ShareKuwait calls for restraint amid regional escalations
TEHRAN: Iran arrested 17 suspects and sentenced some to death after dismantling a CIA spy ring, an official said yesterday, as tensions soar between the Islamic republic and arch-enemy the United States. US President Donald Trump dismissed the report as “totally false”. Security agencies “successfully dismantled a (CIA) spy network,” the head of counter-intelligence at the Iranian intelligence ministry, whose identity was not revealed, told reporters in Tehran. “Those who deliberately betrayed the country were handed to the judiciary… some were sentenced to death and some to long-term imprisonment.” The suspects were arrested between March 2018 and March 2019. “The report of Iran capturing CIA spies is totally false. Zero truth,” Trump tweeted.
Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt yesterday said Britain wanted to establish a European-led maritime protection force in the Gulf but emphasized that London was not seeking a confrontation with Iran. “We will now seek to put together a European-led maritime protection mission to support the safe passage of both crew and cargo in this vital region,” Hunt told parliament after Iranian authorities seized a British-flagged tanker in the Gulf on Friday. “We will seek to establish this mission as quickly as possible,” he said, adding: “It will not be part of the US maximum pressure policy on Iran”.
Late on Sunday, Kuwait said that it “follows with extreme concern” the latest escalation in the Gulf region, KUNA reported. Kuwait also stressed that “the continuation of such acts will increase tensions, expose maritime safety to a direct threat, which requires the international community to intensify its efforts to contain the escalation”. Kuwait called on all parties to exercise restraint and respect international maritime law to ensure maritime security in the region.
Tehran has been at loggerheads with Washington and its allies since May 2018, when Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from a landmark 2015 deal putting curbs on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. The US administration reimposed biting sanctions on Iran, which retaliated by increasing its enrichment of uranium beyond limits set in the nuclear accord. Trump called off air strikes against Iran at the last minute in June after the Islamic republic downed a US drone, one of a string of incidents including attacks on tankers in the Gulf.
The tensions have escalated since British authorities seized an Iranian oil tanker on July 4 on suspicions it was shipping oil to Syria in breach of EU sanctions. In what was seen by Britain as a tit-for-tat move, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards seized the British-flagged tanker in the strategic Strait of Hormuz on Friday, angering the US ally.
Hunt described Friday’s incident as an act of “state piracy”. A British warship in the region, HMS Montrose, attempted to warn off Iranian forces and raced to the scene but arrived too late to be able to assist. Hunt said a second British warship, HMS Duncan, that is being dispatched to the region, would arrive by July 29. Hunt said all British-flagged ships would be asked to give the British authorities notice when they plan to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, where Friday’s incident happened, “to enable us to offer the best protection we can”. But he added: “It is, of course, not possible for the Royal Navy to provide escorts for every single ship or indeed eliminate all risks of piracy.”
Iran impounded the tanker after claiming it failed to respond to distress calls and turned off its transponder after hitting a fishing boat. “Seizing the British tanker was a legal measure by Iran,” a spokesman for the Iranian government, Ali Rabiei, told a news conference in Tehran yesterday. However, Britain has said there was no evidence of a collision and said the vessel was in Omani waters, with its transponder switched on. “To all the countries that are calling on Iran to release the tanker, we ask them to tell Britain the same thing,” the Iranian spokesman said yesterday.
Iran said last month it dismantled a network linked to the US Central Intelligence Agency, state news agency IRNA said at the time, saying it was conducted in cooperation with “foreign allies”. Yesterday, the counter-intelligence chief said 17 people suspected of espionage had been identified, all of them Iranians. The suspects had been “employed at sensitive and crucial centers and also the private sector related to them, working as contractors or consultants,” said the official.
The intelligence ministry released a CD with images of what it said were CIA operatives abroad as well as business cards of US diplomats in Austria, Finland, India, Turkey and Zimbabwe allegedly involved in the network. The announcement came as state television started broadcasting a “documentary” titled “The Mole Hunt”, a trailer of which was on the disc. It shows re-enactments of spy meetings with an action movie edit plus interviews with officials like intelligence minister Mahmoud Alavi.
Some of the spies had been recruited by falling into a “visa trap” set by the CIA for Iranians seeking to travel to the United States. “Some were approached when they were applying for a visa, while others had visas from before and were pressured by the CIA in order to renew them.” Others were “lured” by promises of cash, high-paying jobs and even medical services for seriously ill family members. Their mission was to collect classified information and carry out “technical and intelligence operations at important and sensitive centers using advanced equipment,” he said.
The top security official alleged the CIA used special stone-like containers to send communications tools and identity documents to its network. “The forgery was clumsy, showing that it was done by the CIA itself,” he said, adding that this “proves” it was government-sanctioned. “After they were discovered, CIA officers ordered the spies to destroy all the documents,” he added. The official said the CIA had informed the suspects to go to “emergency exits” in cities near the border in case they felt they were in danger. “Of course, they instead met the intelligence ministry’s agents and were arrested.”
He hailed the operation as a “second major defeat of the CIA” following a similar one five years earlier. “They will naturally try to restore and rebuild themselves, and of course we are always vigilant.” On June 22 Iran announced it had executed a “defense ministry contractor” convicted of spying for the CIA.
Concern over foreign interference is nearly as old as the Islamic republic. The US embassy in Tehran was stormed by students in November 1979 and called the “spy nest”. State television recently aired a 30-episode series called “Gando” (an Iranian crocodile species) dramatizing with Hollywood flair the Iranian counter-espionage operations. Its first season is inspired in part by the case of Jason Rezaian, the Iranian-American correspondent for the Washington Post in Tehran jailed for 544 days over charges of espionage. Gando portrays him as a spymaster. Rezaian was released in 2016 as part of a prisoner exchange with Washington. – Agencies
