- Iran has drawn up an elaborate war plan of its own to
counter the approaching US campaign against Iraq. Syria, Lebanon, the Hizballah
and the Palestinians have been enlisted to provoke a massive confrontation
with Israel that will serve as a second front and hamstring the US offensive.
This is revealed exclusively by DEBKAfile âs Iranian and Middle East
sources, in the wake of a secret visit that Iranâs deputy foreign
minister for Arab and African affairs, Mohammad Sadr, paid to Syria and
Lebanon this week.
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- The Iranian visitor found the door wide open.
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- Syria's Bashar Assad shares Tehran's conviction that
the installment of a pro-American regime in Baghdad is extremely dangerous,
a direct threat to the Ayatollahs in Tehran, the Baath regime in Damascus,
the freedom of operation of the Syria-based Palestinian terror groups and
the very existence of the Lebanese Hizballah, Tehran's primary arm for
overseas operations and intelligence.
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- The Iranian game plan as revealed to DEBKAfile was charted
step by step:
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- A. Iran's hardline spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
set up a supreme security council to formulate a plan to prevent or foil
the American assault on Baghdad. Its members: Revolutionary Guards Commander
Lt. Gen. Yahya Rahim-Safavi, international affairs adviser Ali Akhbar Velyati
(former foreign minister) and one of the first founders of the Hizballah,
Ali Akhbar Mohtashemi-Fur, who has meanwhile joined the reformist faction
in the Majlis. Their fundamental conception was that were the United States
and Israeli to decide that war on Iraq bears too high a price, Washington
would drop its anti-Saddam offensive.
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- B. To ensure that both these foes felt threatened, the
Iranian planners proposed ordering the Hizballah to launch massive pre-emptive
assaults against Israel on a scale bound to drag the Israelis into military
retaliation against Syria, as well as Lebanon. This action, the Iranian
tacticians believe, would lead the Americans to halt their war preparations.
Even if they were well into their offensive, the Israel-Syrian war would
stop the Americans in their tracks or slow them down. The reasoning in
Tehran is that the Americans would not risk the rest of the Arab world
- Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Morocco and some of the Gulf Emirates -
rushing to the aid of Syria and Lebanon against Israel, and sending the
entire region up in flames.
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- C. In the middle of last week, Khamenei approved the
plan for immediate execution.
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- D. The security council in Tehran thereupon dispatched
deputy foreign minister Sadr to Syria and Lebanon to bring its plan to
fruition without delay.
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- DEBKAfile's military and intelligence sources report
that the Iranian envoy began the week in Damascus in conferences with President
Assad, the Syrian defense minister and army corps commanders including
military intelligence and air force. He also met the heads of the Palestinian
terrorist groups operating out of Damascus. Tuesday, September 3, Sadr
arrived in Lebanon for a marathon round of talks with Hizballah secretary
general Hassan Nasrallah and two senior lieutenants, Hashem Saffi-e-din
and Naim Kassem.
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- All these talks were termed by our sources operational-tactical,
covering also Iranâs plan for coordinating the field action among
the various Syrian and Lebanese military and terrorist forces. Upon Sadr's
request and with Assadâs permission, a delegation of Palestinian
leaders and operations officers based in Damascus was secretly invited
to Beirut Tuesday to discuss Palestinian integration in the war plan formulated
in Tehran with Qadr Nureddin, the Hizballah's south Lebanon commander.
In particular, they talked about roping in the inmates of the large Palestinian
refugee camp of Ein Hilwa ö both for military operations against Israel
and for a cycle of terrorist strikes against American targets around the
Middle East.
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- According to our sources, the Hizballah greeted their
new directives from Tehran with enthusiasm and are preparing very shortly
to launch a fresh wave of anti-Israel military operations to begin in the
region of Ajar, a border village straddling the Lebanese-Israeli border.
The Lebanese terrorist group will claim it is thwarting Israeli moves to
interfere with Lebanon's exploitation project for the WazzaniRiver sources.
From this drummed up pretext, the Lebanese Shiite group will branch the
action out into a massive assault.
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- E. DEBKAfile's intelligence and counter-terror sources
reveal too that Iran has scheduled the opening of a 'Palestinian workshop'
for Wednesday, September 4, in Tehran, to which Palestinians and Lebanese,
most actively engaged in terrorism, have been invited. The event will proceed
for three days behind closed doors and entail studies of innovative suicidal
terror techniques, hinging on Islamic tenets. Iranian intelligence experts
will hold lectures on novel methods of target selection and the vulnerabilities
of the United States and Israel to terrorism. The chief lecturer at the
- 'Palestinian workshop' will be Abdallah Safi-Id-a-Din,
one of the top operations aides of the Iranian-Lebanese master terrorist
Imad Murghniyeh, who this year switched his center of operations to south
Lebanon.
- <http://www.debka.com/>http://www.debka.com
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