As a probable counterweight, the Head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, announced on October 6 that four people have been arrested while attempting to conduct subversive activity in one of Iran’s nuclear sites. He accused un-named countries, which, he said, “think that they can use sabotage to hinder nuclear talks with the West.” Salehi provided no further details.

Although some media organizations were quick to describe Mansouri as a spy, it seems that he’s not exactly worthy of the title. He visited Israel three times using his Belgian passport, obtained through marriage to a Belgian national. He rented a hotel room with a balcony facing the American Embassy in Tel Aviv and took photos. He also took photos of the arrival hall at the Ben Gurion airport. These activities could hardly be labeled espionage. So why was Mansouri arrested? Because, legally, it’s not the quality of the intelligence he was gathering but the criminal intent. Otherwise all clumsy spies would get off the hook. The value of the intelligence, if at all, is measured during sentencing. There’s no doubt that Mansouri was a potential risk, and it is credible that he could have posed a serious security risk for Israel.

Mansouri appeared to be using clandestine methods. According to the indictment, he entered Israel three times, each from a different European country. He presented himself to Israelis as a Belgian businessman selling glass for “European Folded Glass System,” probably a shell corporation established by Iranian Intelligence. The indictment further alleges that during his investigation, Mansouri’s handlers instructed him to establish a seemingly legitimate business infrastructure for Iran’s agents to use in espionage and sabotage operations. They also instructed him to seek information about business incorporation, and to survey the local needs for pneumatic tools. According to the indictment, Mansouri, when debriefed by his Iranian handlers, also reported his findings on the passenger screening process at Ben Gurion Airport. The report also alleges Mansouri travelled to a sensitive security installation in Israel and took photos there.

Mansouri was born in Iran. But he spent most of the last 30 years in Turkey and Belgium. He told his Israeli interrogators that when he visited Iran in 2007, he attracted the attention of the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence and special operations unit. An Iranian national with a name changed to one that sounded European, a European passport, and with no apparent contact with Iran, could become an intelligence nugget. Mansouri claimed that he was coerced to become a spy. However, judging from the information available publicly thus far, much more credit should be given to the Iranian intelligence services — they are not that stupid or simplistic. Although Mansouri admitted being dispatched by Iran to Israel, his mission could have been a test balloon: testing the Israeli counterintelligence services’ alertness. There’s no need to be a rocket scientist — or ,in this case, an intelligence analyst — to predict that Manouri’s mission was likely to fail. His Belgian passport showed that he was born in Iran. In and by itself, that’s no reason to raise a suspecting brow. But when he came several times to Israel, each time from a different country, suspecting brows went up. One of the first things done under these circumstances is to check the bona fides of the person of interest. This would take just a quick search in the huge databases of the Israeli intelligence community; an inquiry to the Belgian security services for background information; and checking the website used by Mansouri and whether there’s a real company behind it. If the results warranted, he’d be flagged at the border during his next entry, and he’d grow a motorcade tail courtesy of Israeli counterintelligence agents. The rest is just as obvious. He’s arrested; a search of his camera shows photos he took of the American Embassy and the airport; handcuffs; two weeks of interrogation when he spilled out his mission; and soon, an appearance before a Magistrate and indictment.

Why did the Iranians bother? They are much more sophisticated than that. They would never send a professional spy to Israel bearing a passport that gave his birthplace as Iran. A professional spy would not keep incriminating photos in his camera, but would dispatch them and erase the memory card. A spy worthy of his title would establish himself as a law abiding resident; start a business; make contacts; and refrain from any suspicious activities such as taking photos of sensitive areas. Realistically, what intelligence achievements could a tourist with an Iranian accent make during several short visits to security-minded Israel? Identify strategic areas for attack? There’s no need to risk sending an operative. Just watching Israeli TV or reading the newspapers would provide ample information. Incorporating in Israel? Read the website of the Ministry of Justice.

So why was Mansouri sent? One reason could be a security breach on the Iranian end: a suspicion that Israel had planted within the Iranian intelligence services an agent informing Israel of forthcoming espionage operations. To catch the culprit, Iran might plan an operation using a scapegoat that could easily be sacrificed, and make sure that the suspected Israeli agent within their organization — but no one else — was made aware of the operation. If Israel caught the unsuspecting Iranian traveler, then it could lead to the planted Israeli agent in Iran. But Israeli security is sophisticated, too. An Israeli agent planted in Iranian intelligence would scarcely be needed to bring Mansouri to Israel’s attention.

Bottom line: unless this operation was planned by a clumsy and unsupervised Iranian intelligence officer, now behind bars in Tehran, this operation must have had purposes other than traditional espionage.

If true — and the public is unlikely to find out any time soon — then Turkey breached one of the fundamental unwritten rules of ethics in the lawless no-rules game of espionage: do not betray your fellow cooperating intelligence service, because it will haunt you and damage your own interests with all other intelligence services. Turkey’s alleged conduct can be condemned, but understood, because in the cesspool of the covert intelligence war, there are no long-term loyalties, only immediate interests — and Turkey probably had overriding interests strong enough to risk the price it will have to pay for their disloyalty.

Intelligence is traded between countries’ intelligence services just like commodities are traded in the world markets. They trade information for other information or take “a credit slip” for future exchanges.

Although it is common practice among intelligence services to trade information, steps are taken to protect sources and methods used to obtain the information. Rarely are actual secret documents shared for fear that hidden markers would reveal who had original access to the documents. For example: If there are 10 copies of the same intelligence report distributed within a country’s government — each copy has a minuscule change from the others, perhaps just a comma in a different location in the text. Therefore, that risk exists even when redacted documents are sent. Instead, the transferring organization usually prepares a synopsis of the document before it is released to the receiving intelligence organization.

The same elaborate security minded procedures are applied when intelligence agents meet their “assets.” That is particularly true when the meetings are held in countries with suspect loyalty towards the visiting agents’ country. That could have happened with the case at hand. What appears to have happened is that the Israeli Mossad case officers — probably no more than two or three at the time plus back up security — met near the Turkish-Iranian border with their “assets” who had crossed the mountains between the countries. In my fictional intelligence thriller The Chameleon Conspiracy there is a detailed description how a CIA/Mossad agent escaped from Iran to Turkey using the same route. It is not known whether the alleged meeting between the Mossad agents and the “assets” was held with the knowledge of the Turkish intelligence service, Milli Istihbarat Teskilati, or MIT, because Israel could share intelligence, but never operational activities. However, even without MIT’s nod, there’s no doubt that its agents are monitoring the towns nearby the Iranian border, and any strange face gets immediate attention.

Two conclusions can be drawn from the Washington Post’s report; first, whoever leaked them the information, probably a Western intelligence agency, used the credibility of the newspaper to shoot a salvo across the Turkish intelligence agency’s bow: Hey, MIT, you did something that is just not done. And our long organizational memory will teach us to be wary of you next time you want to exchange intelligence information.

Indeed, Turkey immediately protested the article describing it “as part of an attempt to discredit Turkey by foreign powers uncomfortable with its growing influence in the Middle East.”

The second conclusion is that Mossad Israeli case officers preferred not to enter Iran and held face-to-face debriefing rendezvous with their “assets” outside Iran, fearing that any other mode of communication, such as electronic, is less reliable. Who were these assets? Definitely not Israelis, perhaps members of an ethnic minority with an agenda — Kurds, Bahá’í, or Balochs — discriminated Sunni Muslims in Shiite Iran.

In the murky world of international espionage, multiple layers of secrecy, subterfuge and treachery are not the exception. They are the rule.

Omid Kokabee, an Iranian Ph.D. candidate in physics at the University of Texas in Austin, is standing trial on espionage charges in his homeland, after being held in custody since the end of January or February. It is believed he was picked up at the Tehran airport en route to continuing his graduate studies in the United States. Physics World reports that Kokabee allegedly divulged Iranian scientific data and was a CIA operative. The specific charges against him encompass unlawful earnings and contact with a hostile nation, a veiled reference to the CIA. The adviser for graduate studies in Kokabee’s department, John Keto, scoffed at Internet accounts that depicted the accused as a renowned nuclear physicist and maintained he was instead a beginning doctoral student in optics and photonics. His friends and colleagues suggest a likely motive for the arrest is to deter student involvement in the pro-democracy Green movement disputing the 2009 election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Sources close to Kokabee gave his whereabouts while awaiting trial as Tehran’s Evin Prison, which has gained an infamous reputation for the many academic and political prisoners there as a result of Iran’s backlash against suspected spies for Western countries. The presiding judge at the trial is Abolghasem Salavati who, according to Eugene Chudnovsky of the Committee of Concerned Scientists, an international human rights organization, is noted for the severe penalties he imposes. Chudnovsky theorizes that a death sentence is within the realm of possibility, as a means to frighten Iranian students overseas. His organization has petitioned Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, to grant clemency to Kokabee, while the accused’s attorneys feel that international pressure and the media spotlight might aid their client.

Several months after Iran’s nuclear facilities were hit by ‘Stuxnet’ a vicious computer virus, senior government official Gholam Reza Jalali has confirmed that another computer virus, this one borne through the Internet, has been aimed at Iran’s government computer systems. Jalali, head of an Iranian military unit that combats sabotage, alleges that the new virus, called ‘Stars’, is being used as part of a campaign to disable Iran’s nuclear program. In a press release, he noted that “In the initial stage, the damage is low and [the virus] is likely to be mistaken for governmental executable files.” The virus is currently being investigated in a laboratory, and it should be noted that Jalali admitted that researchers still don’t understand its purpose or exactly how it operates. Security experts say that Jalali’s initial description of the virus shows that the attacks use infected Word, Excel, and PDF files. His guess that it is targeting the nuclear system comes from Iran’s troubles with the Stuxnet virus, which did affect several nuclear centrifuges used to enrich uranium.

Earlier in April, Jalali told Iran’s state news agency that Siemens, a German engineering company, was partially to blame for the Stuxnet virus because they are involved with producing the SCADA systems used to control Iran’s nuclear computer and other systems. He also claimed that an investigation traced the virus’s origin to the United States. He has called for legal action against Siemens and any country involved in the Stuxnet attack, saying that if they had not been ready to defend against it, there would have been tragic results at the country’s industrial and nuclear sites.

All three individuals are scheduled to be tried on charges of espionage on May 11, according to a statement released by their families. The statement also said that the men have been denied a private meeting with their Iranian lawyer. The subpoena was delivered to Shourd through Iran’s Foreign Ministry, but an Iranian lawyer said that he did not expect her to appear. The two men appeared in court in February to plead not guilty, but Shourd did not show for that event. She has maintained her innocence, as have Bauer and Fattal. All three uphold that they were hiking in northern Iraq and mistakenly crossed the unmarked border into Iran.

On Friday, April 29, Shourd’s mother Nora and various supporters of the accused held a performance at the UN Plaza in San Francisco. Titled “Dimensions of Detainment”, it highlighted the conditions of the two men and the “utter injustice of their detainment.” The case has drawn international support for the hikers, with Yusuf Islam (formerly the musician Cat Stevens) and Muhammad Ali calling for their release.

Many observers believe that Iran is holding the two Americans as hostages until they could trade them with the U.S for a significant achievement. Although the trio had probably mistakenly crossed the border, the Iranians are using the incident, and instead of charging them with unlawful entry to Iran which carries a light sentence or fine, it opted to accuse them of espionage which carries a death penalty, although there is no evidence supporting the claim of espionage.

It is believed by many that Stuxnet was made specifically with the intention of sabotaging Iranian nuclear operations, and several accusatory fingers have been pointed Israel’s way, but Moslehi’s announcement seems to hold European countries and/or the U.S. accountable for the virus as well.

Stuxnet did indeed infect hundreds of the computers helping to keep Bushehr, Iran’s first nuclear power plant, humming, resulting in a lot of damage control necessary on the part of the Iranians. Even though the plant’s official launch ceremony was held on August 21, 2010, it seems that Bushehr’s ability to generate power and electricity has been severely compromised and its true launch delayed.

Moslehi, however, has reported that appropriate counter measures to the worm have been developed and implemented: “I assure all citizens that the intelligence apparatus currently has complete supervision on cyberspace and will not allow any leak or destruction of our country’s nuclear activities… Our domination of virtual networks has thwarted the activities of enemies in this regard.”

Like anything coming out of the mouths of Iranian leadership, Moslehi’s words cannot be taken at face value. Complete supervision on cyberspace? Domination of virtual networks? Seems hard to believe given the cyberspace sprawl and the mega attack recently suffered.

The identity of the arrested “spies” is unknown. Are they really spies, or just more hikers, nabbed under the ‘spy’ pretense, so they can be used as bargaining chips later on? Perhaps they are simply Iranians who disagree with the autocratic methods of their government. Any excuse for a crack-down.

Either way, Iran believes it has been the target of electronic warfare, and fully intends to up its defenses. Are the U.S. and Europe on the offensive?

The worm operates by infecting SCADA systems (that monitor and control industrial processes), reprogramming critical systemic elements and hiding these changes. It exploits no fewer than four Microsoft software vulnerabilities (way more than the standard one, if any) and is originally transferred by means of a USB memory stick/flash drive. Half a megabyte in size and written in more than one programming language, the worm is unusually large and sophisticated.

Various computer experts and analysts who have studied the worm intensely since it was detected four months ago have commented on Stuxnet’s unmatched sophistication, agreeing that the team behind it likely had the financial backing and support of a very technically advanced nation state. The first known worm designed to attack real-world infrastructure (think power stations, water plants, industrial units), the malware has been called out and out “scary.” Technical journals like PC World, Computerworld and CNET all seem to be in agreement that this is not the work of private computer geeks or rogue hackers. One expert told Wired magazine, that the code for Stuxnet would have literally taken many months if not years to write.

So why the leap from technically advanced nation state to Israel v. Iran? First, the majority of the computers affected by the worm, and the only servers known to have been severely damaged by it, are located in Iran. Iran happens to be the site of some extremely controversial, i.e. nuclear, industrial processes. Although Iran claims that its nuclear development is for civil purposes only, Iran’s President, Ahmadinejad, isn’t exactly shy about his beliefs that the Holocaust didn’t occur and that Israel should not exist. Israel, on the other hand, has the perfect mix of technical advancement, intelligence expertise and justified apprehension to want to throw a major spanner in Iran’s steadily progressing nuclear works.

According to Debkafile, US and UN nuclear watchdogs have reported since August a slowdown in Iranian nuclear enrichment due to technical difficulties. Apparently at the centrifuge facility in Natanz alone, three thousand centrifuges are out of commission. Natanz, in addition to the Bushehr nuclear plant, are both on the list of speculated Stuxnet targets.

There is no hard evidence to date regarding the origin and specific industrial target of Stuxnet. In addition to infecting Iranian computers, it seems to have wormed its way into German, Indian and Indonesian computers as well. Then again, if the Israel v. Iran speculations are true, a few false leads are to be expected…

As per a DEBKAfile exclusive, members of the Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS) clashed with plain clothes members of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) outside a luxury high-rise building in Northern Tehran’s most exclusive neighborhood, Shaid Babee, or Mini City.

Of course, the Iranian government hushed up the scuffle, given the internal weaknesses and suspicions it gives evidence to. Despite the regime’s best efforts, though, it is becoming well known that the IRGC, who head up Iran’s nuclear program, suspect highly ranked Iranian politicians of selling/trading Iran’s nuclear secrets to Western intelligence agencies, in return for favors. On the flip side, MOIS is furious about the rumors that Ahmadinejad’s nearest and dearest are not absolutely respectful of and faithful to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini.

The events that led to the shoot-out are as follows:

Intelligence Ministry agents helped themselves into the luxury apartment of an IRGC officer. They found bugs and other spy surveillance gadgets hooked up in the apartment as well as in others that they searched in the building. Just as they were leaving, with the items found in hand, they were blocked by men in civilian clothing, who tried to pry the spy devices from them.

MOIS backed up, secluded themselves in the building and called for more agents. However, their back-up was delayed by more men in plain clothes, who had set up a road-block. Shooting ensued and spread, and it is not known how many casualties were caused by the gunfire.

Eventually MOIS identified IRGC as intelligence – both groups had called in for reinforcements – and then MOIS handed over their loot. As if that wasn’t bad enough, it turns out the intricate surveillance system was installed by a different agency altogether – Shahid Fahmideh – that reports to Ayatollah Khameini and the IRGC’s Nuclear Administration.

Looks like within the world of internal Iranian intelligence, no one trusts each other. Each group thinks the other is passing on the secret sauce (nuclear in nature) to the enemy, in exchange for personal interests, influence and power. Of course, these sorts of internal systemic cracks are the last thing Iran wants leaking from its tightly managed, precarious regime.

I don’t purport to suggest that Shahram Amiri or the Iranian intelligence services read my July 13 Op Ed (in which I posed ten questions following Amiri’s public surfacing in the U.S.) and then rushed to respond. That said, Amiri’s July 15 appearance on the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting’s public television offered some answers, while simultaneously giving rise to daunting new questions.

First, a recap: On July 13 I wrote, “Shahram Amiri, an Iranian nuclear scientist, went missing in May 2009 during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. Other than the fact that Amiri subsequently resurfaced in the U.S., almost everything else in the espionage-thriller style case is disputed publicly. The barrage of information offered during the past 5 weeks makes it difficult to distinguish between genuine information, disinformation and spins.

“On June 8, 2010, in a video clip broadcast on Iranian state media, a man claiming to be Amiri said he had been kidnapped by CIA agents during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in 2009. ‘They took me to a house located somewhere that I didn’t know. They gave me an anesthetic injection,’ he said in the video. He then said that he was living in Tucson, Arizona, and had been subjected to eight months of ‘the most severe tortures and psychological pressures.’

“On the same day, a different video clip was posted on YouTube, appearing to have been recorded by the same person, completely contradicting the version offered in the previous video. In the second video, the person claimed to be in the United States voluntarily to continue his education, ‘I am free here and I assure everyone that I am safe.’

“In a third video broadcast on Iran state TV on June 29, 2010, a man appearing to be Dr. Amiri said, ‘I, Shahram Amiri, am a national of the Islamic Republic of Iran and a few minutes ago I succeeded in escaping U.S. security agents in Virginia. Presently, I am producing this video in a safe place. I could be re-arrested at any time.'”

Then on July 13 at 6:30pm, Amiri walked into the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, which hosts the Iran interests section, since Iran has no diplomatic ties with the U.S., and asked to return to Iran. Shortly thereafter, he flew back to Tehran unhindered.

Below are some of my original questions along with relevant statements from Amiri, as quoted by the NY Times and by Iranian Press TV, followed by new intriguing questions that Amiri’s statements raise.

2. If the person is indeed Dr. Amiri, how did he manage to escape? Wasn’t he being held in a safe, escape-proof environment guarded by U.S. intelligence community agents? Did he have outside or inside help?

Amiri said in his most recent interview that CIA and FBI agents had stormed his house in Tucson, Arizona, after he posted his first video message on the Internet. He also said that he was moved to that house, which had more comfortable residential surroundings than his military place of custody.

Amiri’s statement is a strong admission that recently, he lived freely in the U.S. This supports the U.S. position and undermines Amiri’s claim that he was in custody when he allegedly managed to escape. His new account on Iranian TV sounds more like a tale taken directly from A Thousand and One Nights, the roots of which are in ancient Arabic and Persian folklore. Why did he offer such an implausible explanation? Did he invent it or was the script written for him by the Iranian security services?

The statement is also incredible. In the first June 8 video, Amiri said he had managed to escape, and yet now he claims that he was in a house stormed by the CIA and FBI. Was it the house they provided him with? If so, why did he claim to have escaped if he was still in the house? Was it a new house traced by the CIA and FBI? If so, it’s hard to believe that, aside from forcing him to record another video in which he assures that he came to the U.S. voluntarily, the CIA and FBI just walked away. After all, they knew of Amiri’s intention to return to Iran and propagate the ‘captive’ story, per his video.

3. How did Dr. Amiri know to contact and identify his supporters? How did they know to contact and identify him? Was there a pre-arranged procedure of contact, which may support the sham defection theory?

This question remains mostly unanswered. However, in his Iranian TV interview, Amiri said, “In reality, our country’s intelligence services were able to contact me and they provided me with the necessary facilities to make my first film.”

6. In the third video he said that he had escaped a few minutes earlier. If his claim is true, then it means that Dr. Amiri was moved to an Iranian “safe house” in Virginia not far from the location where he was being held by U.S. agents. Who prepared and maintained that “safe house?”

According to the most recent version of the story, perhaps the Iranian agents he alleges helped him moved him to a safe house. Does Amiri think that the CIA and FBI agents involved would ever have let him return to Iran before they discovered and arrested any such Iranian agents? And since Amiri was allowed to board a plane back to Iran without interruption, perhaps his story about Iranian intelligence services helping him in the U.S. is yet another tale?

8. Who filmed/made the videos in which Dr. Amiri claimed to have been kidnapped?

Amiri said in the interview that after further contact with Iranian agents, he was able to hold a brief video conversation with his wife, which gave him “complete confidence” in the Iranian authorities and the well-being of his family.

Amiri did not disclose from what location he was able to hold the video conference call with his wife, however he seems to suggest that he was concerned about how the Iranian security service would treat him if he returned.

Why should he worry? He claimed that he was abducted and managed to escape. Wouldn’t that guarantee him a hero’s welcome? Or maybe Amiri correctly feared that his tale would be met with suspicion back home? When Amiri decided to return, he didn’t realize that trouble would come so soon. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said in a press conference in Tehran on Thursday that the “details of his abduction will be clarified after an investigation.” These words should put the fear of God in Amiri. Indeed, if the U.S. account is true, Amiri should start counting his days to a fateful meeting with an Iranian executioner.

Two final notes and one suggestion: When Amiri disappeared, Iranian media described him as a nuclear scientist. However when he returned to Iran, he was referred to by Iran as an “academic” or “researcher.” Is this a concerted effort to belittle Amiri’s status and his access to confidential information on Iran’s nuclear plans? Seems so: “Shahram Amiri is not a nuclear scientist and we reject it,” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hassan Qashqavi told reporters at Imam Khomeini Airport, adding that he is a researcher in one of the universities in Iran.

Amiri said that the U.S. had offered to swap him for the three Americans, Joshua Fattal, Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd, who were arrested in the western Iranian city of Marivan for illegal entry into the country in July 2009. Iranian Press TV said that officials in Iran had dismissed the proposed swap. This sounds like another Iranian attempt to show that Amiri was a captive, not an asylum seeker.

Amiri said that the United States arranged for him to attend a university in Virginia and supplied him with a driver’s license and a Social Security number, even though, he said, he had not requested either document.

Perhaps the U.S. should release copies of Amiri’s various applications with his signature on them. If these are available, it would be interesting to hear Amiri’s explanation, if he’s available for comment.

This op-ed was originally published in The Huffington Post on 7/20/2010

Shahram Amiri, an Iranian nuclear scientist, went missing in May 2009 during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. Other than the fact that Amiri subsequently resurfaced in the U.S., almost everything else in the espionage-thriller style case is disputed publicly. The barrage of information offered during the past 5 weeks makes it difficult to distinguish between genuine information, disinformation and spins.

When Dr. Amiri went missing, there were reports that he had defected to the United States in a clandestine intelligence operation, while Iran claimed that he had been kidnapped. The case went almost completely off the media radar for more than a year.

Then on June 8, 2010, in a video clip broadcast on Iranian state media, a man claiming to be Dr. Amiri said he had been kidnapped by CIA agents during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in 2009. “They took me to a house located somewhere that I didn’t know. They gave me an anesthetic injection,” he said in the video. He then said that he was living in Tucson, Arizona, and had been subjected to eight months of “the most severe tortures and psychological pressures.”

On the same day, a different video clip was posted on YouTube, appearing to have been recorded by the same person, completely contradicting the version offered in the previous video. In the second video, the person claimed to be in the United States voluntarily to continue his education, “I am free here and I assure everyone that I am safe.”

In a third video broadcast on Iran state TV on June 29, 2010, a man appearing to be Dr. Amiri said, “I, Shahram Amiri, am a national of the Islamic Republic of Iran and a few minutes ago I succeeded in escaping U.S. security agents in Virginia. Presently, I am producing this video in a safe place. I could be re-arrested at any time.”

His last video statement coincided with the most recent development in this case: the announcement made by a Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman that confirmed Amiri’s arrival at its Washington embassy on July 13, at 6:30pm. The Pakistan Embassy in the United States hosts the Iran interests section, since Iran has no diplomatic ties with the U.S.

The Los Angeles Times reports that Mustafa Rahmani, head of the Iranian interests section, “is making arrangements for [Amiri’s] repatriation back to Iran.” According to the BBC, Iran state radio reported Thursday, “A few hours ago Shahram Amiri took refuge at Iran’s interest section at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington, wanting to return to Iran immediately.”

The inescapable comparison of these events with the defection and re-defection case of Vitaly Yurchenko makes Amiri’s case seem even more bizarre.

Yurchenko, a 25-year veteran KGB officer in the Soviet Union, made a fake defection while working in Rome in 1985, ending up in the U.S. During his interrogations by U.S. intelligence community agents, he identified two Americans as KGB assets: Ronald Pelton, a National Security Agency employee, and Edward Lee Howard, a CIA case officer. The case took a strange turn when in November 1985, just before getting a meal at Au Pied de Cochon, a restaurant in Georgetown, Washington D.C., Yurchenko told the CIA agent accompanying him that he was taking a walk. However, he never returned. Shortly thereafter, Yurchenko appeared in a press conference, and announced that he had been kidnapped and drugged by the CIA. Back in Moscow, he was decorated by the Soviet government for the successful “infiltration operation.”

Questions:

1. Is the person taking refuge at the Pakistani Embassy in Washington D.C. in fact Dr. Amiri, the missing Iranian scientist?
2. If the person is indeed Dr. Amiri, how did he manage to escape? Wasn’t he being held in a safe, escape-proof environment guarded by U.S. intelligence community agents? Did he have outside or inside help?
3. If so, how did Dr. Amiri know to contact and identify his supporters? How did they know to contact and identify him? Was there a pre-arranged procedure of contact, which may support the sham defection theory?
4. Where was Dr. Amiri living? In Arizona, as he claimed in one video, or in Virginia, as he claimed in another video?
5. Whether living in Arizona or Virginia, how did he manage to get to Washington D.C.? Did he have money to pay for the trip? Was there a car waiting for him?
6. In the third video he said that he had escaped a few minutes earlier. If his claim is true, then it means that Dr. Amiri was moved to an Iranian “safe house” in Virginia not far from the location where he was being held by U.S. agents. Who prepared and maintained that “safe house?”
7. How did Dr. Amiri know to go to the Pakistani Embassy? Did anyone who was helping him know that the embassy serves as interest office for Iran?
8. Who filmed/made the videos in which Dr. Amiri claimed to have been kidnapped? You must have an account with YouTube to post. Has the CIA tracked the account holder?
9. Is Amiri trying to re-defect voluntarily, or is he yielding to Iran’s threats to harm his family members, whom he left behind in Iran?
10. Is the anonymous leak to the media that “Amiri operated as a CIA asset in Iran for several years before his defection, providing evidence that Iran continued a program to produce nuclear weapons,” a credible statement or a low blow by a spurned agency to make Amiri change his mind again and not attempt to return to Iran?

These and other nagging questions indicate that if the person inside the Pakistani Embassy is indeed Dr. Amiri, then there must be people within the United States who helped him. Could they be Iranian sleeper agents? How did Amiri know to contact them, or maybe they traced him? How? Was the defection and re-defection an elaborate Iranian ploy to smear the U.S. and deter other Iranian scientists who would seriously consider the U.S. an option if they wanted to defect?

Is it possible that Amiri did not escape from his captors as he alleged, but rather was dumped by the CIA after he gave all the information he had, and made unreasonable demands, making him a liability? If true, then he may have been driven by the CIA to the curb next to the Pakistani Embassy. Once inside the Iranian interests section, did he simply make up the kidnapping and escape stories to protect himself from the wrath of the unforgiving Iranian security services when he returns to Tehran, where he will have to provide plausible explanations or face hanging from a crane?

Answers anyone?

This op-ed was originally published in The Huffington Post on 7/13/2010