias fighting coalition troops, U.S. intelligence officials told CNN. Daqduq pretended to be deaf and mute when captured, and his identity was not known for weeks, the officials said. Once uncovered, however, they said he began to talk, and...

BERLIN (AFP) — Germany on Monday deported to Iran an alleged Iranian secret agent who was jailed for life in 1997 for murdering four Kurdish dissidents in Berlin, officials in the German capital said. Kazem Darabi's Lebanese accomplice, Abbas Rhayel, has also been freed after serving 15 years in jail and was deported last week, prosecuting authorities told AFP. A lawyer close to the case had earlier said that both men were to be deported on Monday night. Darabi, 48, and Rhayel, a suspected member of the Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah militia movement, were jailed for life for the 1992 murder...

WASHINGTON, March 27 (Reuters) - Washington estimates up to 90 percent of suicide bombers in Iraq enter the country via Syria which has not acted to stop this flow of attackers, the U.S. State Department's Iraq adviser said on Tuesday. David Satterfield, who is Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's key adviser on Iraq, said Syria had an obligation to stop "jihadists" crossing into Iraq where suicide bombings are an almost daily occurrence. He estimated 90 percent of suicide bombers in Iraq were foreigners and while the mix of nationalities changed, some 85 to 90 percent of them crossed over from...

THE official notification, delivered in secure calls yesterday morning to senior Whitehall figures, was the latest dramatic behind-the-scenes move to get to grips with a crisis that is now engulfing the government. After a day of shadow-boxing with a notoriously slippery regime, Tony Blair is set to up the ante: the plight of the Shatt al-Arab 15 is officially a crisis and he will need the Cobra team to handle it. The clutch of VIPs will gather in an operations room several floors below Downing Street as early as this afternoon to plot an escape from a military spat that...

British PM Tony Blair was just shown on Fox stating that his government considers Iran's act of war to be "quite serious." He assured the public that Britian is working the problem. I find it horrific that the CO of HMS Cornwall was unable to defend his men because he first had to call London for permission. This is precisely what he can expect with the US military under the Dems' Congress per their vote last week on Iraq.

Marine's mom arrested at Pelosi's office By FREDERIC J. FROMMER, Associated Press Writer 53 minutes ago The mother of a Marine who tried to kill himself after two tours of duty in Iraq was arrested Monday while protesting the war outside the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record). Tina Richards of Salem, Ore., was charged with disorderly conduct, said Sgt. Kimberly Schneider, a U.S. Capitol Police spokeswoman. Schneider said Richards would be issued a citation and released. Drew Hammill, a spokesman for Pelosi, D-Calif., said Richards was with a group of 15 to 20 protesters when...

Last week marked the four-year anniversary of America's liberation of Iraq. In response to the longevity of the project, protests were held throughout the nation denouncing the war. From sea to shining sea, the protesters wielded signs with pictures of Che Guevara and anti-American slogans while disingenuously demanding that our troops be brought home immediately. The national coordinator of ANSWER, the coalition to Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, Brian Becker, told me in a phone interview that the protests were held as "an effort to reach the people of this county and as they have become more...

UK Sailors-Iran Arrests Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray Monday supported Iran's decision to arrest 15 UK marines in the Persian Gulf last week. "In international law the Iranian government were not out of order in detaining foreign military personnel in waters to which they have a legitimate claim," Murray said, who was also a previous head of Foreign Office's maritime section, carrying out negotiations on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. "For the Royal Navy, to be interdicting shipping within the twelve mile limit of territorial seas in a region they know full well is...

Reza Amiri Moghadam, an official of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, is wanted for questioning based on his alleged involvement in the abduction, detention, and probable death of retired FBI Special Agent Robert A. Levinson: https://t.co/3jdNl5splA pic.twitter.com/WHvvTGo7kM— FBI Most Wanted (@FBIMostWanted) July 15, 2025

ESTANCIA ANCHORENA, Uruguay – Over lamb chops and cuts of beef, President Bush chatted amiably Saturday at this presidential retreat with a former leader of a legendary band of leftist guerrillas known as the Tupamaros. "I respect you and I'm proud to be in your country," Bush told Jose "Pepe" Mujica, now Uruguay's minister of agriculture and livestock, according to a White House aide. Mujica was pleased to give Bush an expansive overview of this tiny nation's agricultural needs, the aide said. This is the same Mujica who, in comments to media here, has acknowledged feeling odd about the notion...

Russia's Foreign Ministry said Saturday that it was disappointed with a U.S. court decision to sentence a former Russian diplomat to the U.N. to prison for money laundering and fraud. The ministry said in a statement that it would consider demanding Vladimir Kuznetsov be returned to Russia. The former diplomat, who once chaired the United Nations' powerful budget oversight committee, was sentenced Friday to four years and three months in prison by a U.S. district court after being found guilty in March of laundering money from foreign companies seeking U.N. contracts. He was also ordered to pay a $73,000 (€51,500)...

Missing American Feared a Victim of 'Dirty War' April 13, 2007 The Financial Times Guy Dinmore in Washington and Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran Just why Robert Levinson, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent and now private investigator, should venture into Iran to meet a American fugitive wanted for murder in the US remains a mystery that the highest Bush administration authorities are trying to unravel. As the Financial Times revealed this week, Mr Levinson disappeared on March 8 after a six-hour meeting on the Iranian island of Kish with Dawud Salahuddin, an American who converted to Islam and was...

How the Pentagon’s top-brass generals burned the careers of subordinates but then pivoted to lucrative careers all while losing the wars they were supposed to be winning. My new book, A Few Bad Men, details the mendacity and mad dishonesty of retired Marine General James “Mad Dog” Mattis. The fact that it was written by a Marine once under his command, whom he betrayed for the sake of politics and getting to slap on another star, says volumes about this once-lionized figure. It all goes back to an incident in Afghanistan in 2007, and the Court of Inquiry trial of...

WASHINGTON - Notes from the jury deliberating the fate of ex-White House aide Lewis (Scooter) Libby gave a hint there might be one or two holdouts on a conviction. "We would like clarification of the term 'reasonable doubt,'" the jury wrote to U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton on the eighth day of deliberations. "Is it necessary for the government to present evidence that it is not humanly possible for someone not to recall an event in order to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt?" The notes from the 11 jurors weighing the fate of Vice President Cheney's former chief of...

Darrell Brooks was busted in March 2007 for calling in a bomb threat to the $43-per-night Nugget Casino Resort in Sparks, Nevada, ... He was put on probation after being convicted of conspiring to disturb the peace - a gross misdemeanor - and was banned from the casino for life.. His rap sheet also includes a conviction for statutory sexual seduction – the term for sex with a minor aged 16 or under in Nevada law - in January 2007.. Brooks was also charged with failing to inform the police of a change of address while a registered sex offender.....