by Global Research

The news of alleged election fraud has spread through Tehran like wildfire, pitching ayatollah Rafsanjani’s supporters against ayatollah Khamenei’s in street confrontations. This chaotic situation is secretly stirred by the CIA which has been spreading confusion by flooding Iranians with contradicting SMS messages. Thierry Meyssan recounts this psychological warfare experiment.

In March 2000, the Secretary of State Madeleine Albright admitted that the Eisenhower administration organized a regime change in 1953 in Iran and that this historical event explained the current hostility of Iranians towards the United States. Last week, during the speech he addressed to Muslims in Cairo, President Obama officially recognized that « in the midst of the cold war the United States played a role in the toppling of a democratically elected Iranian government » [1].

At the time, Iran was controlled by a puppet monarchy headed by the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. He had been placed on the throne by the British who forced his father, the pro-Nazi Cossack officer Reza Pahlavi to resign. However, the Shah had to deal with a nationalist Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadegh. Mossadegh, with the help of ayatollah Abou al-Qassem Kachani, nationalized the oil resources [2]. Furious, the British persuaded the United States that the Iranian dissent needed to be stopped before the country became communist. The CIA then put together Operation Ajax to overthrow Mossadegh with the help of the Shah, and to replace him with Nazi general Fazlollah Zahedi who until then was detained by the British. Zahedi is responsible for having instituted the cruelest terror regime of the time, while the Shah would cover his exactions while parading for Western ‘people’ magazines.

Operation Ajax was lead by archeologist Donald Wilber, historian Kermit Roosevelt (grandson of president Theodore Roosevelt) and general Norman Schwartzkopf Sr. (whose son with the same name lead Operation Desert Storm). This operation remains a textbook example of subversion. The CIA came up with a scenario that gave the impression of a popular revolt when in reality it was a covert operation. The highpoint of the show was a demonstration in Tehran with 8 000 actors paid by the Agency to provide credible pictures to Western media [3].

Is History repeating itself? Washington renounced to a military attack on Iran and has dissuaded Israel to take such an initiative. In order to « change the regime », the Obama administration prefers to play the game of covert actions – less dangerous but with a more unpredictable outcome. After the Iranian presidential elections, huge demonstrations in the streets of Tehran are pitching supporters of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and supreme leader Ali Khamenei on one side, to supporters of defeated candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi and former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on the other. The demonstrations are a sign of a profound division in the Iranian society between a nationalist proletariat and a bourgeoisie upset at being held back from economic globalization [4]. With its covert actions, Washington is trying to weigh on the events to topple the re-elected president.

Once again, Iran is an experimental field for innovative subversive methods. CIA is relying in 2009 on a new weapon: control of cell phones. Since the democratization of mobile phones, Anglo-Saxon secret services have increased their interception capability. While wired phones’ tapping requires the installation of branch circuits – and therefore local agents, tapping of mobile phones can be done remotely using the Echelon network. However, this system cannot intercept Skype mobile phones communications, which explains the success of Skype telephones in conflict areas [5]. The National Security Agency (NSA) therefore lobbied world Internet Service Providers to require their cooperation. Those who accepted have received huge retribution [6].

In countries under their occupation —Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan—, the Anglo-Saxons intercept all telephone communication, whether mobile or wired. The goal is not to obtain full transcripts of any given conversation, but to identify « social networks ». In other words, telephones are surveillance bugs which make it possible to know who anyone is in touch with. Firstly, the hope is to identify resistance networks.

Secondly, telephones make it possible to locate identified targets and «neutralize» them. This is why in February 2008, the Afghan rebels ordered various operators to stop their activity daily, from 5PM to 3AM, in order to prevent the Anglo-Saxons to follow their whereabouts. The relay antennas of those that refused to comply where destroyed [7].

On the contrary, with the exception of a telephone exchange which was accidentally hit, Israeli forces made sure not to hit telephone exchanges in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead from December 2008 to January 2009. This is a complete change in strategy. Since the Gulf War, the most prevalent strategy was colonel John A. Warden’s « five circles theory »: the bombing of telephone infrastructures was considered a strategic objective to both confuse populations and to cut communication lines between commanding centers and fighters. Now the opposite applies: telecommunication infrastructures must be protected. During the bombings in Gaza, the operator Jawwal [8] offered additional talk time to its users – officially to help them but de facto serving Israel’s interests. Going one step further, Anglo-Saxons and Israeli secrets services developed psychological warfare methods based on an extensive use of mobile phones. In July 2008, after the exchange of prisoners and remains between Israel and Hezbollah, robots placed tens of thousands of calls to Lebanese mobile phones. A voice speaking in Arabic was warning against participating in any resistance activity and belittled Hezbollah. The Lebanese minister of telecommunications, Jibran Bassil [9], files a complaint to the UN against this blatant violation of the country’s sovereignty [10]. Following the same approach, tens of thousands of Lebanese and Syrians received an automatic phone call in October 2008 to offer them 10 million dollars for any information leading to the location and freeing of Israeli prisoners. People interested in collaborating were invited to call a number in the UK [11].

This method has now been used in Iran to bluff the population, to spread shocking news and to channel the resulting anger.

First, SMS were sent during the night of the counting of the votes, according to which the Guardian Council of the Constitution (equivalent to a constitutional court) had informed Mir-Hossein Mousavi of his victory. After that, the announcing of the official results — the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with 64 % of cast votes — seemed like a huge fraud. However, three days earlier, M. Mousavi and his friends were considering a massive victory of M. Ahmadinejad as certain and were trying to explain it by unbalanced campaigns. Indeed the ex president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was detailing his grievances in an open letter. The US polling institutes in Iran were predicting a 20 points lead for M. Ahmadinejad over M. Mousavi [12]. M. Mousavi victory never seemed possible, even if it is probable that some fraud accentuated the margin between the two candidates.

Secondly, Iranian citizens were selected or volunteered on the Internet to chat on Facebook or to subscribe to Twitter feeds. They received information —true or false— (still via SMS) about the evolution of the political crisis and the ongoing demonstrations. These anonymous news posts were spreading news of gun fights and numerous deaths which to this day have not been confirmed. Because of an unfortunate calendar overlap, Twitter was supposed to suspend its service for a night to allow for some maintenance of its systems. The US State Department intervened to ask them to postpone it [13]. According to the New York Times, these operations contributed to spread defiance in the population [14].

Messages describing death threats, police bursting into homes, etc. sent by authors who cannot be indentified or located. Simultaneously, in a new type of effort, the CIA is mobilizing anti-Iranian militants in the United States and in the United Kingdom to increase the chaos. A Practical Guide to revolution in Iran was distributed to them, which contains a number of recommendations, including: set Twitter accounts feeds to Tehran time zone; centralize messages on the following Twitter accounts @stopAhmadi, #iranelection and #gr88 ; official Iranian State websites should not be attacked. « Let the US military take care of it » (sic). When applied, these recommendations make it impossible to authenticate any Twitter messages. It is impossible to know if they are being sent by witnesses of the demonstrations in Tehran or by CIA agents in Langley, and it is impossible to distinguish real from false ones. The goal is to create more and more confusion and to push Iranians to fight amongst themselves.

Army general staffs everywhere in the world are closely following the events in Tehran. They are trying to evaluate the efficiency of this new subversion method in the Iranian experimental field. Evidently, the destabilization process worked. But it is unclear if the CIA will be able to channel demonstrators to do what the Pentagon has renounced to do, and what they do not want to do themselves : to change the regime and put an end to the Islamic revolution.

Thierry Meyssan is prminent journalist and author, president of the Voltaire Network, translated from French

Notes

[1] « Obama Speech In Cairo », Voltaire Network, 6 June 2009.
[2] « BP-Amoco, coalition pétrolière anglo-saxonne », Arthur Lepic, Voltaire Network, June 10 2004.
[3] On the 1953 coup, the reference work is All the Shah’s Men : An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, by Stephen Kinzer, John Wiley & Sons éd (2003), 272 pp.
[4] « La société iranienne paralysée », Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, 5 février 2004.
[5] « Taliban using Skype phones to dodge MI6 », Glen Owen, Mail Online, September 13 2008.
[6] « NSA offering ’billions’ for Skype eavesdrop solution », Lewis Page, The Register, February 12 2009.
[7] « Taliban Threatens Cell Towers », Noah Shachtman, Wired, February 25 2008.
[8] Jawwal belongs to PalTel, Palestinian billionaire Munib Al-Masri’s company.
[9] Jibran Bassil is one of the main leaders of the ‘Courant patriotique libre’, the nationalist party of Michel Aoun.
[10] « Freed Lebanese say they will keep fighting Israel », Associated Press, July 17 2008.
[11] The author of this article witnessed these phone calls. Also see « Strange Israeli phone calls alarm Syrians. Israeli intelligence services accused of making phone calls to Syrians in bid to recruit agents », Syria News Briefing, December 4 2008.
[12] Quoted in « Ahmadinejad won. Get over it », Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett, Politico, June 15 2009.
[13] « U.S. State Department speaks to Twitter over Iran », Reuters, June 16 2009.
[14] « Social Networks Spread Defiance Online », Brad Stone and Noam Cohen, The New York Times, June 15 2009.

by Steve Watson, Infowars.net

Iran’s interior minister, Sadeq Mahsouli has accused Western intelligence of backing the riots in Iran following the controversial election results.

Mahsouli’s comments were given very little mainstream media coverage, but were picked up by AFP and Reuters.

Mahsouli has claimed that U.S., U.K., and Israeli interests are behind the unrest.

“Britain, America and the Zionist regime (Israel) were behind the recent unrest in Tehran,” the Interior Minister was quoted as saying by the semi-official Fars News Agency.

“Many of the rioters were in contact with America, CIA and the MKO and are being fed by their financial resources,” he said.

Of course, the Iranian government has its own axe to grind, but Mahsouli’s statement increases the focus on claims that Western intelligence agencies are stoking civil disobediencein the hope of fomenting regime change in Iran.

You do not have to take the Iranian government’s word as evidence for this.

There is no debate over the fact that aCIA Covert destabilization campaign inside Iran has been ongoing for over two years.

US Military, intelligence, and congressional sources say a secret war is being vamped to bring down the current Iranian leadership. This involves funding anti-government terrorist groups inside Iran, such as Jundullah and the MEK/MKO.

While president Obama has been quick to denounce such suggestions as “patently false”, arch globalist geopolitical manipulators Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski have both hinted that US interests are currently operating to advance their own agendas with regards to Iran and the middle east.

Zbigniew Brzezinski discusses “intelligent manipulation” in Iran

Kissinger threatens regime change in Iran if coup fails.

PressTV

Iran’s Intelligence Ministry has uncovered ‘terrorist’ plots targeting the country’s security and stability during the presidential election.

“The ministry has dismantled the groups involved in such activities and has arrested almost all group-members in two stages,” IRNA quoted Intelligence Minister Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei on Wednesday.He said that the plots included bomb attacks on several sites in Iran, adding that those behind such activities were linked with “the Zionist and non-Zionist regimes outside the county.”

One of the targets, Mohseni-Ejei said, was the holy shrine of the late founder of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini. After the plot was foiled, the assailant detonated the bomb outside the shrine and “a number of people have been arrested regarding the suicide bombing,” he added.

The Intelligence Ministry and the police also seized a group who were planning terrorist activities in the East of the country and confiscated their equipment.

“The police also captured another group, which planned to carry out a terrorist act in the city of Tabriz when one of the presidential candidates wanted to make a speech there,” he explained.

“Some other terrorist groups in the south of the country especially in Ahvaz were identified and nabbed before they could carry out any activities,” he went on to say.

According to the intelligence minister, the US and some western countries were aiming to achieve unrest in Iran’s elections atmosphere.

When asked by a reporter about the arrest of foreign spies working under the guise of reporters, Mohseni-Ejei said, “Anybody who embarks on espionage activity in the country will be arrested. A foreign reporter has so far been nabbed and another one has been questioned and his things were confiscated.”

The Iranian government has arrested a reporter working for the Newsweek and another one working for the Washington Times.

A whistleblower who defected from the Pakistani Taliban has been assassinated just days after he claimed that the group was working with US intelligence to destabilize the country.

Qari Zainuddin, a tribal leader of the South Waziristan region in Pakistan was shot dead on Tuesday by a gunman said to be loyal to Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud.

Analysts said that Mr Zainuddin’s murder was a serious blow to the military campaign against the militants, as support of his faction was considered crucial, reports the London Times. “[It] is a warning to other pro government tribal commanders,” said Mahmood Shah, a retired brigadier who had served as top official in the tribal region.

Zainuddin had rejected Mehsud’s Taliban tribe, and shifted his allegiance to the Pakistani government, following a string of suicide bombings targeting mosques and civilians.

The Pakistani government also claims that Mehsud was responsible for the 2007 assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto.

One of Qari Zainuddin’s aides, who was also injured in the attack that killed the tribal leader, told the media that a lone gunman was able to enter Zainuddin’s office and open fire, before escaping uninjured.

“It was definitely Baitullah’s man who infiltrated our ranks, and he has done his job,” Baz Mohammad told the Associated Press news agency.

Zainuddin had recently hit out at Mehsud in an interview with the AP.

“Whatever Baitullah Mehsud and his associates are doing in the name of Islam is not a jihad, and in fact it is rioting and terrorism,” Zainuddin said.

Though the BBC and other mainstream sources highlighted this interview with Zainuddin, they neglected to cover the fact that Zainuddin also reportedly denounced Mehsud as “an American agent”.

Both Iranian and Pakistani media independently covered his remarks, adding that Zainuddin also described Baitullah Mehsud as having strong links with both Indian and Israeli intelligence.

In an interview with local media the defector said that Mehsud had established strong links with Israeli intelligence services, which were destabilizing the nuclear armed country, reports the Iranian news service Press TV.

“These people (Mehsud and his men) are working against Islam.” the report quotes Zainuddin as having said.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s largest daily newspaper, The News, carried a report last Sunday that highlighted the remarks:

“In interviews to various media organisations on Thursday, Qari Zainuddin and his deputy Haji Turkistan had alleged that Baitullah was an American and Indian agent, he had killed Benazir Bhutto and that the real Jihad was going on in Afghanistan, not in Pakistan.” the report stated.

“Many diplomats contacted Foreign Office and Interior Ministry officials as well as media persons, seeking answers to their questions. Some Western diplomats were particularly confused over the claim that Baitullah was an American agent and that he had killed Benazir Bhutto. These diplomats were asking a question that if Baitullah was involved in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, does that mean that the American authorities were also involved in the conspiracy.” the report continued.

Of course, whether you put faith in the Iranian and Pakistani media on these reports, is another question, however, there have been suspicions for some time amongst some Pakistanis that Baitullah Mehsud is on the CIA payroll and is being protected by the intelligence apparatus.

According to retired brigadier and former vice president and founder of the Islamabad Policy Research Institute, Shaukat Qadir, the Pakistani military has requested US help to kill Baitullah Mehsud on several occasions and provided the US with accurate information of his location. Despite this, he claims, Mehsud was never targeted.

Other analysts hold suspicions that Indian and US intelligence are funneling weapons, financial aid and even fighters to the Pakistani Taliban.

The history of the Taliban in Afghanistan, as we have previously reported, is replete with connections to western controlled intelligence agencies.

These facts were also recently highlighted by Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, who admitted that the CIA and his country’s ISI together created the Taliban.

The Taliban’s spread into Pakistan has also been connected to intelligence driven plots to Balkanize the middle East.

Laboratory Says Security Is Tighter, but Earlier Count Missed Dangerous Vials

by Nelson Hernandez, Washington Post

An inventory of potentially deadly pathogens at Fort Detrick’s infectious disease laboratory found more than 9,000 vials that had not been accounted for, Army officials said yesterday, raising concerns that officials wouldn’t know whether dangerous toxins were missing.

After four months of searching about 335 freezers and refrigerators at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Frederick, investigators found 9,220 samples that hadn’t been included in a database of about 66,000 items listed as of February, said Col. Mark Kortepeter, the institute’s deputy commander.

The vials contained some dangerous pathogens, among them the Ebola virus, anthrax bacteria and botulinum toxin, and less lethal agents such as Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus and the bacterium that causes tularemia. Most of them, forgotten inside freezer drawers, hadn’t been used in years or even decades. Officials said some serum samples from hemorrhagic fever patients dated to the Korean War.

Kortepeter likened the inventory to cleaning out the attic and said he knew of no plans for an investigation into how the vials had been left out of the database. “The vast majority of these samples were working stock that were accumulated over decades,” he said, left there by scientists who had retired or left the institute.

“I can’t say that nothing did [leave the lab], but I can say that we think it’s extremely unlikely,” Kortepeter said.

Still, the overstock and the previous inaccuracy of the database raised the possibility that someone could have taken a sample outside the lab with no way for officials to know something was missing.

“Nine thousand, two hundred undocumented samples is an extraordinarily serious breach,” said Richard H. Ebright, a professor at Rutgers University who follows biosecurity. “A small number would be a concern; 9,200 . . . at an institution that has been the focus of intense scrutiny on this issue, that’s deeply worrisome. Unacceptable.”

The institute has been under pressure to tighten security in the wake of the 2001 anthrax attacks, which killed five people and sickened 17. FBI investigators say they think the anthrax strain used in the attacks originated at the Army lab, and its prime suspect, Bruce E. Ivins, researched anthrax there. Ivins committed suicide last year during an investigation into his activities.

Kortepeter noted that since 2001 the lab has imposed multiple layers of security to check people entering and leaving, that there are now cameras in the labs, and that employees are subjected to a reliability program and random inspections.

“The bottom line is, we have a lot of buffers to prevent anybody who shouldn’t be getting into the laboratory,” Kortepeter said.

Sam Edwin, the institute’s inventory control officer, said most of the samples found were vials with tiny amounts of pathogens that would thaw quickly and die once they were taken out of a freezer, making smuggling something off the base difficult.

The probe began in February, when a problem accounting for Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus triggered the suspension of most research at the lab. A spot check in January found 20 samples of the virus in a box of vials instead of the 16 listed in the institute’s database. Most work was stopped until the institute could take a thorough inventory of its stock of viruses and bacteria.

Edwin said about 50 percent of the samples that had been found were destroyed. The rest were added to the catalog. Because the lab will now conduct an inventory every year, “it’s really less likely that we will be in a situation like this again,” he said.

Procedures have changed, too. Scientists who have worked at the lab said that in the past, departing scientists turned over their logbooks to their successors, but records were sometimes incomplete or complex. As generations of scientists passed through, the knowledge of what was in the freezers was lost. With a comprehensive database, every sample is now tracked until it is destroyed or transferred.

But some scientists are skeptical. Unlike uranium or chemical weapons, pathogens are living materials that can replicate and die. A small amount can easily be turned into a large amount. They said the strict inventories slow their work without guaranteeing security.