The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps declares its targeting of “espionage headquarters and terrorist gatherings” in both Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan. This action is in response to the two terrorist attacks that occurred in Kerman earlier this month.
The Islamic Revolution Guard Corps in Iran announced it targeted “the headquarters of terrorist groups in the region with ballistic missiles.” According to the IRGC statement, the attack came in response to “the terrorist crimes recently committed by Iran’s enemies.”
The Revolutionary Guard specified that its target included “gatherings of terrorists linked to the terrorist operations carried out in Iran recently.”
In a subsequent statement, the Revolutionary Guard confirmed that it had targeted “one of the main headquarters of the Israeli Mossad in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.” This action was stated to be a response to the Israeli occupation entity’s assassination of leaders within the Revolutionary Guard and the Axis of Resistance.
It explained that the targeted Mossad headquarters is “the center for developing espionage operations and planning terrorist operations in the region, especially against Iran.”
On the other hand, Al Mayadeen‘s correspondent in Syria reported the sounds of explosions that shook the city of Aleppo. Preliminary information suggested missile strikes targeting locations in the southeastern part of the city.
Simultaneously, Al Mayadeen’s correspondent in Iraq reported that “the sounds of at least seven explosions were heard in Erbil” within the Kurdistan region, highlighting the presence of sirens at the American consulate in the city.
🚨 BREAKING: Alarms sound at the US consulate in Erbil in northern Iraq, which has reportedly come under fire of a ballistic missile or heavy drone attack. At least eight explosions have been heard.
Reuters, citing security sources, reported that “Erbil Airport in Iraqi Kurdistan region halts air traffic after explosions were heard in the city”
Moreover, two US officials told Reuters that the missile strikes in Iraq did not affect any US facilities and there were no US casualties.
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Zodiac Maritime, the Mercer Street’s operator, has a long history of working closely with both the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and Israeli intelligence unit Mossad, using its ships to ferry arms and operatives around the region for covert operations, including assassinations.
GULF OF OMAN — Earlier this summer, the Israeli-operated oil tanker Mercer Street was attacked by drones, allegedly emanating from Iran, disabling the ship and killing two people on board. The incident, portrayed as an unprovoked attack on a civilian vessel, caused worldwide outrage, and marked a new low in Iranian relations with Israel and its Western allies. But a MintPress investigation can now reveal that Zodiac Maritime, the Mercer Street’s operator, has a long history of working closely with both the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and Israeli intelligence unit Mossad, using its ships to ferry arms and operatives around the region for covert operations, including assassinations.
Zodiac Killers
Zodiac Maritime is a worldwide shipping conglomerate owned and operated by the Ofer family. Brothers Eyal and Idan Ofer are Israel’s third and ninth richest billionaires, respectively, having taken over the business from their father, Sammy. The company also has a long history of working alongside the Israeli government on special operations.
Defying American sanctions, for years, Zodiac ships continued to trade with the Islamic Republic, docking regularly in Iranian ports. By the time of Sammy’s death in 2011, the U.S. government was investigating the firm and the Treasury Department had announced sanctions against it for supposedly helping Iran skirt round the American-imposed blockade.
Why such a well-established Israeli firm would breach sanctions and collaborate with an enemy state in Iran also mystified many Israeli officials, who launched their own inquiry. However, the government hearing on the affair was abruptly shut down after the chair was passed a note by a “very high-ranking security official” — that official rumored to have been Mossad Director Tamir Pardo. As soon as Committee Chairman Carmel Shama read the message, he immediately ordered all press to leave the meeting and finished the event behind closed doors. “Let’s just be clear: the note is not from a political figure and not from a business figure. It turns out that reality is much more complex, much more complicated and touchy than the average imagination can handle,” Shama offered as an explanation. The reaction from both the Knesset and the United States government suggests that this agreement was extremely secret indeed, with operations going on behind both of their backs.
The news, which Israeli media had christened “OferGate,” was immediately dropped and glossed over, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisting that the elderly Sammy Ofer, who died the same week, was a “Zionist through and through.” Meir Dagan, who had recently retired as director of Mossad, concurred, stating that the case had been “blown out of proportion,” and hinted that the Ofer family may have actually been acting in the service of the state.
Among such known missions are Zodiac Maritime cargo ships with modified hulls being used to ferry Israeli Black Hawk helicopters to Iran, where they were used by elite commando teams in reconnaissance missions against the Islamic Republic’s alleged nuclear programs. Zodiac Maritime’s business relationship with Iranian ports and shipping companies was crucial to this endeavor, providing both the cover and the means to enter Iranian waters without attracting suspicion.
The year before OferGate blew up in Israeli media, the billionaire clan’s boats were used in a successful assassination mission against Palestinian leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Mossad killed the Hamas official, responsible for procurement of weapons, in his Dubai hotel room, causing a worldwide outrage. Secret agents traveled to the United Arab Emirates on Ofer’s ships, posing as workers and using forged foreign passports. Reports suggest that al-Mabhouh was drugged, electrocuted and suffocated with a pillow in his room, with some operatives escaping on the same ship they arrived on.
Although successful, the mission did not go as smoothly as planned, as Emirati police were able to identify a number of the perpetrators. Australia, the United Kingdom and Ireland expelled Israeli diplomats in protest at Mossad’s use of faked passports from their countries as cover for the operation.
Going further back, in 1988, elite Israeli forces, under the command of future Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Moshe Ya’alon, used modified cargo ships to smuggle soldiers and helicopters into Tunisia, where they stormed into Tunis and killed Deputy Leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Khalil al-Wazir, before returning to the ship and making a hasty retreat.
The long history of Zodiac Maritime and other Israeli civilian shipping companies aiding the government in acts of international terrorism raises the question whether perhaps Iranian intelligence suspected something about the Mercer Street that is not publicly known. The vessel was travelling from Africa to the United Arab Emirates, and, when hit, was about to enter the Gulf of Oman — the narrow maritime passage between the Arabian peninsula and Iran. There was reportedly no cargo on board.
Yet any possibility of clandestine activities has been overlooked by corporate media when reporting on the Mercer Street attack. Instead, all such outlets preferred to echo Western governments’ framing of the events as an “unacceptable and outrageous attack on commercial shipping,” in the words of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
The British connection
The 28,400 ton vessel was attacked by drones on July 29 and July 30. The two casualties reported are an unidentified Romanian worker and Adrian Underwood, a soldier with a long and distinguished record in the British army. Underwood had recently joined private security group Ambrey.
Based in the provincial English city of Hereford, Ambrey boasts that its 600 operatives work in over 20 countries worldwide, providing security and training services around the globe. Hereford is also the headquarters of the SAS, Britain’s most elite fighting force. Because of the SAS, the city of barely 60,000 people has become arguably the worldwide center for mercenaries, a recent report noting that no fewer than 14 private military and security companies are based there. Ambrey itself has deep connections to the British armed forces, with most of its directors serving long tours of duty in its ranks.
The United Kingdom has close links with the Israeli national security state, supplying the IDF with over $500 million worth of weapons since 2015, much of this being aircraft or high tech machinery. British units provide training to their Israeli counterparts and there is even a small British force stationed inside the Jewish state. The U.K. and Israel now conduct joint war games as well as share intelligence. As Declassified UK noted, the United Kingdom also plays a crucial role in maintaining Israeli nuclear weapons, supplying submarine components that maintain the country’s nuclear capabilities.
Israel also enjoys significant influence in the U.K., selling weapons and funding political groups. Indeed, a recent investigation found that one third of the British cabinet, including Prime Minister Johnson, have been directly financed by Israel or pro-Israli lobby groups. Earlier this year, former Conservative Minister Alan Duncan claimed that he was blocked from being appointed Middle East Minister by Israeli pressure groups “for no other reason than that I believe in the rights of the Palestinians.” “The Israelis think they control the Foreign Office. And they do!” he added — a statement that goes beyond even the wildest remarks of Labor politicians accused of anti-Semitism.
Zodiac Maritime and the Ofer family also have close connections with Great Britain. Sammy Ofer himself served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War. And although Zodiac Maritime is legally based in Monaco, its day-to-day operations are run from London, with much of its fleet registered in Britain. Ofer donated substantial sums to British institutions, giving £20 million (around $27 million) to the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich in East London and £3.3 million (~ $4.5 million) to restore the historic ship Cutty Sark. There is now an entire wing of the National Maritime Museum named in his honor. In 2008, he was awarded the title of Honorary Knight of the British Empire. Ofer’s sons Eyal and Idan also reside in London, and both have continued their father’s tradition of giving ostentatiously to local art and cultural institutions.
Anatomy of an attack
Although the Mercer Street is operated by Zodiac Maritime, it is actually owned by a subsidiary of the Japanese shipping conglomerate Nippon Yusen Group. And despite Zodiac being an Israeli-owned and controlled company, it is, as previously noted, headquartered in London and technically registered as a Monaco-based operation. On top of all this, the Mercer Street flies a Liberian flag, as around one in ten big ships do. Such is the tax-avoiding world of international big business.
Built in 2013, the Mercer Street sailed throughout Africa, Europe and Asia. It was hit by a sustained attack from suicide drones on the evening of July 29 and the morning of July 30. In addition to the two human fatalities, the ship suffered considerable damage to its bridge, rendering it out of action. Zodiac Maritime refused to answer questions about the extent of the damage, reveal the identity of the Romanian individual killed, or confirm or deny its relationship with the Israeli government when asked by MintPress.
Responding to distress calls, the U.S. Navy sped to the ship, the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Ronald Reagan escorting it to a safe port. U.S. Central Command conducted an investigation into the affair, concluding that three UAV drones were used in the attack, and that military-grade explosives were used to blast a 6-foot hole in the topside of the pilot house, badly damaging its interior as well. Meanwhile, Britain immediately flew a team of 40 SAS commandos to eastern Yemen, acting on the theory that Iranian-supported Houthi rebels could have been behind the attack. That the United States and United Kingdom were so quick to act raises questions about how closely they are coordinating with each other and against Iran.
The Mercer Street is seen moored off Fujairah, UAE, on Aug. 4, 2021, one week after it was attacked. Jon Gambrell | AP
The U.S. and Israel both blamed Iran for the incident. “Upon review of the available information, we are confident that Iran conducted this attack,” said Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. “We are working with our partners to consider our next steps and consulting with governments inside the region and beyond on an appropriate response, which will be forthcoming.”
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett was even more confident — and belligerent. “I determine, with absolute certainty, Iran carried out the attack against the ship,” he stated. “The intelligence evidence for this exists and we expect the international community will make it clear to the Iranian regime that they have made a serious mistake… We know how to send a message to Iran in our own way,” he added.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, at the Cabinet meeting today: "The world recently received a reminder of Iranian aggression, this time on the high seas. The Iranians, who attacked the ship 'Mercer Street' with UAVs, intended to attack an Israeli target.https://t.co/g0BpFHJKEypic.twitter.com/Tj3zkqkBm3
Iran, for its part, has rejected the accusations. “Regarding the politically motivated statements made by the United States and the United Kingdom in this meeting against Iran concerning the Mercer Street vessel incident, I reiterate, once again, our firm rejection of these unsubstantiated allegations,” said Zahra Ershadi, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, who stressed that “the Islamic Republic of Iran is highly interested in, and attaches great importance to, maritime security.”
Tit-for-Tat spats
This is, however, far from the first time Iran has been linked with attacks on Israeli vessels. Indeed, earlier that month, a UAE-bound ship in the Strait of Hormuz, previously owned by Zodiac Maritime, was hit, with Israeli officials pointing the finger at Iran. The Times of Israelspeculated that the incident could have been a response to an Israeli attack on an Iranian centrifuge production site in June.
Israeli-owned ships have also come under fire in April, March, and February of this year, each time Jerusalem suspecting Iran. The last of these, the attack on the MV Helios Ray, damaged its hull. Ambrey operatives were also providing security for that ship. “This was indeed an operation by Iran. That is clear,” Netanyahu told the press at the time. Iran also denies responsibility for these attacks. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh stated that Netanyahu suffered from “Iranophobia” and suggested that he was using the incidents as a distraction to Israel’s domestic problems.
However, few seem to believe that Iran is entirely guilt free. National security blogger Richard Silverstein described the Mercer Street incident as Iran repaying Zodiac Maritime in kind for its role in helping the Israeli military. “President Raisi seems intent on conveying a strong message: whatever you may have thought of [former President Hassan] Rouhani, he was a walk in the park compared to what I will be,” Silverstein wrote.
Receiving less press attention, Israel has also been carrying out a campaign against Iranian ships, targeting at least 12 Syria-bound vessels, most of them carrying Iranian oil. One such attack earlier this year backfired heavily on Israel, however. IDF commandos successfully attached a mine on an Iraninan oil tanker in the Mediterranean. But the resulting blast led to over 1,000 tons of oil leaking into the sea and washing up on Israeli beaches, causing the worst ecological disaster in the country’s history. Animals and coastal areas were covered in oil, forcing the government to close Israeli beaches for weeks afterward, as thousands of people worked to clean up the spill.
In April, Iranian military ship MV Saviz was attacked in the Red Sea. Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz stopped short of claiming responsibility, but stated that “Israel must continue to defend itself,” adding that, “Any place we find an operational challenge and necessity, we will continue to act.” But officials in Gantz’s government reportedly privately confirmed to the U.S. that it was indeed responsible for the attack. An Iranian military vessel also mysteriously caught fire and sank in early June of this year.
Israel has also carried out numerous attacks on the Iranian nuclear program, the most notable of which was perhaps the assassination of top scientist Moshen Fakhrizadeh last November. While traveling between a meeting and a university lecture in Tehran, Fakhrizadeh was gunned down, with many reports suggesting that a remotely operated gun mounted on a truck was responsible. Former Mossad Chief Yossi Cohen strongly hinted his agency was involved in the killing.
Iran is currently in negotiations with the United States about a redesigned nuclear deal, something that Israel strongly opposes. In 2018, President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from Barack Obama’s nuclear deal, but later tried to convince other nations to sanction Iran based on the Islamic Republic’s non-adherence to the agreement he had personally scuppered. The recent series of attacks have done nothing to help the prospect of a long-term accord being reached.
American sanctions have already inflicted serious hardship on Iran, sending the prices of consumer goods soaring and the value of its currency, the rial, plummeting. Oil production has sputtered, as the country can find few buyers for its primary national export. The price of food has also become a serious issue for many. “The sanctions deliberately target ordinary Iranians, women and children,” Seyed Mohammad Marandi, Professor of English Literature at the University of Tehran, toldMintPress last year. “They are designed to kill hospital patients and to create poverty. They have had partial success.”
The assault on the Mercer Street provokes many questions. If Iran did indeed attack the ship, why did it do so? Did they suspect or know anything about what was on board? Or was this simply another episode in the tit-for-tat spat that has been escalating between the two countries for years? How closely does Zodiac Maritime work with the Israeli security services? What is the role of the British mercenary group in all this? And to what extent does Israel work with the U.S. and U.K. on these issues? As with so much in the world of espionage, the truth rarely comes out quickly, if at all.
It is not often that one can agree with the pronouncements made by former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Brennan, but his tweeted comment on the killing of Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh suggesting that the incident “…was a criminal act & highly reckless. It risks lethal retaliation & a new round of regional conflict. Iranian leaders would be wise to wait for the return of responsible American leadership on the global stage & to resist the urge to respond against perceived culprits” was both restrained and reasonable. Or it was at least so until sentence two, which was clearly intended to attack Donald Trump and praise the incoming Joe Biden administration, which Brennan just might be seeking to join.
Bearing in mind that John Brennan was the guiding hand behind President Barack Obama’s kill lists of Americans who were marked for death by drone it is difficult to understand what moral high ground he seeks to occupy in the slaying of Fakhrizadeh. Brennan, who was a leading critic of Trump and who may have led the clandestine effort to undermine his election and term in office, subsequently found himself in an exchange of tweets with Republican Senator from Texas Ted Cruz which degenerated into a trading of insults. Cruz responded “It’s bizarre to see a former head of the CIA consistently side with Iranian zealots who chant ‘Death to America.’ And reflexively condemn Israel. Does Joe Biden agree?” This produced a riposte by Brennan that “It is typical for you to mischaracterize my comment. Your lawless attitude & simple-minded approach to serious national security matters demonstrate that you are unworthy to represent the good people of Texas.”
The assassination of Fakhrizadeh, the “father of Iran’s nuclear program,” took place on a road near the town of Absard to the east of Tehran. According to initial accounts, the Iranian scientist, who has long been targeted by name and in public fora by Israel, was traveling in an SUV together with his wife plus bodyguards and a driver. Initial reports suggested that there was a Nissan truck parked on the opposite side of the road loaded with what appeared to be wood, though it may have turned out that the wood was concealing a bomb which may have been triggered by a signal from a surveillance satellite. The bomb was detonated to disable Fakhrizadeh’s vehicle before an attack on the car by five or six gunmen with automatic weapons who had emerged from a vehicle following the SUV began, again according to initial reports, including reporting by eye witnesses. The Iranian official news agency FARS is now claiming, however, that the attack was carried out by a remote controlled machine gun concealed on the truck, which subsequently exploded, and no human attackers were involved. It is presumed that the bodyguards and driver were killed in the exchange. Fakhrizadeh was badly wounded and died in hospital shortly thereafter. Photos of the SUV reveal shattered windows, blood streaks, and numerous bullet holes as well as other damage from what may have been the bomb.
Iranian news agencies are now reporting that at least one of the attackers has been arrested, and if that is true he will surely be made to talk regarding what he knows. They are also reporting that two of the assailants were killed in the exchange with the bodyguards, which, if true, means they will possibly be identified. Clearly, the attack was well planned, was able to employ considerable resources, and was based on intelligence that would be very hard to obtain, particularly as the Iranian government was taking steps to protect Fakhrizadeh, to include details of his travels.
The killing comes just two weeks after intelligence officials confirmed that Al Qaeda’s second-highest leader Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah was shot dead together with his daughter by alleged Israeli supplied assassins on a motorcycle on August 7th. The hit was reportedly carried out at the request of the United States based on Abdullah’s claimed involvement in the 1998 deadly attacks on two U.S. Embassies in East Africa. The claim that Iran has been harboring al-Qaeda is already being used by the Trump White House to justify increased pressure on Iran and it might possibly even serve as part of a casus belli.
The two assassinations are not linked except perhaps in terms of sending a message to high level Iranians that they are not safe even in their own country even when they are given bodyguards. The claim that Fakhrizadeh was in charge of a secret Iranian weapons program, made regularly by Israel and the U.S., is not generally believed by most authorities. Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which nuclear armed Israel is not, and its facilities are subject to regular unannounced inspections.
Likewise, the killing of Qods Force commander General Qassem Soleimani in January in a U.S. drone attack was intended more regarding sending a message concerning possible consequences of reckless behavior than it was about actually killing one man. Whatever programs Fakrizadeh and Soleimani were involved in will continue without them. Nevertheless, assassination of Iranians linked to the country’s former and current nuclear program has been Israeli policy since 2010. As many as a dozen Iranian scientists and technicians reportedly have been killed. So-called “targeted killings” have been a regular feature of Israel’s “national defense” strategy. In addition to the Iranians, at least seventy Palestinians have been assassinated.
Though Israel has clearly ordered the assassinations, it is generally believed that the actual preparation for the attacks have been carried out by Mojahedin e Khalq or MEK, a Marxist cult that came into prominence at the time of the Iranian revolution against the Shah. It is generally regarded as a terrorist group that once was virulently anti-American and killed a number of U.S. officials. MEK is a curious hybrid creature in any event in that it pretends to be an alternative government option for Iran even though it is despised by nearly all Iranians. At the same time, it is greatly loved by the Washington Establishment which would like to see the Mullahs deposed and replaced by something more amenable to western and Israeli worldviews.
MEK is run like a cult by its leader Maryam Rajavi, with a number of rules that restrict and control the behavior of its members. One commentary likens membership in MEK to a modern-day equivalent of slavery. The group currently operates out of a secretive, heavily guarded 84-acre compound in Albania that is covertly supported by the United States, as well as through a “political wing” front office in Paris, where it refers to itself as the National Council of Resistance of Iran.
MEK, which is financially supported by Saudi Arabia, stages events in the United States in Europe where it generously pays politicians like John Bolton, Rudy Giuliani and Elaine Chao to make fifteen-minute speeches praising the organization and everything it does. It’s paying of inside the Beltway power brokers proved so successful that it was removed from the State Department terrorist list in 2012 by Hillary Clinton even though it had killed Americans in the 1970s. MEK also finds favor in Washington because it is used by Israel as a resource for anti-Iranian terrorism acts currently, including assassinations carried out in Tehran. Israel, in fact, directs most terrorist acts carried out by MEK inside Iran.
So those are the players and, at first glance, one might reasonably come to the Ockham’s razor conclusion, i.e. that Israel ordered MEK to kill Fakhrizadeh, an order which was then executed. But that would be to ignore some of the politics currently playing out in Washington. First of all, Israel would not have carried out the high-level assassination without the consent of the White House. Indeed, U.S. intelligence resources might well have played a key role in locating the Iranian scientist. Second, the Trump Administration has clearly adopted a policy of “maximum pressure” against Iran, which has included strangling the country’s economy through sanctions, condoning Israeli attacks in Syria and elsewhere, and destabilizing moves, to include assassinations, designed to make the nation’s leadership both vulnerable and nervous. It is the application of an Israeli strategic doctrine referred to as “Campaigns Between Wars,” meaning constant aggression to erode an enemy’s ability to fight without actually crossing a line that would start a shooting war.
A direct role by the Trump Administration in the assassination should not be ruled out as it is clearly seeking to harden Iranian antipathy towards any new comprehensive arms control or nuclear agreement with the incoming Biden team. Trump himself reportedly raised the possibility of bombing Iran earlier this month, though he was talked out of it by his national security team, but the Israeli Army meanwhile is on alert in case of an American attack. There are confirmed reports that B-52 bombers, capable of deploying the 30,000 pound penetrator bombs that can destroy targets deep underground, have been sent to the Middle East, presumably to Qatar where the U.S. has its principal airbase in the region. They would presumably be used against Iran’s main nuclear development site at Natanz.
Israel is in a strong position right now. Iran has significant military resources to respond to the killing, including the drones and missiles it developed and used in September 2019 to devastate the state-owned Saudi Aramco oil processing facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais in eastern Saudi Arabia. But if it does react robustly to the assassination and sparks a conflict that inevitably would include the United States, it would be a war that Bibi Netanyahu has long sought, destroying Iran at what he hopes would be minimal cost to Israel. If Iran does not respond, Israel will no doubt push the White House to be even more aggressive in its remaining time in office while hardliners within Iran will also demand an end to any agreements with western powers. Taken together, that would make sure that any attempt by the Biden administration to engage diplomatically with Iran would fail. The ultimate provocation by the United States would, of course, be to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. Unthinkable? Perhaps, but perhaps not. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz is already reporting that “U.S. President Donald Trump has more than a month before he leaves the White House, and on his way out he could set the world on fire. In starting this conflagration, it seems as though he plans to strike every match in the box. Standing beside him, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be more than happy to lend him a lighter.”
A Senate investigation reveals that a consortium of Israeli hacking and surveillance firms coordinated and facilitated meetings between Trump campaign operatives and Russia during the 2016 campaign, but they don’t really want to talk about it.
Alleged Russian interference in the 2020 presidential election is headline news, once again, as a Ukrainian lawmaker is charged by the Trump administration “in a sweeping plot to sow distrust in the American political process,” reports the Associated Press. Microsoft also made claims that it detected “hacking attempts targeting U.S. political campaigns, parties and consultants” by agents from Russia, China, and Iran. In a September 10 blog post, Microsoft’s Tom Burt, Corporate Vice President of Customer Security & Trust, listed three groups from each region that Microsoft “observed” carrying out their cyber operations.
Rarely in the news, however, is the role played by Israeli cybersecurity startups in the creation of the Russiagate narrative itself. Incubated within the Israeli military apparatus and benefiting from an uninterrupted stream of billions in U.S. taxpayer dollars, these “private Mossads” have been present behind the scenes throughout the numerous Russia-related scandals fomented by the mainstream press to sow partisan discord among the American electorate and line the pockets of network executives.
Evidence of their activities has been exposed – though not pursued – in the latest volume of a U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee investigation on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, which shows how then-candidate Donald Trump personally embarked on a parallel campaign on behalf of Israel to block a UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Originally submitted by Egypt, UNSCR 2334 strips Israeli settlements beyond the 1967 borders of any “legal validity” in the eyes of the international community and brands them a “flagrant violation under international law.” Russia, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, had refused all of the advances made by Trump’s operatives to use its veto power against the measure, and Trump himself would prevail upon Egyptian President al-Sisi – whom Trump calls his “favorite dictator” – to withdraw the declaration. Together with Israeli pressure, UNSCR 2334 seemed destined to languish in obscurity as Egypt acquiesced and delayed the vote to “permit them to conduct an additional meeting of the Arab League’s foreign ministers to work on the resolution’s wording.”
The Senate’s inquiries uncovered a consistent thread of IDF-linked cybersecurity firms and intelligence assets coordinating and facilitating meetings between the coterie of Russian characters that make up the Russiagate universe and the Trump campaign, including protagonists like Guccifer 2.0, the hacker who released Hilary Clinton’s infamous emails to Wikileaks via a cell phone registered in Israel.
George Birnbaum, a former chief of staff to Benjamin Netanyahu and GOP operative, told the committee how Trump aide Rick Gates had inquired about using “Israeli technology” to collect dirt on opponent Hillary Clinton at a March 2016 meeting, explaining to the senators what would be so attractive about Israeli companies, specifically:
“These guys came out of the military intelligence army unit, and it’s like coming out with a triple Ph.D. from MIT. The amount of knowledge these guys have in terms of cybersecurity, cyber-intelligence… [is] just so beyond what you could get [with] a normal education that it’s just unique … there are hundreds and hundreds of Israeli start-up companies that the founders are guys who came out of this unit.”
The unit Birnbaum is referring to is the IDF’s Unit 8200, where these “hundreds and hundreds” of tech startups are born right in the bowels of the Israeli national security state and propagate throughout the world and the United States, in particular.
Described as “private Mossads” for hire, many of the Israeli hacking and surveillance firms that moved behind the scenes, brokering meetings between Trump’s people and Russian oligarchs like Oleg Deripaska during the height of the so-called Russian “collusion,” were working through a “key middle man” with close ties to then-Trump National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn, who was himself also working in an advisory capacity with the “consortium of cyber-spy companies run by former Israeli intelligence officers” known as the NSO Group, that is comprised of several of the Israeli startups summoned before the committee for voluntary, closed-door testimony.
While the American public was fed one Russophobic scandal after another, and Robert Mueller held court in the press for two years straight, no one – especially Mueller – was paying attention to this perverse network of Israeli surveillance companies who operated the virtual scaffold upon which the Russiagate narrative was being constructed and whose fellow Unit 8200 graduates in other subsectors of the cybersecurity industry are deeply ensconced in highly questionable activities surrounding the coming 2020 election.
The NSO Group
The NSO Group gained notoriety when it was identified as the developer of Pegasus, the iPhone spyware that was found installed on slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s phone in the days leading up to his gruesome death. NSO’s cell phone tracking technology has been associated with other ghastly events, such as the scandal involving Pegasus in Mexico, where a team of international investigators looking into the disappearance of 43 students in Ayotzinapa was targeted by the spyware, as well as Mexican journalists and their families.
One of the NSO companies questioned by the Senate committee in relation to Russian interference, Psy-Group, is currently under investigation in California, where it was caught red-handed actually trying to rig a local election for a paying customer. Another, Circles, was founded by a former Israeli intelligence officer and is “known for covertly intercepting phone calls, text messages, and tracking locations of unaware citizens,” according to a report by Forensic News. In 2018, Haaretz published an expose on the company disclosing the extent to which Circles and the Israeli espionage industry is helping “world dictators hunt dissidents and gays,” among other nefarious opportunities available in the “global commerce” of surveillance technologies.
FILE PHOTO: A man reads at a stand of the NSO Group Technologies, an Israeli technology firm known for its Pegasus spyware enabling the remote surveillance of smartphones, at the annual European Police Congress in Berlin, Germany, February 4, 2020. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke/File Photo
The middle man the Senate investigation identified is Walter Soriano; singled out for his association with several Russian oligarchs like Oleg Deripaska and Dmitry Rybolovlev, who bought Trump’s West Palm Beach mansion in 2008. The Senate report accuses Soriano and Israeli cybersecurity companies of coordinating “between the Trump Campaign and Russia,” but fails to pursue the matter beyond that.
The UN resolution denouncing Israeli settlements would pass on December 23, 2016, after four temporary Security Council members, Malaysia, New Zealand, Senegal, and Venezuela reportedly took matters into their own hands and moved the vote forward. UNSCR 2334 became official as a result of a historic breach of established pro-Israel policy by the United States, which abstained from the vote. Widely reported as Obama’s “parting shot” to Netanyahu and the incoming administration, the passing of the resolution went against Obama’s own record of using U.S.’ veto power to banish similar proposals.
President-elect Donald Trump would take office in a matter of weeks and the Mueller investigation kicked off the barrage of Russophobic content peddled over the digital airwaves night after night. Stories like Maria Butina’s were plastered all over the media to buttress the Russiagate narrative.
The legend of Maria Butina
Butina’s former lover, Paul Erickson joked about being a CIA asset and had built a phony reputation as a man of staunch moral Christian values. Erickson worked for several Republican campaigns dating back to the late ‘80s, including a stint as national policy director for Pat Buchanan’s ’92 White House run. He first achieved international notoriety as Mobutu Sese Seko’s lawyer, reportedly accepting a $30,000 lobbying contract to obtain a U.S. visa for the African despot, which was ultimately denied.
It was Erickson’s long-standing ties to the NRA and the organization’s former president David Keene, which set the stage for the Maria Butina story as a Russian infiltrator looking for “access to U.S. political organizations.” Erickson had worked with Keene as a registered foreign agent since the 1990s and formed part of the NRA’s efforts to forge closer ties to Israel since at least 2011.
Prosecutors would paint Butina as a seductress, ensnaring Erickson in a “duplicitous relationship,” but it was the cunning GOP operative who first spotted Butina during a 2013 trip to Moscow with Keene. Butina and Erickson would meet again in Israel one year later where they would begin their ‘love affair’ during which he would become “integral to Butina’s activities,” assisting the Russian gun enthusiast “in developing relationships with individuals and organizations involved in U.S. politics,” according to the Senate Intelligence Committee.
In this photo taken on Sunday, April 22, 2012, Maria Butina, a gun-rights activist, poses for a photo at a shooting range in Moscow, Russia. When gun activist Maria Butina arrived in Washington in 2014 to network with the NRA, she was peddling a Russian gun rights movement that was already dead. Fellow gun enthusiasts and arms industry officials describe the strange trajectory of her Russian gun lobby project, which U.S. prosecutors say was a cover for a Russian influence campaign. Accused of working as a foreign agent, Butina faces a hearing Monday, Sept. 10 in Washington. (AP Photo/Pavel Ptitsin)
A con-artist by most accounts, Erickson is described by a Republican legislator as “the single biggest phony I’ve ever met in South Dakota politics.” South Dakota was where Yale-educated Erickson came up in the political arena and where he’s left a long trail of burned business associates and friends. In 2019, Erickson pled guilty to wire fraud and money laundering, admitting he had bilked 78 people of $2.3 Million over 22 years and was sentenced this past July to seven years in federal prison.
The NRA has been forging ties to the Israeli security state for years now. In 2013, Trump’s former National Security Adviser, John Bolton, joined a delegation of 30 in Jerusalem for a 10-day tour of Israel’s police institutions. The honorary NRA member stated on that occasion, that Israel could “serve as a model for American security.” The legend of Maria Butina, itself, was seeded in Israel that same year when an “obscure” Israeli gun-rights group posted on Facebook that she had announced to have signed a cooperation agreement with the NRA and “neighboring countries” to promote gun rights at a meeting with its members.
Butina would meet with Erickson and Keene two weeks later in Moscow, along with Alexander Torshin, former deputy governor of Russia’s central bank and lifetime NRA member. Torshin, who has been targeted by U.S. sanctions, traveled with Butina to the United States to “discuss U.S.-Russian economic relations” in April 2015. The pair met with several senior American officials, like Federal Reserve vice chairman and former Israel central bank chief, Stanley Fischer; the Treasury undersecretary for international affairs, Nathan Sheets and others in a meeting “moderated” by AIG CEO Maurice “Hank” Greenberg. The details of the high-level meeting, two months before Donald Trump made his announcement to run for president, have never been made public.
The saga of pedophile procurer to the rich and famous Jeffrey Epstein continues to enthrall, even if the Department of Justice appears to have no interest in learning the details of what appears to be a major Israeli spy operation. There have been a number of new developments in the past several weeks, confirming that Epstein had been a longtime Israeli intelligence asset targeting prominent Americans while also suggesting that he was murdered in his prison cell in New York rather than a suicide.
Of interest to many following the story with the apparent exception of the FBI, a former Israeli intelligence officer has written a book describing how Epstein and his partner in crime Ghislaine Maxwell were blackmailing prominent politicians on behalf of Israel’s foreign intelligence service Mossad. According to Ari Ben-Menashe, the two had been working directly for the Israeli government since the 1980s and their operation, which was funded by Mossad and also by prominent American Jews, was a classic “honey-trap” which used underage girls as bait to attract well-known politicians from around the world, a list that included Prince Andrew and Bill Clinton. The politicians would then be photographed and video recorded when they were in bed with the girls.
Ben-Menashe’s soon-to-be-released book Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales describes how Epstein was introduced to Maxwell originally by her father, Robert, a Czech-born British media tycoon, who was also a long-term Israeli agent. After his death, he was given a state funeral by Israel in which six serving and former heads of Israeli intelligence listened while Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir eulogized: “He has done more for Israel than can today be said.”
Ben-Menashe was Robert Maxwell’s agent handler, meaning that he was the government intelligence officer who actually met with the high-level spy. Through Maxwell, Epstein also met prominent Israelis, including Ehud Barak, prime minister from 1999-2001, who had a business relationship with the American financier and occasionally visited the Epstein mansion in New York City.
To be sure Ben-Menashe, has something of a peculiar personal history due to his Mossad connection and he wants to sell his book, but no one has stated that he is wrong on his facts, even though his claims are largely unsubstantiated. And one might also add that last year’s hidden camera undercover exposés of Israeli agents working clandestinely to bring down unfriendly politicians and government officials in both Britain and the United States suggests that Israel is particularly aggressive in its influence operations.
One would have thought that the alleged ongoing investigation of Epstein would include a questioning of possible victims of the blackmail, to include Clinton, but there is no suggestion from anyone that that has actually taken place. And what about Ghislaine Maxwell, who was certainly complicit in the crimes against the girls who were used as well as regarding those who were later blackmailed?
Ghislaine, like Clinton, has never been asked to answer any questions about what she and Epstein were up to, though there is a Reuters report that she is being “investigated.” She has meanwhile been spotted in Los Angeles sipping a coffee at an open-air café. Most recently, the Jewish Telegraph Agency reports that “Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite who has been accused of helping late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, is reportedly hiding out in Israel.”
A New York Post article confirms that Ghislaine sometimes travels to Britain on her UK passport but that she is currently in Israel “where her powerful contacts have provided her with safe houses and protection. Ghislaine is protected. . . . They would trade information about the powerful people caught in his net—caught at Epstein’s house.” Apart from her status as a Mossad asset and the protection it provides, generally speaking, Israel will not extradite any Jew who has been charged with a crime in another country, which is why so many Russian-Jewish organized crime figures have taken Israeli citizenship. So Ghislaine is unlikely ever to appear in an American courtroom.
And then there is the increased uncertainty about how Epstein died in jail. The authorities continue to claim it was suicide but one has to wonder how he managed to kill himself, if that is indeed the case, as he was reportedly on suicide watch at the prison and he should have been stripped of any clothing or cell furnishings that would have been usable to that end. So he is dead, but did he do it himself or was he helped? There are many prominent individuals and powerful government agencies that will be very pleased that he is gone, as most of his secrets will have gone to the grave with him.
There was certainly a warning that something might happen. Two weeks before his death, he was reportedly found unconscious in his jail cell with marks around his neck. It was suggested that he might have tried to kill himself or, alternatively, had been beaten up by another inmate. There was also considerable speculation that some aggrieved part of the Deep State was trying to assassinate him to silence him.
The recent release of a post-mortem in the jail as well as autopsy photos of Epstein on “60 Minutes” combined with the revelation that procedures in the prison were irregular have reopened the controversy over exactly how the convicted pedophile died with at least one more prominent pathologist saying that the images indicate that he was murdered, not a suicide.
The photos were reviewed by Dr. Michael Baden, a forensic pathologist and a former New York City medical examiner, who claimed that the evidence indicates that Epstein didn’t take his own life. Baden had been a witness at the original four-hour autopsy, and it was his judgement that the photos confirm that the fractures sustained by Epstein don’t suggest suicide. He also observed that the noose made from a bed sheet included in the photos of the autopsy report doesn’t appear to match the wound on Epstein’s throat because it would have created a wider “furrow mark.”
Baden also said, “There were fractures of the left, the right, thyroid cartilage and the left hyoid bone. I have never seen three fractures like this in a suicidal hanging. Sometimes there’s a fracture of the hyoid bone or a fracture of the thyroid cartilage. And going over a thousand jail hangings, suicides in the New York City state prisons over the past 40-50 years, no one had three fractures.”
Per Newsweek’s reporting of Dr. Baden’s analysis. “He also wondered why Epstein would fashion a noose out of bed linen when his cell contained a long electrical cord attached to a sleep apnea machine, [saying] ‘There were other wires and cords present that it would’ve been easy to use to hang oneself within a few minutes. . . . The forensic evidence released so far, including autopsy, point much more to murder and strangulation than the suicide and suicidal hanging.’”
And then there is always the big question which remains unanswered or even unasked. Conclusive evidence that Epstein was an Israeli intelligence agent might well be derived from the former U.S. Attorney in Miami Alexander Acosta’s comments when being later cleared by the Trump transition team. He was asked, “Is the Epstein case going to cause a problem [for confirmation hearings]? . . . Acosta testified that he’d had just one meeting on the Epstein case. He’d cut the non-prosecution deal with one of Epstein’s attorneys because he had ‘been told’ to back off, that Epstein was above his pay grade. ‘I was told Epstein belonged to intelligence and to leave it alone.’”
And then there is also the continuing mystery around Epstein’s possession of a genuine Austrian passport. How did he get it? Austrian passports are highly desirable in intelligence circles because the country is neutral and its holders can travel just about everywhere without a visa.
It’s said that since its formation in 1948, Israel has carried out approximately 2700 assassinations oversea, more than any other state. Mossad take the lead in these killings. The unit responsible for most of them is the Kidon.
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 