Free Republic

Iran's ex-deputy defense minister smuggled top-secret maps and documents - some of which prove terror ties around the Middle East - out of Tehran when he defected to the West, former colleagues said yesterday. The confidential files Ali Reza Asghari brought with him provide details about Iran's links to terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad as well as the radical Mahdi Army and Badr Corps in Iraq, according to an influential Arab newspaper. An Iranian colleague told the paper, Al-Sharq al-Awsat, that Asghari also had secret documents concerning Iran's nuclear missile program. Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards are beefing...

A former high-ranking Iranian government official, Brig. Gen. Alireza Asghari, 63, has defected to the United States, Iranian exiles and other sources told Newsmax today. Asghari had access to highly-classified intelligence information and "defected to the Americans with lots of secrets," respected Iranian journalist Alireza Nourizadeh told Newsmax from London. The disappearance of the former Revolutionary Guards General has created a panic in Tehran. Gen. Asghari left Iran on an officially-sanctioned trip to Damascus, Syria, then went missing during a stop-over in Istanbul, Turkey on February 7, according to statements by Iranian government officials in Tehran. Nourizadeh believes he had...

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...