Public Intelligence

Israel’s intelligence services agree with American intelligence assessments that there is not enough proof to determine whether Iran is building a nuclear bomb, according to a report published Sunday in the New York Times. The newspaper said that senior American officials believe there is little disagreement between the Mossad and U.S. intelligence agencies over Iran’s nuclear program, despite the fact that Israeli political leaders have been pushing for quick action to block Iran from becoming what they describe as an existential threat.

Senior Iranian parliamentary officials announced that the country has arrested 12 agents of the American Central Intelligence Agency. Member of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Parviz Sorouri said that the agents had been operating in coordination with Israel’s Mossad and other regional agencies, and targeted the country’s military and its nuclear program. “The US and Zionist regime’s espionage apparatuses were trying to damage Iran both from inside and outside with a heavy blow, using regional intelligence services,” Sorouri told the Islamic republic news agency on Wednesday.

In public Sunday, President Obama was at a summit unsuccessfully leaning on Russia and China to back diplomatic efforts to curb Iran’s nuke program. In private Sunday, there was more evidence of an efficient and brutal covert operation that continues to degrade Iran’s military capabilities. Iranian officials revealed that one of the 17 men killed in a huge explosion at a munitions depot was a key Revolutionary Guard commander who headed Iran’s missile program. And the IRNA state news agency reported that scientists had discovered a new computer virus in their systems, a more sophisticated version of the Stuxnet worm deployed last year to foul up Iran’s centrifuges.

One atomic researcher after the other has died in a series of recent murders in Iran. Is Israel’s Mossad trying to sabotage the construction of a nuclear bomb with the attacks? Officials in Jerusalem aren’t denying anything. Israeli military generals are even more hawkish, and their calls for air strikes on Iran are growing louder. “Israel is not responding,” Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said earlier this week when asked if his country had been involved in the latest slaying of an Iranian nuclear scientist. It didn’t exactly sound like a denial, and the smile on his face suggested Israel isn’t too bothered by suspicions that it is responsible for a series of murders of physicists involved in the controversial Iranian nuclear program. There is little doubt in the shadowy world of intelligence agencies that Israel is behind the assassination of Darioush Rezaei. “That was the first serious action taken by the new Mossad chief Tamir Pardo,” an Israeli intelligence source told SPIEGEL ONLINE.

The United States declined a request from the United Arab Emirates to assist an investigation into the assassination of a top Hamas commander. Dubai suspects Israel’s Mossad agency to have been behind the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhoh in a Dubai hotel in January 2010. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied a role in the killing. The U.S. last year denied reports that it had received a request for assistance from Dubai, but a recently released WikiLeaks cable proves otherwise.

This undated photo released by the Dubai Ruler’s Media Office on Monday, Feb. 15, 2010, is claimed by Dubai’s Police Chief to show a man named Michael Bodenheimer of German nationality, who has been identified as Uri Brodsky, one of eleven suspects wanted in connection with the killing of a Hamas [...]

The Israeli suspected of forging a German passport allegedly used in the January assassination of a Hamas operative landed in Israel last night. The arrival of the man, identified as Uri Brodsky, came after a German court released him on bail following his extradition from Poland to Germany on Thursday. A court in the German city of Koln subsequently said Brodsky will be allowed to leave the country while proceedings against him continue. He will be represented by his attorneys in court. Brodsky, who is expected to face charges of forgery, faces a maximum penalty of three years. The Polish court that authorized his extradition limited the ability of German authorities to charge him with more serious crimes, noting the only available evidence related to the illegal procurement of a German passport.

Lebanese newspaper Al Diyar reported Thursday that a former Lebanese army officer who is suspected of spying for Israel has fled Lebanon. The man is currently in Frankfurt, the report said. The suspect, Rasan al-Jud, is suspected of aiding Israel with the help of employees at Alfa, the state-owned mobile telecom company. Lebanese security forces were searching for four other suspects – all technicians from the company – who have also fled Lebanon, the newspaper reported.

The head of the Dubai police is planning to seek the arrest of the prime minister of Israel and the head of the country’s secret service, Mossad, over the killing of a Hamas leader. Dhahi Khalfan Tamim told Al Jazeera he would ask the Dubai prosecutor to issue arrest warrants for Binyamin Netanyahu and Meir Dagan this week. Tamim said he was “almost certain” Israeli agents were involved in the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a Hamas commander, at a Dubai hotel in January. Israel has has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in al-Mabhouh’s murder.

Dubai has banned all Israelis from travelling to the country after the assassination of a senior commander of the militant Palestinian group, Hamas, last month. Israelis are already banned from travelling to Dubai on Israeli passports. But citizens with dual nationality, which is common in Israel, could still enter on a foreign passport.

Maps of travel routes of the 26 Mossad Assassins who killed Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai on January 19, 2010.

At least two of the 26 suspects sought by Dubai police for the alleged killing of a top Hamas leader appear to have entered the U.S. shortly after his death, according to people familiar with the situation. Records shared between international investigators show that one of the suspects entered the U.S. on Feb. 14, carrying a British passport, according to a person familiar with the situation. The other suspect, carrying an Irish passport, entered the U.S. on Jan. 21, according to this person. Senior Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh’s body was found in a Dubai hotel room on Jan. 20.

The hit squad that killed a senior Hamas official in Dubai may have entered the country using diplomatic passports, officials in the Emirates said yesterday as they called on Britain and other European countries whose documents were forged to launch a full inquiry.

Israel’s foreign minister has stopped short of denying his country’s involvement in the assassination of a Palestinian militant commander in Dubai. Dubai authorities are seeking 11 people with European passports who are believed to have been involved in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Mabhouh, who was found dead in his hotel room, is reported to have been in Dubai to source weapons for the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas. Israel’s policy is to neither confirm nor deny allegations that its spy agency, Mossad, has been involved in assassinations. Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman says there is no evidence Mossad was behind Mabhouh’s murder.

This week’s assassination of an Iranian scientist was carried out in a “Zionist style,” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday, in his first direct comment on the bombing attack in Tehran. Iranian officials and media have blamed both Israel, which Tehran calls “the Zionist regime,” and the United States for Tuesday’s killing of professor Massoud Ali-Mohammadi. Washington has dismissed the charge of U.S. involvement as absurd. “The depth of the enemies’ grudge can be seen in the university professor’s assassination,” Ahmadinejad said, ISNA news agency reported. “The manner of bomb planting shows a Zionist style and they want to make sure that Iran would not advance,” he said.