OPINION | Lana Marks 'assassination plot': Pretoria is on Iran’s🌹🌹🌹
🌹🌹🌹terror target list
Iran’s alleged intent to assassinate a US official on South
African soil fits into a
well-worn pattern of the regime using diplomatic cover to foment terrorism.
Before a plot becomes operational, Tehran tends to look for three major
conditions to be present in their theatre of operations: facility, friendliness
and familiarity. South Africa’s relationship with Iran satisfies all three
conditions.
As has
been reported, the Iranian embassy in Pretoria was allegedly used to plot
an assassination of US Ambassador Lana Marks.
While some
observers have cast doubt on the veracity of the threat, Tehran’s ambitions to
use Africa as a platform to attack US interests, as well as elevated Iranian
activity in the country, suggest that publicly available information about this
plot deserves to be taken seriously.
Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force (IRGC-QF) Commander Esmail Ghaani has
spent years cultivating relationships in Africa.
In fact, when
the US first sanctioned Ghaani in 2012, the US Treasury
Department highlighted his role in Africa, specifically mentioning
that his authority covered financial disbursements to IRGC-QF elements on the
continent.
Hamed Abdollahi
In June
2019, The Telegraph reported Tehran was in the process of
establishing "a new terrorist infrastructure in Africa with the aim of
attacking Western targets" under the auspices of the IRGC-QF’s Unit 400,
training around 300 militants to carry out the operations.
Hamed
Abdollahi, as a leader of Unit 400, was also mentioned in this reporting, given
his senior role in the organisation.
Abdollahi, an
IRGC-QF officer, has long been on the radar of US officials, having
been sanctioned for overseeing those involved in the 2011 plot to
kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States.
Since Ghaani
assumed command of the IRGC-QF in January, more finite reporting about Iran’s
attempts to use Africa as a launchpad for attacks against the US has emerged.
Mere weeks
after his predecessor Qassem Soleimani was killed, the head of US Africa
Command warned that Tehran was planning retaliatory attacks against
Americans in Africa to avenge his death. Thus, this ready-made terror
architecture and intent provides the facility for Tehran to launch such an
attack.
For South
Africans, this should raise the question, "Why Pretoria?"
The answer is
clear.
Tehran and its
broader Axis of Resistance have used South Africa as a venue for operations in
the past, and it has no problem acting unlawfully anywhere or any time.
Hamas has
reportedly been recruiting supporters in South Africa since at least
1992. Hezbollah operatives led paramilitary training exercises there in
1999, and attempted an attack on Israeli tourists in Johannesburg in 2012.
Moreover,
according to a leaked intelligence dossier compiled by South African
security officials, "the Ministries of Intelligence and the Revolutionary
Committees make use of the diplomatic bag to send arms to the Iranian Embassies
abroad. These arms are then stored in the Embassy with the full knowledge of
the Ambassador".
The document
goes on to detail how Iranian intelligence officers are "placed abroad
under the cover of a Foreign Affairs official” and usually "make contact
with… already established Hezbollah or Hamas cells in a target country".
In 2018, Shin
Bet accused Iran of using a Palestinian militant based in South
Africa in plotting operations against Israel. Shin Bet alleged that Iranian
intelligence "used South Africa as a significant arena for locating,
recruiting and running" such activities.
There is
also evidence to suggest that Iranian officials have sought closer
ties with South Africa as a counter-measure to sanctions in order to obtain
materials and resources for its arms and nuclear programmes. South African
security documents mention how Iranian delegations — including one thought to
be headed by Hassan Rouhani himself in 2005 — reportedly approached then-president
Thabo Mbeki for assistance with its nuclear programme.
South African
officials themselves have a history of complicity in illicit
deal-making with Tehran.
A one-time
South African ambassador to Iran was arrested for bribery in an attempt to help
MTN receive a $31.6-billion licence to operate in Iran. MTN also
stood accused of bribing a former Iranian ambassador to South Africa,
Javid Ghorbanoghli.
It’s this
friendliness and familiarity which provides Iran with an opening to plot terror
operations, and has been its modus operandi. Tehran used Austria as a planning
base for the 2018 plot to bomb a gathering of Iranian dissidents outside Paris.
A report by
the US Library of Congress’ Federal Research Division mentioned that
"Vienna… is allegedly full of MOIS (Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and
National Security) agents. It is because of the continuous good relationship
between Iran and Austria since the Revolution".
This explains
the involvement of Assadollah Assadi, who stands accused of spearheading the
operation. Naturally, he was a third counsellor at the Iranian
embassy in Vienna. South Africa, having similarly warm relations with Tehran,
is thus fertile territory for Tehran.
Scarce
details
Piecing
together the strands of public reporting paints a concerning picture: the
deployment of the IRGC-QF’s Unit 400 in Africa before Soleimani’s death; the
involvement of Hamed Abdollahi, who has specialised in planning for
high-profile assassinations, in establishing such a structure on the continent;
a warning after Soleimani’s death from US military officials that Iran plans to
use Africa in a revenge attack; and the permissive environment that South
Africa affords for Iranian operations.
While public
details of the alleged plot against Ambassador Marks remain scarce, those who
minimise the prospect of this type of activity occurring on South African soil
don’t account for these developments and trends, or the threat they pose to
South Africa’s relationships and security.
Iran’s long
bloodstained record of such operations makes these allegations all the more
credible.
-Jason M
Brodsky is the policy director of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI). He is on
Twitter @JasonMBrodsky.
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