U.S. Says Iran Tied to Failed Assassination Plot; Iran Denies Charges

"The strategy for the Iraq war is now making itself known. By using 9/11 as a pretext to invade Afghanistan, Iran is flanked on the east side. By using the Desert Storm protocols and UN Resolution 1441, among others, the excuse to invade and occupy Iraq is brought forward because Saddam is not disarming, we are told. By taking Iraq, the U.S. forces then flank Iran to the West. Having troops stationed in Turkey is a key part of this plan, for then Iran is flanked to the North, which is why so much pressure is being applied to Turkey to allow our troops there. Although we cannot be sure which incidents will be used to bring war with Iran, we can be sure something will transpire to make is necessary to invade Iran, and most likely Syria would be next. Syria is also isolated in all directions. With Israel the main benefactor in the Middle East, this strategy will totally rearrange the Middle Eastern landscape and set the stage for the appointment of the 10 puppet kings of Revelation chapter 17, which have no 'kingdom yet' but will with the beast for 42 months.

"If we are reading the book of Habakkuk correctly, not only do we win the Iraq war, it is over rapidly and with few casualties on our side; however, there may be massive casualties of Iraqi civilians and military. We then use this stronghold to further buildup our Middle East military might for the strikes on Iran and Syria, and then eventually every Arab state in the region.

This may take some time, and it is difficult to assess that part of it, because Habakkuk does not tell us how long this conquest of the Middle East is. We only know that it happens, and that it sets the stage for the demise of the United States and the rise of the "antichrist" powers in America. It is this war that sets the stage for the removal of Babylon-America by nuclear strike at a later time."

- Stewart C. Best, The Strategy for Taking the Middle East, March 2003



Iranian authorities have dismissed Washington's accusation as a smear campaign aimed at fueling Iranophobia in the world and distracting attention from the ongoing wave of Islamic Awakening in North Africa and the Middle East as well as the underway popular anti-Wall Street protests across the US. The emergence of the Islamic Awakenings has been the result of the ineffectiveness of the Zionist and American conspiracies, the Deputy Chairman of Iran's Majlis (parliament) Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy added. “US conspiracies today show they are struggling against the tide of the Islamic Awakening in regional nations,” Kowsari noted. - Awakenings foil anti-Iran US plots, PressTV, October 14, 2011

Biden: 'Nothing Off the Table' After Iran D.C. Terror Plot

October 12, 2011

ABC News - Vice President Joe Biden said today that "nothing has been taken off the table" when it comes to the U.S. response to an alleged plot by Iran to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S. and unleash deadly terrorist bombings in Washington, D.C.

"It is an outrageous act that the Iranians are going to have to be held accountable," Biden told ABC News' "Good Morning America". "This is really over the top."

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced Tuesday the DEA and FBI had disrupted a plot "conceived, sponsored and... directed from Iran" to murder the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S. in or outside a crowded Washington, D.C. restaurant which potentially would have been followed up by bombings of the Saudi Arabian and Israeli embassies.

The U.S. said an Iranian-American, 56-year-old Manssor Arbabsiar of Corpus Christi, Texas, was working for elements of the Iranian government when he attempted to hire hitmen from the feared Zetas Mexican drug cartel to carry out the hit, but Arbabsiar was unwittingly speaking to a DEA informant from the start.

READ: U.S. Complaint in Alleged Iran-Directed Terror Plot (PDF)

Senior Obama administration officials had previous told ABC News the U.S. response would not include the possibility of an armed conflict with Iran and -- though a complaint filed in federal court directly tied Iran's elite Quds military unit to the plot -- there was no information that Iran's top leaders were aware or had any role.

Biden said the U.S. was in the process of "uniting world opinion" against Iran as it goes forward with a response. The U.S. Treasury Department announced Tuesday sanctions against five Iranians allegedly tied to the plot.

READ: U.S. Will Not Respond Militarily to Iran Over Assassination Plot

A lawyer for Arbabsiar has not returned requests for comment, but the man's wife, Martha Guerrero, said he was wrongly accused.

"I may not be living with him being separated, but I cannot for the life of me think that he would be capable of doing that," she told ABC News' Austin affiliate KVUE, noting the two had been separated some time. "He was at the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm sure of that."

Iranian officials have strongly rejected the U.S. accusations, calling them a "fabrication." The head of the Iranian mission to the United Nations penned a letter Tuesday to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressing "outrage" at the allegations.

"The U.S. allegation is, obviously, a politically-motivated move and a showcase of its long-standing animosity towards the Iranian nation," the letter says. "The Islamic Republic of Iran categorically and in the strongest terms condemns this shameful allegation by the United States authorities and deplores it as a well-thought evil plot in line with their anti-Iranian policy to divert attention from the current economic and social problems at home and the popular revolutions and protests against United States long supported dictatorial regimes abroad."

Alleged Terror Plotter Claims He Was 'Directed By High-Ranking' Iranian Officials

The new case, called Operation Red Coalition, began in May when Arbabsiar unwittingly approached a DEA informant seeking the help of a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the Saudi ambassador, according to counter-terrorism officials.

Arbabsiar reportedly claimed he was being "directed by high-ranking members of the Iranian government," including a cousin who was "a member of the Iranian army but did not wear a uniform," according to a person briefed on the details of the case.

Arbabsiar and a second man, Gohlam Shakuri, an Iranian official, were named in a five-count criminal complaint filed Tuesday afternoon in federal court in New York. They were charged with conspiracy to kill a foreign official and conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, a bomb, among other counts. Shakuri is still at large in Iran, Holder said.

Holder identified Shakuri as an Iran-based member of the Quds force.

Arbabsiar, a naturalized U.S. citizen, expressed "utter disregard for collateral damage" in the planned bomb attacks in Washington, according to officials.

The complaint describes a conversation in which Arbabsiar was allegedly directing the informant to kill the Saudi ambassador and said the assassination could take place at a restaurant. When the informant feigned concern about Americans who also eat at the restaurant, Arbabsiar said he preferred if bystanders weren't killed but,

"Sometimes, you know, you have no choice, is that right?"

U.S. officials said Arbabsiar met twice in July with the DEA informant in the northern Mexico city of Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Texas, and negotiated a $1.5 million payment for the assassination of the Saudi ambassador. As a down payment, officials said Arbabsiar wired two payments of $49,960 on Aug. 1 and Aug. 9 to an FBI undercover bank account after he had returned to Iran.

Officials said Arbabsiar flew from Iran through Frankfurt, Germany, to Mexico City Sept. 29 for a final planning session, but was refused entry to Mexico and later put on a plane to New York, where he was arrested.

Officials said Arbabsiar is now cooperating with prosecutors and federal agents in New York, where the case has been transferred.

"Though it reads like the pages of a Hollywood script, the impact would've been very real and many lives would've been lost," FBI Director Robert Mueller said of the foiled plot.

Iranian Plot to Kill Ambassador Unraveled Along Mexican Border

October 12, 2011

AP - The unraveling of an alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States came from a surprising place — the front lines of the drug war along the Mexican border.

And like a Hollywood thriller, the murder-for-hire tale cuts back and forth across international lines.

"This case illustrates we live in a world where borders and boundaries are increasingly irrelevant," said FBI Director Robert Mueller.

According to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in New York, the plot was revealed by an informant inside the world of the Mexican drug trade, a man paid by U.S. drug agents to rat out traffickers.

The complaint describes the informant as someone who was previously charged for violating drug laws in the United States but got the charges dismissed by agreeing to cooperate with U.S. drug investigations. U.S. officials trusted the informant because he had proved reliable in the past and led to several drug seizures — and the informant was paid for those tips.

In May 2011, the informant allegedly met with a Texas man named Manssor Arbabsiar, a 56-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen who also had an Iranian passport. The complaint doesn't say how the two were introduced, but Arbabsiar reportedly approached the informant, who he thought was an associate of a drug cartel well known for its violent tactics, to ask about his knowledge of explosives for an attack on a Saudi embassy.

The informant reached out to his contacts in the United States to tell them all about it. Rep. Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said he was told the informant was "somebody who was in one of the drug cartels, credible, long history, was fully capable of conducting the kind of operation the Iranian was asking for."

"This guy brought it to us, and from there it was laid out in front of us as they went forward," the Michigan Republican said.

The complaint said Arbabsiar and the informant met several more times in Mexico over the next few months, with the informant secretly recording their conversations for U.S. authorities. The two spoke English and their discussions became more focused on a specific target for violence — the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Adel al-Jubeir, a U.S.-educated commoner sent to the United States to repair relations after the Sept. 11 attacks who has been ambassador since 2007.

The complaint said Arbabsiar has fully confessed to his role in the operation and said he was recruited, funded and directed by Iran's special foreign actions unit known as the Quds Force. Arbabsiar said his cousin Abdul Reza Shahlai was a high-ranking member of the Quds Force who approached him this past spring to ask for his cooperation. Arbabsiar said he frequently traveled between the U.S. and Mexico for work and knew people he believed were in the drug trade, and his cousin asked him if he could recruit someone in the narcotics business for criminal activity.

U.S. officials say Shahlai has a violent past — the Bush administration accused him of planning a Jan. 20, 2007, attack in Karbala, Iraq, that killed five American soldiers and wounded three others. This time, according to U.S. officials, Shahlai and other Quds agents approved a plot to pay their Mexican drug contact $1.5 million for the death of the ambassador — making a $100,000 down payment to an account the informant provided.

According to transcripts of their recorded conversations cited in the complaint, the informant told Arbabsiar he would kill the ambassador however he wanted — "blow him up or shoot him" — and Arbabsiar responded he should use whatever method was easiest. The plot eventually centered on targeting Al-Jubeir in his favorite restaurant and Arbabsiar was quoted as saying killing him alone would be better, "but sometime, you know, you have no choice." Arbabsiar dismisses the possibility that 100-150 others in the restaurant could be killed along with the ambassador as "no problem" and "no big deal."

Eventually, according to the complaint, the informant told Arbabsiar he must come to Mexico to offer himself as "collateral" for the final payment of the $1.5 million fee for the assassination. Arbabsiar said his cousin's deputy at the Quds Force — Gholam Shakuri, also charged in the complaint but at large in Iran — warned him against offering himself as a guarantee of payment. But Arbabsiar went anyway, boarding a flight to Mexico on Sept. 28 with plans to fly to Iran after the plot was finished.

Mexican authorities, who say they had been cooperating with U.S. officials in the investigation, denied Arbabsiar entry into the country and he boarded a flight to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. Law enforcement officials secretly boarded with him to keep him under surveillance, and he was arrested when he got off the plane in New York.

Arbabsiar agreed to cooperate with U.S. authorities and made several recorded phone calls to Shakuri in which they discussed the purchase of a "Chevrolet," their agreed-upon code-word for the plot. Shakuri urged Arbabsiar to make sure they "just do it quickly."

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