Report: Israel's Mossad scales back covert operations in Iran (Haaretz)

According to a Time Magazine report, operations reduced in areas such as high-profile missions, including assassinations and detonations at Iranian missile bases, and spy recruitment inside Iran nuclear program.

Haaretz
March 31, 2012 05:21

A Time Magazine report revealed on Friday that Israeli intelligence services have scaled back their covert operations inside Iran.

Iranian workers stand in front of the Bushehr nuclear 

power plant, about 1,200 km (746 miles) south of 

Tehran, in this October 26, 2010 file picture.

Photo by: Reuters

According to senior security officials who spoke to the magazine, operations have been reduced in areas such as high-profile missions, including assassinations and detonations at Iranian missile bases, as well as in recruiting spies inside the Iranian nuclear program, and efforts to gather on-the-ground intelligence.

The report further states that according to one official, the reductions have caused “increasing dissatisfaction” inside the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency. Another official credits the reduced activities to the reluctance of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who the official says is worried about the outcome of the operations being discovered.

According to Time Magazine, Iranian intelligence already cracked a cell trained and equipped by the Mossad. Western intelligence confirmed that the detailed confession of Majid Jamali Fashid over the January 2010 assassination by motorcycle bomb of nuclear scientist Massoud Ali Mohmmadi was genuine, and blamed a third country for exposing the cell.

The magazine also states that a new U.S. reluctance to turn a blind eye to said assassinations may be a thing of the past. After the killing of nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan in January, the United States “categorically” denied involvement in the death and issued a condemnation.

Scaling back covert operations against Iran carries costs, Time Magazine said, especially as Iran hurries to disperse its centrifuges into facilities deep underground. In one intelligence finding, an Israeli official says Iran itself estimates that sabotage to date has set back its centrifuge program by two full years. The computer virus known as Stuxnet is only the best known of a series of efforts to slow the Iranian program.

That effort involves a variety of governments besides Israel, involving equipment made to purposely malfunction after being tampered with before it physically entered Iran, says the report. The setbacks have prompted Iran to announce it would manufacture all components of its nuclear program itself – something outside experts are highly skeptical Tehran has the ability to actually do.


Related:
Report: Iran Attack Postponed Until Spring 2013

Iran War pushed till Spring 2013

Report: Iran Attack Postponed Until Spring 2013

Unsuccessful war simulation has given Israelis cold feet

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Thursday, March 29, 2012

credit: Infowars

Israel’s plan to attack Iran has been postponed until spring 2013 following a war simulation that showed Iran could kill 200 Americans with a single missile strike, according to a report by senior Haaretz correspondent Amir Oren.   

“At 8:58 P.M. on Tuesday, Israel’s 2012 war against Iran came to a quiet end. The capricious plans for a huge aerial attack were returned to the deep recesses of safes and hearts. The war may not have been canceled but it has certainly been postponed. For a while, at least, we can sound the all clear: It won’t happen this year. Until further notice, Israel Air Force Flight 007 will not be taking off,” writes Oren.

According to the report, a war simulation conducted by the U.S. Central Command found that an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would immediately be followed by an Iranian missile launch that would kill 200 Americans, a price deemed not worth paying by U.S. generals.
During the same meeting, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak also acknowledged that Israel would not act alone in striking Iran before the U.S. presidential elections in November, according to Oren, meaning that, “For all intents and purposes, it was an announcement that this war was being postponed until at least the spring of 2013.”

A delay in launching the attack until next spring would scupper expectations that the military assault was set to take place before the end of this year, a time frame that Russia understood the Israelis were working to. Last month, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Nikolai Makarov stated that an Israeli decision on whether or not to attack would be made before the summer.

In January, the U.S. cancelled a joint military exercise with Israel which was perceived by many as a sign that the Americans were getting cold feet.

Earlier this month it was also reported that Israel had “agreed to hold off a strike on Iran’s nuclear sites this year in exchange for receiving U.S. military equipment,” including bunker-busting bombs and refueling planes. The deal was seen as a tacit admission that the Obama administration would support Israel in launching the attack but only after the election in November.

If a decision has been made to postpone the attack, expect the United States to withdraw at least some of its naval might from the Persian Gulf. The U.S. currently has the USS Carl Vinson and the USS Abraham aircraft carriers patrolling the Strait of Hormuz, along with the USS Makin Island, a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship. Earlier this month it was announced that four additional mine countermeasure ships were also heading for the region.

As the Stratfor Naval Update map below illustrates, the USS Enterprise, which many speculated was also heading to the Strait of Hormuz in preparation for a strike on Iran, is now scheduled to visit Piraeus, Greece instead, suggesting a cooling of tensions could be taking place – at least for the time being.



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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.