Foreign Confidential ™
Foreign News and Analysis Since April 2005 -- formerly China Confidential -- What's Happening in the World
Sunday, January 13, 2013
The Iranian Regime's American Hostage Habit
Levinson Kidnapping Latest in Long Line of Cases
By Clare M. Lopez
Startling photos of former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who disappeared in March 2007 while on a trip to Iran's Kish Island in the Persian Gulf, are the latest evidence in a litany of American hostages, taken, held and sometimes murdered by the Iranian mullahs and their terror proxies over a period of more than three decades.
Broadcast on the Fox News Greta Van Susteren program on January 8, 2013, the two-year-old Levinson photos show a haggard man with wildly unkempt graying hair and beard in chains and wearing an orange jumpsuit.
His wife, Christine, who was Van Susteren's guest, described her conviction that her husband is still alive even though U.S. officials have said little publicly in the nearly six years since Levinson was kidnapped.
A 22-year FBI veteran, Levinson worked as a private investigator after his 1998 retirement from government service. Although in the region on an assignment for Global Witness, a London-based group that investigates corporate and government corruption, Levinson decided to fly to Kish Island after spending several days on assignment looking into a cigarette smuggling case in Dubai.
Fateful Meeting with a Fugitive American Assassin
On Kish Island, he reportedly was scheduled to meet with Dawud Salahuddin (born David Belfield), an African-American convert to Islam and wanted fugitive for the July 1980 contract murder of Ali Akbar Tabatabai, a former press attaché at the Iranian Embassy in Washington, who became an outspoken critic of the Khomeini regime in the months following the overthrow of the Shah. [Editor's Note: In September 2007, Foreign Confidential reported on the Levinson-Belfield meeting.Click here to read the article.]
One day after meeting with Salahuddin, Levinson disappeared and, before these latest photos, had been seen only in a 2010 videotape and some earlier photographs that were made public in December 2011. In the tape, a gaunt Levinson asked for U.S. government help in meeting the (unspecified) demands of his captors, whose identity is not mentioned.
The FBI has offered a $1 million reward for information leading to Levinson's safe recovery and return and the Department of State also is involved in working with the Iranian government to secure his release. In a 2011 statement, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said American officials had received indications that Mr. Levinson "is being held somewhere in southwest Asia."
According to FOX News now, that statement was a red herring, improbably intended as a "goodwill gesture to Iran," by suggesting that Al-Qaeda or other terrorists were holding Levinson. In her January 8, 2013 interview with Van Susteren, Christine Levinson said she believes that her husband is being held in Iran.
Iranian Intelligence Ministry Main Suspect
U.S. officials, cited by FOX, judge that the Iranian intelligence service, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), likely is behind both Levinson's kidnapping and the email transmission of his photos and video to the family.
The FBI, which insists that Levinson was not working for the U.S. government at the time of his kidnapping, claims it does not know who is holding Levinson or what their demands might be. The Iranian regime, of course, denies knowing anything about Levinson.
The December 2006 seizure and imprisonment of Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Middle East Program, demonstrated another variation on the Iranian regime's predilection for kidnapping American citizens. This time, it targeted an Iranian-American academic whose U.S. citizenship was no protection.
Imprisoned for 105 days after her passport was stolen in Tehran, Esfandiari had been a regular visitor to Iran, where her elderly mother lived. In her case, the regime seemed to want to register its pique at U.S. programs it viewed as supportive of regime change in Iran—although the Wilson Center would seem an odd target for such a charge. In any case, Esfandiari was released unharmed in August 2007 after her mother put up her Tehran apartment to pay the "bail" (ransom).
Hostages are Bargaining Chips
The Roxana Saberi case showed the Iranian regime continuing its pattern of seizing Americans and sometimes using them as bargaining chips to obtain the release of its own operatives being held in detention. Saberi is a U.S. citizen who was working as a journalist in Iran when she was arrested in January 2009. Although Saberi holds dual U.S.-Iranian citizenship, Iran refuses to recognize dual citizenship and insists on treating such individuals solely as Iranian subjects.
She initially was charged with working without press credentials but three months later, an Iranian judge brought far more serious charges of espionage on behalf of the U.S. against her. After a brief "trial," Saberi was sentenced to an eight-year prison term.
There was something that Iran badly wanted, though, and that was the release of five IRGC Qods Force commanders, who'd been caught coordinating terrorist attacks in Iraq that killed hundreds of Americans.
The so-called "Irbil Five" (detained by American forces in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil in 2007), were senior Qods Force commanders, acting on orders from the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. They were responsible for providing Iranian-manufactured EFPs (Explosively Formed Projectiles) to terror militias in Iraq to maim and kill Americans.
Quds Force Commanders
Further, these five Qods Force commanders not only coordinated the supply of Iranian EFPs but also acted as terror liaison and military advisors to local Iraqi terrorists as well as Al-Qaeda units.
Roxana Saberi became the bargaining chip for the release of these terrorists. In May 2009, the Iranian press reported that Vali Nasr, a senior advisor of Iranian heritage in the Obama administration, was in Iran. Saberi's case was sent up on appeal to an Iranian appeals court, a hearing was held on May 10, 2009, and voila! – her charges were reduced to possession of classified information, and her sentence was reduced to two years, suspended.
Saberi was released the next day and flew home to the U.S. Two months later, in July 2009, President Obama freed the Irbil Five, swapping Iranian terror masters responsible for hundreds, if not thousands, of American deaths and injuries, for one innocent American citizen hostage.
The quid pro quo for the 2012 release of Hizballah terror operative, Ali Musa Daqduq, is less clear. In 2007, Daqduq masterminded an ambush of U.S. troops in the southern Iraqi town of Karbala that resulted in the torture and execution of five Americans.
After being captured by U.S. forces, Daqduq confessed to his role in the attack and provided detailed testimony about Iranian and Hizballah support and training to Iraqi terror militias. With the Obama administration's decision to withdraw all American combat troops from Iraq in 2011, Daqduq had to be either transferred to Guantanamo Bay to face military justice or turned over to the Iraqis, who were expected to set him free.
Unwilling to send anyone to GITMO and perhaps fearful of the Iranian/Hizballah reaction if it did, the administration predictably chose the second option and, in November 2012, the Iraqis released Daqduq.
Behind-the-Scenese Arrangement?
It is difficult to know whether his release was part of another behind-the-scenes arrangement between the U.S. and the Iranian regime, but the question lingers because of prior exchanges like that of the "Irbil Five" for Roxana Saberi.
One possible connection that has never been fully explained is the case of the three young American hikers, who were snatched near the Iraqi border with Iran by Iranian border guards in July 2009. Shane M. Bauer, Joshua F. Fattal, and Sarah E. Shourd (who was Mr. Bauer's fiancé) were charged with espionage and imprisoned in Tehran's notorious Evin prison.
Like Saberi, they were put on trial, found guilty and sentenced to eight-year prison terms. Shourd was released first, in September 2010, on $500,000 bail, and Bauer and Fattal were finally released a year later, in September 2011, likewise on $500,000 bail each.
Although Iranian regime comments, echoed by members of what the Iranian media call their "Iran Lobby in America," attempted to portray the entire incident as part of an internal Iranian power struggle between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Khomenei, the hikers' protracted detention and the ultimate payment of ransom money by the U.S. conforms rather to classic Islamic doctrine regarding captured infidels. And although it is impossible to know for sure, the timing of the Daqduq release certainly puts it in the suspect category as a possible prisoner exchange.
The litany of Iranian-instigated hostage crises involving Americans continues. Tehran engages in such behavior for a number of reasons: To use such prisoners as bargaining chips in future prisoner swaps, to demonstrate its implacable hostility and ability to publicly extract concessions from the U.S, and to keep Iranian dissidents, exiles, and those holding dual citizenship on notice that they cannot be safe from the mullahs' reach anywhere in the world. The behavior is not likely to stop until it is made clear to Tehran that it no longer will be tolerated.
Friday, January 11, 2013
Nigerian Criminals Expanding and Diversifying
Fraudsters Go Overseas to 'Chop Your Dollars'
Nigerian fraudsters, swindlers and confidence tricksters are expanding and diversifying, spreading out from their African haven--where they have collaborated successfully for decades with corrupt government officials and bankers.
The Nigerian criminals are developing new twists on the multibillion-dollar 419 scam; and they are operating from Europe and Asia, including Japan, where the National Police Agency's Security Bureau is reviewing the files of a number of suspicious foreign nationals.
Fraudulent commodities and currency trading schemes are among the new Nigerian specialties. Some victims are individuals who believe they are investing to share in a supposedly specially licensed broker's staggering commission payments; in actuality, the contracts and related documents shown to the sucker are bogus.
When cornered or confronted , many Nigerian crooks become aggressive, threatening their victims or accusers with "untimely death," demanding money.
Over the years, a number of 419 victims have been lured to Nigeria and other African countries, only to be kidnapped and held for ransom and, in some cases, killed.
The dirty secret of all this is that Nigerian scammers are praised at home. A 419-celebrating music video by one scammer--he was arrested in Amsterdam in connection with a phony lottery--was a big hit in Lagos. The song lyrics were racist to boot, bragging about "chopping dollars" from despised white people. For many poor, angry, young Nigerians, international fraud is an attractive career option.
Turkey Blames PKK for Paris Murders
As predicted by Foreign Confidential within hours of the news of the crime, Turkey is blaming the shooting deaths in Paris of three Kurdish activists on an internal PKK power struggle having to do with peace talks between the separatist organization and Ankara. Turns out, there was a tacit agreement between the PKK and Turkey that Europe was off limits for high-profile assassinations. Read more.
The Kurdish struggle has been so internationalized--there are aso many foreign hands involved in the PKK--that it is practically impossible for an outsider to have a clear view of what is really happening. Every member of the group must be wondering about every other member's alliances and loyalties.
All modern independence movements experience internal conflicts and rivalries. But boldly killing three women in their own central Paris headquarters sets a new precedent in the field of political violence. The execution-style murders more closely resemble the crimes of gangsters fighting for turf or settling scores among themselves than the actions of an apparently trusted individual with easy access to a political information center.
Al Qaeda Gaining in Libya and Sinai
More than 3 Decades After Israeli Withdrawal from Sinai, it's an AQ Base
Al Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamists--the group that killed the U.S. ambassador--control large parts of Benghazi and eastern Libya. The United States seems to be leaving the Islamists alone and looking the other way as they smuggle arms via Islamist-dominated Egypt to Al Qaeda terrorists in Sinai who have turned the triangular peninsula, which Israel returned to Egypt in the 1979 peace treaty between the countries, into an important base of operations. Read more.
Having effectively narrowed the definition of the Islamist enemy to Al Qaeda alone, the Obama administration engaged, encouraged and collaborated with an array of Islamist governments groups, including the Libyan killers, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, Taliban elements, Turkey's Islamist regime, and Islamists seeking to take over Syria. But even the war against Al Qaeda, which Obama has prosecuted with aggressive drone strikes, shows signs of being wound down--by Washington. It boggles the mind that Al Qaeda, which should have been obliterated in Afghanistan within days of 9/11, is alive and well in 2013--in Sinai--and infiltrating Gaza, the Hamas-run mini-state that was, like Sinai, administered by Israel following its stunning victory over Gaza's former occupier, Egypt, in the defensive Six-Day War that Israel fought with Egypt, Syria and Jordan in June 1967.
Al Qaeda in … Sinai.
Where's the outrage?
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Serbs Claim Christmas Day Torture by Kosovo Cops
Europe's pro-Islamist, NATO-installed regime police accused of torturing innocent Christians. Read more.
Kosovo, which was carved out of Europe's heart by a savage NATO bombing campaign, does not recognize Israel. Instead, Kosovo recognizes "Palestine." Israel does not recognize Kosovo; nor should Israel recognize the extremist enclave, in this reporter's opinion. Kosovo is a menace--made in the West.
Carter gave the world Islamist Iran; Reagan, Islamist Afghanistan; Clinton, Islamic/pro-Islamist Kosovo; George W. Bush, Islamist Iraq, Gaza, and Turkey; Obama, Islamist Libya and Egypt. Soon, it seems, he will also be responsible for creating an Islamist Syria.
Imagining Iran's Secret Nuclear Missile Plan
What if?
Iran is developing nuclear weapons. What if Iran's plan is to not repeat Moscow's mistake--meaning, publicly announce a nuclear threat to the United States rather than wait for the threat to be discovered by Washington, as was the case in the Cuban Missile Crisis?
There seems little reason to assume that Islamist Iran, an ally of Stalinist/Kimist North Korea, does not intend (a) to deploy a fleet of seemingly civilian, nuclear missile-armed cargo ships within (EMP and coastal city) striking distance of the U.S. and (b) to announce the deployment and demand public assurances from the U.S. that it will neither attack Iran over its nuclear program nor support an Israeli attack on the country.
Thousands of freighters--flying flags of convenience--approach U.S. waters on a daily basis. There is no known defense against a sea-launched missile attack on the nation; missiles can be fired from launch pads concealed in shipping containers. Iran and North Korea have developed and test-fired such systems.
The installation of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba sparked a crisis that almost ended in a nuclear war that would have destroyed much, if not all, of the human race. But the reckless Soviet adventure also secured Cuba's Communist regime, saved it from further U.S. invasion attempts.
Iran's Islamist monsters have studied this history.
Iran Woos Egypt; Islamists Ascendant
Shiite and Sunni Clerical Fascists, Killing
Each Other in Syria, Collaborate in Cairo
More blowback from the overthrow of Mubarak. Read more.
Mysterious Hacker Taunts Japanese Police
A cat-and-mouse game that even includes a live cat--with a memory card attached to its collar. Click here to read all about it.
Optimism and Propaganda Won't End Greek Crisis
The unemployment statistics are alarming. The devastation is deep and widespread. Job creation is nowhere in sight. But boosterism by editorial writers and others is rising. Read more.
PKK Co-Founder Sakine Cansiz Shot Dead in Paris
3 Kurdish Activists Assassinated in Information Center
Kurdish separatist leader Sakine Cansiz and two other Kurdish activists appear to have been shot dead, execution style, in the heart of Paris. Read more.
Suspicion will fall on Turkey and on a possible internal fight for control of the militant Kurdish movement.Click here to read more about it, and here to read about the decades-old Turkish-Kurdish conflict.
The PKK picture is muddy, to say the least. Iran, Syria and Iraq have their hands in the organization. The sands in which it operates are shifting--and deadly.
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