Iran raises the hostage stakes

[Klukie]

Source: Times Online

THE 15 British sailors and Royal Marines captured by Iranian Revolutionary Guards in a waterway separating Iran and Iraq were yesterday trapped in an outbreak of aggressive political brinkmanship that may mark a bleak turning point in the West’s relations with Tehran.



Read more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article1563919.ece

[jody]

1. No sweat, the Brits will be treated humanely and released after more political posturing. n/t

[Kagemusha]

2. Posturing intended for headlines. Like oh, this one.

As I said on a previous small thread, they're uniformed soldiers - there is absolutely no legal basis for treating them as anything but.

[mitchtv]

4. But ,.... but aren't the Geneva accords

Quaint and obsolete?

[Kagemusha]

6. Yeah, sure they are.

When you have nukes.

[msongs]

3. let's start WW3 and kill 400 million people to get Iran to let em go nt

[whistle]

5. That is the neoconservative position exactly, any excuse to enlarge

...the war and establish domination in the world <see PNAC>

[kitty1]

7. The Iranians want to trade their 5 Revolutionary guards detained

in Iraq, for the 15 Royal marines in custoday in Tehran.
The Iranian guardsmen we're said to belong to a group that had provided extremist insurgents in Iraq with funding, weapons and technology.
Iran denies the charges and claims they were there on consular and official business.
I guess it all comes down to proof on both sides. If there is nothing solid to show that illicit activity was done by either group, then the Iranians and Brits should both be released.

[Warren Stupidity]

8. That was the missing piece of the puzzle.

I forgot about our little attack on the Iranian consular office in Iraq. We are holding their people hostage, have kept them for several months, and Iran has decided it needed a better negotiating position.

[ohio2007]

9. I question the timing

The decision to "take" these Brits was made on March 18th by the Iranians. It took a few days to set up some routine boarding party close enough to the disputed waters. I find it odd that it was the revolutionary guard,not the Iranian navy that 'grabbed these spies' who were boarding and searching ships in the confusing border area


http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=462812007

What surprise did they find on that ship they boarded?
An Iranian commando team? Without the international Red Cross being given access to the 15, we won't know from the perspective of the boarding party.

Seems that the Brits will push for sanctions against the Iranians rather than invasion or a meaningless air attack. If the Iranians shoot them as spies....what have they really gained on the world stage ?

[leveymg]

10. What is your source for asserting that the Iranians planned this on March 18?

There's no mention of that in the Scotsman article linked. Nor did the Times of London specify that any such decision was made on Sunday, March 18th, before the event. The article just repeated some vague innuendo from the usual anonymous sources "in the region." :eyes:

The Sunday Times piece seems to imply that it had some sort of advance knowledge that something like this was going to happen.

Here's what The Sunday Times article (3/25) linked above said:

Intelligence sources in the region had warned that the IRGC may have been planning retaliation for what it claimed was a western plot to destabilise Tehran’s military command.

The Sunday Times last week quoted Reza Falker, a writer for the Revolutionary Guards’ weekly newspaper, as saying: “We’ve got the ability to capture a nice bunch of blue-eyed blond-haired officers and feed them to our fighting cocks.”

The Sunday Times article also quoted a Jordanian intelligence officer as saying: “In Iraq, the Quds force can easily get hold of American and British officers.”

The Shatt al-Arab waterway was an obvious target for a premeditated kidnap. Its waters have been disputed for centuries and were a prime cause of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.


A bit of RW :tinfoilhat: ?

P.S. - The only reference to Reza Falker on Google is a AFP story from 1998 that references him as Mohamed Reza Falker, a hardline member of the Iranian Parliament. www.iran-e-azad.org/english/boi/08640325_98.html "Mohamed Reza Falker" is also found in a second AFP article, dated January 1999. http://www.iranian.com/News/Jan99/dorri.html A Google of the quote about capturing "blue-eyed blond-haired officers" turns up nothing. If that were in the Sunday Times for the previous Sunday (March 18), it should have turned up. But, it didn't.

[leveymg]

11. F/U: Uzi Mahnaimi's 3/18 Sunday Times column did indicate that something was about to happen:

Referenced in: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article1563919.ece

Here's Mahneimi's column from March 18. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article1530527.ece

From The Sunday Times
March 18, 2007

Iran to hit back at US ‘kidnaps’
Uzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv

IRAN is threatening to retaliate in Europe for what it claims is a daring undercover operation by western intelligence services to kidnap senior officers in its Revolutionary Guard.

According to Iranian sources, several officers have been abducted in the past three months and the United States has drawn up a list of other targets to be seized with the aim of destabilising Tehran’s military command.

In an article in Subhi Sadek, the Revolutionary Guard’s weekly paper, Reza Faker, a writer believed to have close links to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, warned that Iran would strike back.

“We’ve got the ability to capture a nice bunch of blue-eyed blond-haired officers and feed them to our fighting cocks,” he said. “Iran has enough people who can reach the heart of Europe and kidnap Americans and Israelis.”

The first sign of a possible campaign against high-ranking Iranian officers emerged earlier this month with the discovery that Ali Reza Asgari, former commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force in Lebanon and deputy defence minister, had vanished, apparently during a trip to Istanbul.

Asgari’s disappearance shocked the Iranian regime as he is believed to possess some of its most closely guarded secrets. The Quds Force is responsible for operations outside Iran.

Last week it was revealed that Colonel Amir Muhammed Shirazi, another high-ranking Revolutionary Guard officer, had disappeared, probably in Iraq.

A third Iranian general is also understood to be missing — the head of the Revolutionary Guard in the Persian Gulf. Sources named him as Brigadier General Muhammed Soltani, but his identity could not be confirmed.

“This is no longer a coincidence, but rather an orchestrated operation to shake the higher echelons of the Revolutionary Guard,” said an Israeli source.

Other members of the Quds Force are said to have been seized in Irbil, in the Kurdish area of northern Iraq, by US special forces.

“The capture of Quds members in Irbil was essential for our understanding of Iranian activity in Iraq,” said an American official with knowledge of the operation.

One theory circulating in Israel is that a US taskforce known as the Iran Syria Policy and Operations Group (ISOG) is coordinating the campaign to take Revolutionary Guard commanders.

The Iranians have also accused the United States of being behind an attack on Revolutionary Guards in Iran last month in which at least 17 were killed.

Military analysts believe that Iranian threats of retaliation are credible. Tehran is notorious for settling scores. When the Israelis killed Abbas Mussawi, Hezbollah’s general secretary, in 1992 the Quds Force blew up the Israeli embassy in Argentina in revenge.

Despite the Iranian threat to retaliate in Europe, Iraq is seen by some analysts as a more likely place in which to attempt abductions.

“In Iraq, the Quds Force can easily get hold of American — and British — officers,” said a Jordanian intelligence source.





P.S. Uzi published a column in the Times on January 7 that reported the Israeli Air Force was prepared to drop nuclear "bunker busters" on Iran's nuclear installations. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article1290331.ece

[ohio2007]

12. Interesting to revisit the March 18th article at this time leveymg

I doubt the Iranian elite Quds Force could duplicate this textbook snatch and grab anytime soon against the Brits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ1b3dNKkCo&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Flittlegreenfootballs%2Ecom%2Fweblog%2F%3Fentry%3D25077%5FVideo%2D%5FInterview%5Fwith%5FFormer%5FHostage%5FTurney

At least not in the Shat al Arab waterway anytime soon.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article1530527.ece