December 11th marked the fourth anniversary of the disappearance of Iranian general Ali Reza Asgari in Turkey. Asgari’s wife on that date demonstrated outside Turkey’s Teheran embassy with her children and others. She demanded that Turkey take a tougher line with Israel and find out where he is. Here is a summary Prof. Muhammad Sahimi prepared of coverage from the Iranian media about these events (here is a link to an ISNA Farsi language report):
Mardom Salari, a reformist newspaper in Tehran, quotes her as saying that her husband “has not defected, and will never do so.”
Then, in another website, Seemorgh.com, she is says that she and her five children have gathered in front of Turkey’s embassy in Tehran on the 4th anniversary of her husband’s abduction. She says that the Turkish government is responsible, both for humane and Islamic reasons. She says that “I am 100 percent certain that Asgari was abducted by the Zionist Regime in Turkey and is kept there [in Israel].”
At another website, Peykeiran.com (belonging to the Tudeh [Communist] Party of Iran in Europe) reported that Asgari’s wife met with Turkey’s ambassador to Iran on the 4th anniversary of the abduction of her husband. She told ISNA (Iran Student News Agency) that, “We are certain that Asgari was abducted in Istanbul, Turkey, and thus Turkey’s government is responsible for finding him.” She has also said, “Turkey’s intelligence had advanced information about his abduction. We believe that they may have had a hand in his abduction.”
If what Asgari’s wife says is correct, and given that in 2007 Turkey’s military and intelligence had a far more collaborative relationship with its Israeli counterparts, one wonders whether Turkish agents, unbekownst to the Erdogan government, facilitated the kidnapping.
A week ago, I reported that an Israeli source revealed that the retired Iranian general and deputy defense minister was being held incommunicado in Ayalon Prison, which confirms 2009 claims by the Iranian government and the current protests of his wife that he is in an Israeli prison. I can now reveal that the story came to me from a political source close to the inner circle of Ehud Barak. Given that the latter is the defense minister, a figure who would be privy to the type of information exposed in this report, this adds credibility to the report.
I also wanted to address one of the major claims by the Mossad–that Asgari willingly defected to the west, settled in the U.S. and brought his family with him. The Iranian reports above put the lie to at least one portion of this narrative. Asgari’s family clearly never left Iran as claimed and is now in Iran. In addition, the U.S. government denied several years ago that it had Asgari. Prof. Sahimi also tells me that senior Revolutionary Guard officers like Asgari are the truest of true believers in the Iranian Revolution. It’s simply unfathomable that Asgari would turn his back on his decades of loyal service, leaving his entire family behind in Iran as the Mossad claims. This is a conviction confirmed by the former general’s wife as well. As far as the defection claim, it seems clear to me that as long as the Israelis had Asgari, it was in their interest to put up a smokescreen about his whereabouts. Claiming that he was an Iranian spy or that he defected to the west seems almost perfect cover for kidnapping him.
What befuddles me is why a high level Iranian official would be held in an Israeli prison rather than in a secret facility. The only way I can explain this is that perhaps Asgari no longer has any information of value to Israel and the latter wants to warehouse him and Ayalon Prison is as good a place as any; or that Asgari has defied or angered his captors and that solitary confinement in a prison is the man’s punishment.
Richard: ” one wonders whether Turkish agents, unbekownst to the Erdogan government, facilitated the kidnapping.”
Erdogan may not have known at the time, but surely he NOW has access to top secret intelligence and must now know the facts.
If so, how come he doesn’t come straight to Iran and announce (or denounce) his previous regime’s actions?
And why no public statement that he knows Israel was involved?
As for your question why he would be held in a prison and not in a secret facility, the fact that it took nearly 4 years to leak out his whereabouts shows that a regular prison is good enough to hide him, a secret facility is more likely to leak earlier in an Israel that loves leaking!
Can you explain yet why the foreign western press has not yet taken up your story as was the case with previous (accurate) leaks of yours?
The deep state in Turkey (grey wolves) is secular, secret and against Erdogan. He may not know.
Really great reporting here, Mr. Silverstein. Maybe you will help him win his freedom.
I have no idea what is “deep state” and what are “grey wolves”, but I’d be really worried by any regime where the head of state or prime minister does not have full access to all classified material!
To give you back ground on this subject, here is a book about Nato’s Secret Armies and Operation Gladio – of which Turkey was a part. http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/archivos_pdf/nato_secretarmies_gladio.pdf
Ergenekon is another group that is aligned or overlaps with a fascist stay behind army which was set up by NATO and the US to fight communism. (Grey Wolves)
They are high up in the military and the intelligence services and have been responsible for all of the coups in Turkey. Erdogan has done a decent job of rooting some of them out and maintaining a civilian led government.
“At its heart is an ultra-nationalist gang known as Ergenekon, exposed when 33 of its alleged members were seized in a police raid in late January.
..
They allege the gang was plotting to bring down the government.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7225889.stm
Unlike in Israel where the military & intelligence essentially control security policy w. little oversight from politicians, in Turkey politicians have lately decided that THEY should be the ones to control national security & military policy. In Israel politicians would routinely rubber stamp the type of operation that kidnapped Asgari, while in Turkey politicians won’t anymore. Interesting to compare Turkish democracy to Israeli, isn’t it?
Richard: “In Israel politicians would routinely rubber stamp the type of operation that kidnapped Asgari”
Any link from an Israeli intelligence source or an Israeli politician, or for that matter from anyone, that can support this statement?
My knowledge, probably better than yours in this particular field, says otherwise, and knows that Israeli politicians lose much sleep and deliberate for hours on end, and demand many explanations and improvements before approving a major operation. The fact that many ex-generals have become politicians adds to the quality of the political deliberations since they actually understand what the operation is about, the dangers, the repercussions, etc. (Unlike Bush and the like who had nothing to contribute to an operational discussion in the American situation)
You may disagree with the purpose or the legality of some operations, but don’t think for a minute that the decision is taken easily or by rubber stamping – far from it!
You’re making me very cranky. I am simply not going to do Google searches & searches of material already published in this blog which support statements which you should know are true based on common knowledge. Again, do a Google search on common sense keywords of this blog & the net & you’ll find ample credible evidence of this phenomenon.
First, Asgari was kidnapped by Mossad, ergo the action was approved by the political echelon if it was even consulted at all. The al Mabouh assassination likewise approved. Meshal, ditto. There are a long line of Mossad hits listed in Wikipedia or any number of sites which detail operations approved (again, if reviewed at all) by the political echelon. In fact, I’d challenge you & other readers to find any Mossad operation that was rejected by the political echelon. I’m not saying this to be tough. I’m really curious whether this is the case.
Richard, the day you would be able to show us a current list of CIA and other operations denied by the US president, we will show you one of the mossad. the list is classified you know.
Cyrus Vance resigned as U.S. secretary of state when Jimmy Carter attempted to free the Iranian hostages w. a military assault. Can you point to an Israeli cabinet minister who resigned in disagreement with a major Israeli intelligence operation? Oh, that’s right Israel places all such things under gag so the avg. citizen can’t know about such operations or any opposition there might be to them. How is it that in the U.S. we know so much more & we know that some of our political leaders have either stopped or objected to operations they felt went too far.
The Church Commission was created in 1975 after precisely these types of outrageous violations of law, common sense & morality. It put in place rules that prevented the trespasses of the intelligence agencies. Can you name one gov’t commission which has reformed the procedures, rules or operations of Israel’s intelligence apparatus? Yes, it’s true there has been a swing in the opposite direction & many of these violations are now countenanced once again. But at least here we have an open debate about these issues. In Israel you can’t even know the least bit about what your intelligence agency does, what its rules & procedures (if any) are, & what oversight it faces.
Richard,
Do what I do since they are a two trick pony:
Step 1 – create a folder called Hasbara Form Replies
Step 2 – fill them with text files (notepad or whatever else you want to copy and paste from) every time you answer one of their questions.
Maybe I’ll send you my archive 😉 lol
“Any link from an Israeli intelligence source or an Israeli politician, or for that matter from anyone, that can support this statement?”
Anyone with common sense would laugh at this question immediately. What Israeli politician or intelligence member is going to disclose what they’ve publicly denied and lied about, kept secret, for half a decade?
Bibi “I am not a Crook” Netanyahu? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh163n1lJ4M
Oops, guess I was wrong. Bibi’s a crook:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/investigators-want-netanyahu-charged-722158.html
LOL
Our heads of government (state) in the west may shurely have the possibility of total knowledge, the question is wether they want to know it all? In Germany for example there is a coordinating minister (Kanzleramtsminister) between the secret services and the cancellor to give the cancellor the possibility of NOT knowing all (if necessary) and save his ass this way…
Erdogan is secular but has a Muslim identity — as does nearly everyone in the Middle East and the former Ottoman Empire. Why is it that George W. Bush can come and outright say I receive my orders from God, and that remains unchallenged, but when a Muslim man doesn’t even go to that length, you twist it into a taboo?
I guess I should have used the word Kamalism rather that secular to keep you from twisting up what I said.
Twisting is now stating fact? Turks support Erdogan because he reversed their economic problems in less than a decade, and, additionally, Erdoğan’s pro-EU government instituted several democratic reforms such as giving the European Court of Human Rights supremacy over Turkish courts, diminishing the powers of the 1991 Anti-Terror Law which had constrained Turkey’s democratization, and passing a partial amnesty to reduce penalties faced by many members of the Kurdish terrorist organization PKK who had surrendered to the government.
You can categorize him as whatever you want, since you are now Merriam-Webster and define words as you please and attribute them incorrectly as well.
@PersianAdvocate:
Do you think Erdogan’s God told him to do all that? It appears to me that Erdogan is driven by enlightened reason rather than an angry, ethnocentric sky god.
One must make the distinction and assume that the Turkish ambassador wasn’t working under the prevailing 99% on the ground opinion in Turkey that Iran’s right to civilian enrichment is guaranteed by the NPT and that the Turkish people are good friends of the Iranians. This ambassador may have been an outlier, simply put. Erdogan cannot possibly keep tabs on any double agents and the such, but the immediate after-effects of horrible intelligence (led me guess, provided by Meir Dagan) are shown above and in Richard’s other articles about Prisoner X.
Does anyone here recall the strange stories of the Iranian scientist who said he escaped captivity in the US and began broadcasting contradictory web cam produced videos claiming another broadcast, in which he says he was a defector, was faked? It was obvious from examining the videos that his story may have had some accuracy.
http://www.iranian.com/main/news/2010/06/30/missing-iran-scientist-says-he-escaped-u-s-agents
Given Asgari’s story and what we know now, one simply needs to put two and two together. Again, what intelligence is there really if 50% of the world can immediately see through it, and the other 50% need only to look within the last 10 years to realize the agenda? And if they’re lazy, just use Google.
Internet killed the hasbara star.
Mr Silverstin…. there are rumors in Israel about a mysterious suicide at the Ayalon jail some two weeks ago of a man….Could you check your sources?? Maybe it is (god forbid) THe General? It It was in Ynet Hebrew at 19:14 but immediately erased (http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4005283,00.html) Obviously it was censored ….Good luck
Nope, it’s not censored, you can still read the link on ynet:
http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4005283,00.html
Time: 21:10
But this previous link was censored, so it would appear.
ynet תעלומה: אסיר התאבד בתאו בכלא איילון – חדשות היום – [ Translate this page ]התאבדות מסתורית מאחורי הסורגים: גבר התאבד לפני כשבועיים בתלייה בתא שבו הוא …
http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4005274,00.html
this is also down now
Shmuel – if you look at all the news flashes of this evening at Ynet you will see that the news flash of 19:14c is not there any more the link works because it is picked from the cache and not from Ynet. We just have to add it to what we already know thanks to the good sources of Richard silverstein to figure that Asgari is not with us any more.
I googled it this way
http://www.google.co.il/#num=100&hl=en&newwindow=1&safe=off&biw=1920&bih=861&q=אסיר+בכלא+איילון+התאבד+לפני+כשבועיים+בתלייה+בתא+שבו+הוא+מוחזק+בהפרדה&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=אסיר+בכלא+איילון+התאבד+לפני+כשבועיים+בתלייה+בתא+שבו+הוא+מוחזק+בהפרדה&gs_rfai=&fp=a288e804a6cd1cc2
the relevant links are all dead.
One should be quick in reading the news before they get erased. Obviously someone made a mistake and published it in Ynet – Rotter and Tapuz….
Being a journalist I get SMS messages . Yesterday I got this SMS about a mysterious suicide that occurred 2 weeks ago. Usually this SMS service is based on Ynet. Having read what you wrote about Asgari I immediately made the connection. And to my surprise the news was erased immediately after it was published i.e – censored. It seems that Gen. Asgari committed suicide in jail. With your site all is well.