Below is the third of several parts of a summary of prosecutor Alberto Nisman’s much longer report on the 1994 bombing of the AMIA center in Buenos Aires, which was released at the end of May. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies issued the 31-page summary (pdf) when the larger report was published. (Previously: Part 1, Part 2)

This section deals with the dual functionality of Iranian institutions — including embassies, consulates, cultural centers, mosques, etc. — in Latin America. The ostensible purposes of such institutions are used to conceal the fact that they are being used to gather intelligence as well as plan and coordinate terrorist attacks.

The following sentence seems anomalous in this report:

“The prosecutor made clear that his office has always been aware of the importance of religious issues, indicating that the conclusions arrived at in all of his indictments have nothing to do neither with the Islamic faith nor with people who professes that religion.”

Either the translation from the Spanish is less than adequate, or the writer of this summary (or even Alberto Nisman himself) felt compelled to include a politically correct disclaimer at odds with the rest of the report.

Dual use of institutions related to the Iranian regime

The cultural and religious cover to hide illegal actions turned out to be a milestone of the infiltration strategy developed by Teheran. Precisely the investigation of this case uncovered the use of legal activities, as for example the cultural and religious diffusion and commercial and diplomatic activities, as a cover for intelligence tasks and, mainly, it evidenced the fact that this duality paved the way for the establishment of Iranian espionage structures that, if necessary, are able to facilitate and support terrorist acts. In sum, during the course of the investigation it was possible to collect different probing elements that showed a methodology which consist in the use of legitimate activities to hide criminal objectives and actions.

This methodology was not limited to South America. Thus, in the former Federal Republic of Germany, Kazem Darabi, who occupied a similar position to the one hold by Sheik Rabbani in Argentina, had also been implicated in criminal activities, when he participated in the murder of four Iranian dissidents committed in September, 1992, in Berlin by order of the then Islamic Republic of Iran government (known as “Mykonos case”).

This has been highlighted by the Higher Regional Court of Berlin, which affirmed in its ruling: “Under the veil of a religious activity, he made contact with his fundamentalist fellows of Lebanese origin and verified their ideas and levels of trust. These qualities allowed Darabi, both personally and logistically, to organize the attack against the representatives of the DPK-I in Berlin, with such a detail that the act could be executed with the support of other forces from Iran, with a high level of success probability and with the lowest risk of being discovered”.

Not less important is the fact that Kazem Darabi, who took advantage of his religious position to connect the different participants of the “Mykonos case”, was arrested by the German police and convicted to life imprisonment by the judiciary of that country. This constituted a true lesson for the Iranian authorities who had ordered the assassination of their opponents. So, for the AMIA bombing, they decided deliberately and with premeditation to protect from justice their agent in Argentina, by granting Mohsen Rabbani diplomatic immunity designating him Cultural Attaché of the Iranian Embassy, four months before the attack.

In this same line should be read the dual use of Islamic centers, as it has been exposed by the French judiciary, regarding the murder of the former Iranian Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar, when affirmed: “Jaffar JALALI arrives to France in 1980 as a student; he rapidly calls the attention for his political-religious fanaticism. In 1981 he becomes an employee of the Iranian Embassy in Paris […]. In 1983, as Political Commissar at the Embassy, he actively participated of the Khomeinist propaganda from the Iranian Cultural Center in Paris […] and exercised an “intense information activity” about the movements leaded by Shapour Bakhtiar”.

This matter can be perfectly noticed, once again, in the “Mykonos case”, not only for the categorical statements of the pronouncement but especially for the authority that rules the matter, the Higher Regional Court of Berlin. While studying Kazem Darabi’s activities — identified as the “local connection” of that terrorist act — the Berlin Court detected this duality by declaring that the Islamic Center of Berlin “functions, in a similar way as the Islamic Center of Hamburg, for the diffusion of the Islamic thought in the sense of an authoritarian “State-God” and for the recollection of intelligence information…”.-

Hans Vorbeck, Government Director of the former Federal Republic of Germany and expert in the terrorism, when asked about the investigation of the “Mykonos case”, revealed that the Islamic centers, mosques and businesses of its followers were the meeting points of Hezbollah members.

In addition, Bernard Millerat, then Chief of the Middle East Department of the “Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire” (DST), Ministry of Home Affairs, informed, on September 3rd 1997, that his department detected Iranian intelligence elements in the Islamic Center of Paris, when assessing the patterns of the different crimes in which it had been proved the participation of Islamic fundamentalist extremists.

The same duality, but in reference to mosques, has been publicly proclaimed by one of the top leaders of the Iranian Revolution, the Ayatollah Montazeri, who stated that mosques should not only be centers of praying but also centers of cultural, political and military activity. In fact, Mohsen Rabbani, in charge of the “At Tauhid” mosque of Buenos Aires, used this institution to spread fundamentalism. Even one of his acquaintances, without being an expert in international security affairs or having any particular study on Islamic religion, was able to notice the Iranian agents’ double game and therefore he mentioned that Rabbani’s religious activity was a “mask”.

Furthermore, the qualified witness Abolghasem Mesbahi said: “Regarding the transfer of information, religious ceremonies or cultural meetings are generally used in order to hand over a telephone number, for example”.

Embassies follow this same pattern. Former Iranian President Abolhassan Bani Sadr declared: “In the countries where Iran conducts terrorist operations, most of the embassies members are Iranian intelligence service agents, VEVAK, or from the Revolutionary Guards”.

Also, the testimonies of the Iranian dissidents Ahmad Reza Ahmadi and Hamid Reza Eshagi stated that the Iranian Ministry of Information relies directly on the embassies; that most of the first and second Secretaries are agents of the Ministry of Information and that they change their names at the moment of being designated, hence, their real identities are not the one declared in their passports.

Jean Louis Bruguière, former Paris Judge, competent in terrorism, pointed out: “In each Iranian embassy there are members of the VEVAK, some of them officially and others, clandestinely”.

Furthermore, Roland Chatelain — Swiss Judge who investigated the murder of the Iranian dissident Kazem Radjavi — stated: “There is a clear coordination between the Quds Force leaded by Vahidi, the Minister of Intelligence and Security leaded by Fallahijan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ambassadors”. He explained the structure as follows: “The Quds Force was in charge of the terrorist operations, the embassy provided the logistics and the Ministry of Intelligence distributed the information collected after the reconnaissance missions”.

Precisely, this interaction between different Iranian agencies was highlighted by Great Britain’s Parliamentary Human Rights Group in its report of June 1996 when it asserted that: “The planning and execution of terrorists bombings are not, as it has been suggested, a separate activity of Iranian groups but it is an activity coordinated by the Intelligence Department, which operates in the Iranian regime president’s office. This department has been created and headed by Rafsanjani when he was elected president […] determines who will be the selected assassination target”. In another part of their report, they stressed that if the plan is assigned to the Al Quds Force, its leader programs a meeting to plan the details of the operation, and then the results are sent again to the intelligence department, from where a note is sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs describing the level of collaboration they will need, including passports, visas and budget. The Iranian Embassy of the chosen country is informed and the operative groups contact certain persons within the embassy who are in charge of receiving the message.

In words of Matthew Levitt: “Iran definitely sees the use of violence and terrorism as a legitimate means of furthering its foreign policy objectives”.

Without intending to conclude the matter, it will be quoted the former Iranian Ministry of Education, Manouchehr Ganji, who clearly stated that “the Islamic Revolution has constantly maintained that they would carry out terrorists operations abroad, it was never a secret”.

All these assertions made by courts, judges, experts and former Iranian leaders about the dual use of religion, culture and Iranian diplomacy to cover intelligence operations and even for planning terrorist bombings, though they are concluding, are not new, since the United Nations (UN) had already warned about the dual use of institutions when, in the resolution 51/210 of December 17th, 1996 noted the improper use of “organizations, groups or associations, including those with charitable, social or cultural goals, by terrorists who use them as a cover for their own activities”.

At this point it should be stressed that not every cultural or religious diffusion, every diplomatic activities and/or social and educative promotion are meant to cover terrorism. Such an absurd conclusion could damage legitimate and valuable activities, threatening essential liberties of the actual law system. Attention must be paid only when the legitimacy of such activities is used to conceal illegal acts that can potentially end up in intelligence operations or any form of terrorism.

The prosecutor made clear that his office has always been aware of the importance of religious issues, indicating that the conclusions arrived at in all of his indictments have nothing to do neither with the Islamic faith nor with people who professes that religion. These pronouncements only intended to point out both the criminal responsibilities of specific individuals and the improper use of legitimate institutions that have been related, one way or another, to the radical and extremist vision of the Iranian regime.

In sum, the reiterated and similar behavior of Iranian agents verified in different parts of the world, evidenced common patterns of action, which excluded any isolated consideration. So, it is the manifestation of a policy that has remained unaltered for years, characterized by the activities of religious leaders in third countries — supported by embassies, mosques and cultural centers — whose goals are to infiltrate the local community and build an intelligence station with capability to facilitate and support terrorist acts that the Iranian regime eventually decides to perpetrate.

Next: Qom schools

Hat tip: Fausta.