CIA’s Drug Gangs & Terrorists Using CIA Created Cryptos Like Bitcoin to Move Illegal Cash Across Borders
CYBERCRIMEPublished October 10, 2018
Drug gangs and terrorists using cryptocurrency traders to move illegal cash: ex-CIA analyst
By Sam Webb | Fox News
https://static.foxnews.com/static/orion/html/video/iframe/vod.html?v=20201207163349#uid=fnc-embed-1
What is cryptocurrency?
Bitcoin and other online alternatives to cash are growing in popularity even though many still don’t understand how they work. Here’s what you need to know about this latest online trend.
Criminals and terrorists are using unregulated cryptocurrency exchanges to move cash anonymously, according to an ex-CIA analyst.
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Admin Comment: WeAreChange reported on CIA and Pentagon working with ISIS and other terrorists in the middle east. https://youtu.be/_-FX_K0YIi0
Visas for Al Qaeda: CIA Handouts That Rocked the World, the ex–State Department official and attorney reveals how US foreign policy created the crisis.
Cryptocurrency is a form of digital money that uses encryption to secure transactions and control the creation of new units.
The technology uses cryptography, a form of secret coding originating from the Second World War, to process transactions securely – and is incredibly hard to trace.
Now criminal gangs and extremists are using “decentralized exchanges” (dEX) to trade cryptocurrencies anonymously, according to Yaya J. Fanusie, the director of analysis for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance.
These groups are attracted to the potential of moving hundreds of millions of dollars in value across the world.
IRAN, NORTH KOREA AND VENEZUELA TURNING TO CRYPTOCURRENCY TO BYPASS U.S. SANCTIONS, EXPERTS WARN
The fight against money laundering and trafficking cash is enforced with the help of mainstream financial institutions.
Credit cards, for example, require identification which law enforcement agencies can access.
But cryptocurrencies do not operate within this established system. In fact, many cryptocurrencies were invented in part to sidestep the existing regulated financial system.
While most cryptocurrency exchange businesses are getting more compliant with existing financial legislation, dEXs do not take custody of users’ tokens and do not verify customers’ identities – perfect for moving ill-gotten gains.
BITCOIN IS LEADING TO A HUGE UPSWING IN MONEY LAUNDERING, NEW RESEARCH SAYS
In fact, many advertise this lack of oversight as a selling point.
Mr Fanusie, who spent seven years as both an economic and counterterrorism analyst in the CIA, says there are examples of drug cartels and organized criminal gangs in the U.S., Asia and Europe using cryptocurrencies as part of their money laundering process.
“As the crypto space evolves, there are newer innovations which are likely to be used for moving illicit funds such as decentralized exchanges and more anonymous ‘privacy coins’,” he said.
Cryptocurrency is a form of digital money that uses encryption to secure transactions and control the creation of new units; Bitcoin is arguably the most famous form of cryptocurrency<br data-cke-eol=”1″>
“These innovations aren’t used as widely compared to centralized exchanges and Bitcoin, but interest appears to be growing in them.”
A ‘privacy coin’ is a type of cryptocurrency that masks every transaction and buyers’ and sellers’ identities.
BITCOIN MINERS HAVE EXTRACTED 80 PERCENT OF ALL THE BITCOINS THERE WILL EVER BE
The counter-terrorism analyst told Fox News there is a risk law enforcement agencies without crypto experts will struggle against a widening knowledge gap as more criminals turn to dEXs.
He also claims the decentralized exchanges – which are not illegal and are used for legitimate finance – must do more to make themselves aware of the troubling phenomenon and work with regulators
“One CEO said he didn’t know much about money laundering,” he said. “This is the CEO of a dEX.”
Mr Fanusie also said more dark net black markets have sprung up since Silk Road – where users could anonymously buy drugs, guns and even solicit paid killers using cryptocurrency – was shut down in 2013.
“It is very evident that crypto is still used for illegal transactions,” he said. “The dark net continues to have sites which take cryptocurrencies as the main method of payment.
“A major change since mid-2017 is that one exchange website which was very popular for laundering illicit cryptocurrencies called BTC-e has been shut down by US authorities.
“One exchange which has been of interest recently is ShapeShift, which until a few weeks ago, allowed customers to trade crypto without setting up accounts and identifying themselves.”
Three separate countries are trying to extradite Alexander Vinnik, who allegedly laundered bitcoins worth around $155 million through BTC-E, the now-defunct dEX.
Vinnik, a 38-year-old Russian national, was arrested in Greece last year at the request of US authorities.
A US grand jury has indicted Vinnik on 21 counts, and he has also been indicted in France and Russia.
This week ShapeShift dismissed a Wall Street Journal article that claimed the crypto exchange had processed $9 million in funds from criminal activities over a two-year period.
CEO Erik Voorhees said the report was factually incorrect and showed a lack of understanding about how cryptocurrencies operate.
The WSJ article reported around $88 million was laundered through 46 different exchanges, with $9 million going through ShapeShift.
But Voorhees wrote that “even if it was true” that the cash was laundered through ShapeShift, it would represent only 0.15 percent of the exchange’s total volume.
He said the exchange has “a strong record of complying with law-enforcement requests, providing valuable assistance in over 30 investigations in 13 different countries all over the world”.
He added: “We work with other exchanges on an almost-daily basis to identify and block thieves and criminals, through a self-policing group ShapeShift created to protect the users and industry.”
Michael Springmann
Author, Attorney
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Europe is under siege, flooded by wave after wave of migrants and refugees from destabilized nations. What drives this trend—and what awaits the continent if its borders collapse?
They come from across the Middle East, South Asia, North Africa—floods of refugees seeking sanctuary in Europe. Most are men. Some are terrorists. And all represent an ethnopolitical nightmare for the European Union.
What drives these migrants? Why, instead of seeking out nations with common ethnic and religious ties, do they instead head north and west, where few speak their language or share a common culture?
In Goodbye,Europe? Hello, Chaos? Merkel’s Migrant Bomb, former diplomat J. Michael Springmann provides an in-depth analysis of the migrant flood, its causes, and what it means for Europe. Building on arguments put forward in his previous work, Visas for Al Qaeda: CIA Handouts That Rocked the World, the ex–State Department official and attorney reveals how US foreign policy created the crisis.
Springmann’s insider knowledge of US policy permeates this insightful, sometimes terrifying look at a world where migrants become weapons, nationalism is condemned, and civil liberties hang in the balance.
As the world watches the destruction of Syria and the flood of refugees into Europe, few bother to ask some important questions: Who benefits? Who provides refugees with the resources they need to head north and west? Why are most migrants male, and why is Europe a favored destination?
Thousands of American soldiers and civil servants have lost their lives in the War on Terror. Innocent citizens of many nations, including Americans killed on 9/11, have also paid the ultimate price.
While the US government claims to stand against terror, this same government refuses to acknowledge its role in creating what has become a deadly international quagmire.
Visas for al-Qaeda: CIA Handouts That Rocked the World sets the record straight by laying the blame on high-ranking US government officials.
During the 1980s, the CIA recruited and trained Muslim operatives to fight the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Later, the CIA would move those operatives from Afghanistan to the Balkans, and then to Iraq, Libya, and Syria, traveling on illegal US visas.
These US-backed and trained fighters would morph into an organization that is synonymous with jihadist terrorism: al-Qaeda.
J. Michael Springmann served in the United States government as a diplomat with the State Department’s Foreign Service, with postings in Germany, India, and Saudi Arabia. He left federal service and currently practices law in the Washington, DC, area.
Reader Comments
Goodbye Europe? Hello Chaos? I consider one of the very rare books that are so deeply and extensively researched and so widely and authentically sourced. It discusses frankly and uninhibitedly the worldwide wave of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers which flooded many European countries and threatened to break on our shores. The author unearthed the roots of the problems which caused that human deluge of millions. Mr. Springmann lays the blame on many factors including turmoil, political instability, unemployment, poverty, aspiring to better life and mainly violence and wars in Asian, North African and, in particular, Middle Eastern countries. He stresses that the major cause of the outflow of that flood is the United States’ foreign policy which he claims is bent on using the migrant waves as a “mass destruction weapon.”
He reports many of the social, economic, cultural, demographical and political problems, legal and illegal, refugees created in each county especially nations of the European Union where serious crime rates has increased considerably. The author discusses in detail the problems each country faces separately then lumps all of them into one serious world crisis. He sharpens the focus narrowing the aperture on Germany, being the most important and populated European country, and uses it as an example of how the open-door policy for refugees and asylum seekers would tear the cultural and national fabric or a country by aliens whose presence threatens not only the unity of Germany but also the solidarity of the European Union.
Thanks to my friend Greg who recommended that I read the book which, I in turn, recommend that every U.S. lawmaker, politician and even interested voters and laymen should read it. It is timely and comes in a propitious moment when the American debate on immigration, refugees and border protection is heating up. The book is a warning shot which directs attention to the migrant problems and as a reminder that solutions are urgently needed. The author offers some reasonable ones.
If you want to really understand what’s happening in the world today, “Goodbye Europe? Hello Chaos?” is a must read. Author J. Michael Springmann shows how mass migration is used as a weapon to destabilize nations. He explains how it has been done in the past, how it is currently being used in Europe and who is behind this weaponized migration, including some NGOs, billionaires, corporations and of course, intelligence agencies. Springmann shows how forced migration is a form of warfare used by the US to destabalize the Middle East and weaken Europe. The information in this book is well documented with 354 footnotes. I would also highly recommend his previous book “Visas for Al Queda”.
Michael Springmann’s book, “Goodbye Europe? Hello, Chaos?: Merkel’s Migrant Bomb” certainly presents a mind-jarring alternative perspective on Europe’s migrant crisis. It is hard to know which of a few notable characteristics of these migrants are most important. For example, (1) a very large percentage are young fighting-age Syrian men; (2) high-tech electronics (smartphones, etc.) and infrastructure for Internet connectivity are provided them by the likes of George Soros, Big Business, and, maybe, CIA front organizations; and (3) passports and visas from other-than-official channels.
Not only are these migrations not what they appear to be, they are apparently a slow-moving form of warfare much more difficult to defend against than conventional military movements. Migrants have become instruments of war.
I highly recommend this book for those wishing an insight into geopolitics in the twenty-first century that is radically different from the past.
This is a fascinating book on the refugee crisis in Europe, and what is happening throughout Europe. I am so much enjoying reading this book by an author I trust and know is telling you the truth! His analysis and information is more than interesting, and please do buy this wonderful and so interesting book. I am 1/2 way through the book and can’t put it down. Wonderful book, and this author also brought us Visas for Al Queda that was equally so interesting, and which I refer back again and again to the information! Thank you Mr. Springmann for your wonderful work on these books!!
If you want to understand the “European Migrant Crisis” look no further than Goodbye Europe? Hello Chaos? It is required reading for everyone interested in current events. I fail to understand why the mainstream media do not tell these stories. Springmann also exposes the shadowy figures behind the scheme to destabilize the EU. It’s time people took the blinders off their eyes and recognize what’s happening. Invasions are invasions. History is full of this. We had better start paying attention for our own good. Read it NOW!
Michael Springmann has done it again! I was both shocked and angered by what I read. He warns us that Constitutional Governments in Europe are being assaulted internally by unelected administrative bureaucrats from the EU administrative state and externally by an international plot to destabilize the European Continent’s homogeneous culture through the forced migration of a hostile alien culture which can not be integrated. This book is required reading for all those who are concerned to learn why,who and how these weaponized refugees, whose own countries are being destroyed , are encouraged to leave on a difficult 2000 mile journey to countries in Europe who do not want to receive them, while their own neighbors will not take them.
Shocking New Book Links Illicit U.S. Visas To Terrorists, Current Wars
A former State Department foreign service officer’s new book provides a shocking, timely, and credible circumstantial case that ties the U.S. training of Islamic radicals to our nation’s major foreign policy disasters in the Mideast during the past quarter century.
The book is Visas for Al Qaeda: CIA Handouts That Rocked the World — An Insider’s View. Author J. Michael Springmann (shown at right) is the former chief of the visa section at the U.S. consulate in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. He launched the book last week with his first lecture and book-signing, which admirers organized at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
“It’s past time to expose murder, war crimes and human rights violations by the United States of American and its ‘intelligence’ services,” Springmann says. He continues:Read More
Timely book on Saudi/CIA backing of Al Qaeda
Former U.S. consular officer in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia Mike Springmann could not have been more timely with his new book, Visas for Al Qaeda: CIA Handouts that Rocked the World. As demands grow for the Obama administration to release the 28 missing pages from the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on 9/11 intelligence failures, Springmann’s book serves as a unique preface and epilogue to the Senate report. In fact, Springmann’s description of the pipeline that provided U.S. visas to Saudi and other Wahhabist radicals provides for the reader what is, according to intelligence insiders, identified as a key finding in the “missing” 28 pages.
The release of “Visas for Al Qaeda” also comes after the so-called “20th hijacker,” Zacarias Moussaoui, has confirmed what many independent observers and researchers of 9/11 have already concluded: that the House of Saudi directly financed the attack and Al Qaeda.Read More
Whistle blower reveals secret U.S. program to recruit, train, and provide visas to ‘terrorists’
By Barrie Zwicker (Special to Truth and Shadows)
IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW how sausages are made, don’t start reading Visas for Al Qaeda: CIA Handouts That Rocked the World by Michael Springmann. The sausages in this case: the string of too-easily-swallowed accounts of bloody events in the “global war on terror,” served up daily with relish by the mainstream media. In reality these sausages are filled with tainted meat that’s making everyone sick.
Springmann is a brave whistle blower living in Washington, D.C. He’s written an accessible book, safe to digest, highlighting details of the corruption of the American Empire (and its accomplices, including Canada) as he experienced them from the inside during his years with the U.S. State Department.
While he served as a visa officer in the U.S. consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for instance, he was obliged under threat of dismissal to issue visas to persons hired clandestinely by the CIA to become trained-in-the-USA terrorists. Most of these psychopathic thugs were clearly and legally unqualified to be issued visas. There is every reason to believe the “Visas for Terrorists” program remains fully operative today. It takes a lot of expendable terrorists to run a global terrorism op.
Springmann places his experiences both within the context of the historical roots of the U.S. Empire and within its current ongoing global destabilization project.
“This tale,” the author states near the beginning, “is a sordid sketch of backstabbing, disloyalty, double crosses, faithlessness, falsity, perfidy, sellouts, treachery, and betrayal.”
And that only covers the bureaucratic aspect. Even more sobering is his sketch of human rights violations: torture, assassinations, massacres including bombings of markets, invasions and occupations of countries, destabilization of nations and regions.
Then there’s the financial side: widespread criminality, resource theft, bribery, diversion of funds, illicit drug dealing and more. Read More
From LaRouchepub.com
Behind the Assassination of an Iranian Nuclear Scientist:
a British-Nazi Network
by Carl Osgood
[Print version of this article]
Dec. 4—The November 27 assassination of the Iranian nuclear scientist, Dr. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was the most serious escalation between the U.S. and Israel on one side and Iran on the other so far, since the U.S. assassination by drone of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani on January 3, 2020. In her message included above, Helga Zepp-LaRouche has warned that this terrorist action could be a trap aimed at drawing President Trump into a disastrous war.
While details of the attack on Fakhrizadeh’s three-vehicle convoy are not clear—the latest Iranian account has it that the attack was done by remote control—it is clear that the attack was the result of a longstanding and meticulously planned operation that was expertly executed. As of this writing, no one has claimed responsibility for the attack. Iranian suspicions immediately fell on Israel with possible U.S. involvement. While Israel has made no official statements on the assassination, Israeli officials have also done little to deflect the suspicions. Fakrizadeh did not have a high public profile but was long suspected to have headed Iran’s nuclear weapons program, known as Project Amad, from 1989 to 2003, when, according to U.S. intelligence assessments, it had been closed down.
After news of the assassination broke, the Times of Israel republished the speech that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had delivered on April 30, 2018, the day that Israel revealed the Iranian nuclear archive that the Mossad had claimed to have stolen from a warehouse in Tehran. In that speech, Netanyahu pointed to a directive signed by Fakhrizadeh:
Remember that name, Fakhrizadeh. His directive says: “The general aim is to announce the closure of Project Amad,” but then he adds, “Special activities will be carried out under the title of scientific know-how developments.” And in fact, this is exactly what Iran proceeded to do. It continued this work in a series of organizations over the years, and today, in 2018, this work is carried out by SPND, that’s an organization inside Iran’s Defense Ministry. And you will not be surprised to hear that SPND is led by the same person that led Project Amad, Dr. Fakhrizadeh. And also, not coincidentally, many of SPND’s key personnel worked under Fakhrizadeh on Project Amad.
Fakrizadeh was the head of the SPND when he was killed.
Also making no official comment on the killing of Fakrizadeh was the Trump Administration. The New York Times, however, cited three unnamed administration officials, including two intelligence officials, confirming that Israel was behind the assassination:
Some American officials argued that the death of Mr. Fakhrizadeh, the latest in a string of such mysterious killings of Iran’s top nuclear scientists, would send a chilling message to the country’s other top scientists working on that program: If we can get him, we can get you, too.MSCMohamed Javad Zarif, Foreign Minister of Iran, called on the international community to condemn the assassination of Fakhrizadeh.
In Iran, great anger erupted in response to the terrorist assassination. Many people saw Fakhrizadeh’s killing not just as an attack on one man, albeit one of Iran’s greatest scientists, but as an attack on Iranian science itself. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohamed Javad Zarif wrote this in his Twitter account:
Terrorists murdered an eminent Iranian scientist today. This cowardice—with serious indications of Israeli role—shows desperate warmongering of perpetrators. Iran calls on int’l community—and especially EU—to end their shameful double standards & condemn this act of state terror.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani vowed:
The Iranian nation is so courageous and zealous that it won’t allow the crime to remain unanswered, [but will respond] at the appropriate time.
Other Iranian officials noted that Fakhrizadeh had been playing a key role in Iran’s battle against the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed about 50,000 Iranians.
Israel’s Bloody History of Assassinations
The “string” of mysterious killings that the Times referred to is the violent killings of about a half dozen nuclear scientists in Iran in the 2010-2012 time period, all also attributed to Israel. Israel’s history of assassinating those it considers enemies of the Israeli state goes back, in fact, much further, to at least the early 1960s.
A lengthy article in Ha’aretz published in March 2016, provides a window into one of these cases and offers some useful insight.
The Ha’aretz account focused on a German rocket scientist by the name of Heinz Krug who was working for Egypt as part of an Egyptian project to develop advanced weapons for its military. One day, September 11, 1962, he went to his office in Munich but never came home.ANeFoOtto Skorzeny, a Nazi Waffen-SS Lt. Colonel during World War II, was hired by the Mossad to kill the German rocket scientist Heinz Krug in 1962.
The story, as retailed to Ha’aretz by anonymous Israeli intelligence veterans and reflected in archival documents, was that Krug was the victim of an Israeli assassination plot in which the trigger-man was none other than Otto Skorzeny, who had been Hitler’s favorite commando during World War II. The hiring of Skorzeny by the Mossad seems bizarre on its face. The sources for the Ha’aretz article chalk it up to pragmatism, however.
Despite the two sides’ distaste for each other—among other things, Skorzeny was a notorious killer of Jews—the Mossad concluded that Skorzeny had the skill set it needed, and Skorzeny was reportedly thrilled at being given a challenging mission.IDFRafael Eytan, one of Otto Skorzeny’s controllers.
One of Skorzeny’s controllers, the Ha’aretz report revealed, was Rafael Eytan, a veteran of decades of dirty Israeli intelligence operations, including kidnappings, murders, and terrorist attacks, and a long-time close associate of Ariel Sharon. Eytan was also suspected of running the spy ring that employed Jonathan Pollard. “Yes, I met and ran Skorzeny,” Eytan confirmed to the authors of the Ha’aretz report.
Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Jabotinsky
Benjamin Netanyahu is a direct descendant of the Sharon-Eytan networks. The Likud Party of Ariel Sharon and Netanyahu today, originated with Vladimir Jabotinsky, who was such an admirer of the Nazis that Israel’s founding statesman, David Ben-Gurion, called him “Vladimir Hitler.” Netanyahu’s father, Ben-Zion Netanyahu, was the personal secretary for Jabotinsky. Both the Nazis and the Zionists of the Jabotinsky variety came from the same mother, uniquely identified as the British Empire by EIR founder Lyndon LaRouche.Left: Government Press Office of Israel; right: Chatham HouseBenjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s current Prime Minister (right), is a true continuation of the avowed fascist Ze’ev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky (left), a product of the Russian pogroms and the Russian secret police, the Tsarist Okhrana.
In an April 22, 1997 interview with the weekly radio program EIR Talks,, LaRouche characterized Netanyahu as entirely a British asset:
Entirely. Even though he is largely financed, he and his goons, out of Brooklyn, New York. But, nonetheless, as Yitzhak Rabin emphasized just before he was assassinated by these goons, and as Mr. Rabin’s widow has emphasized again recently: In the press in Europe, the report is, this week, that the recent experience in dealing with this rogue, Netanyahu, has persuaded the White House—I haven’t verified this myself, but the report is interesting because it responds to reality; I don’t know what the President believes, but I do know what Netanyahu is, and the report says that the President has discovered what Netanyahu is. The argument is that the President has come to understand that Netanyahu is a true continuation of the avowed fascist, Vladimir Jabotinsky, the one who was referred to by a former prime minister of Israel, as “Vladimir Hitler.” Now, Jabotinsky is key in understanding Netanyahu, as is Ariel Sharon.
Jabotinsky was a product of the Russian pogroms, and the Russian secret police, the Tsarist Okhrana. He was turned up as a British agent in the context of the Young Turk operation, which was entirely a London-run operation, through, probably assisted through the B’nai B’rith International lodge of Salonika in what is now Greece. And the Young Turk government was actually a creation of the British Intelligence-controlled International B’nai B’rith lodge in Salonika. Now, this lodge had a publication, which was named in French, because it was the diplomatic language of the time, Jeune Turque. The editor was Vladimir Jabotinsky. Jabotinsky was associated with a fellow, who was later upgraded, Volpi di Misurata, famous as the finance minister who put Mussolini into power. And through Volpi and company, Volpi di Misurata, Jabotinsky, who was the editor of the Young Turks’ ideological magazine in an earlier period, moved on, to become closely associated with Mussolini, and became an avowed Fascist, and the leader of the Fascist movement within Zionism.
Netanyahu is a continuation of that today. You see it in his style. If you understand fascism, particularly the Mussolini variety, the Jabotinsky variety of fascism, you’ll see that Netanyahu’s policy, his style, his way of making decisions, his duplicity—all of these objectionable, obnoxious qualities that make him civet cat of the region. These are truly echoes of the fascism of Mussolini, and Mussolini’s client, Jabotinsky. And if people understand that, they’ll understand why Jabotinsky was called by a prime minister of Israel, Vladimir Hitler, which for any person in the Jewish community, particularly the Zionist community, is very strong language, but very appropriate language. He was Vladimir Hitler.
Timeline of Escalation: From the U.S. Presidential Election to the Killing of Fakhrizadeh
Nov. 11—The Associated Press reports that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) found that Iran as of November 2 has a stockpile of 2,442.9 kilograms of low-enriched uranium, up from 2,105.4 kilograms reported on August 25. The IAEA reports that Iran is also continuing to enrich uranium to a purity of up to 4.5%, higher than the 3.67% allowed under the deal, but nowhere near the level needed for weapons. IAEA Director General, Rafael Grossi, says in a statement to the UN General Assembly that the agency “continues to verify the non-diversion of nuclear material declared by Iran under its Safeguards Agreement.” Grossi later notes that the uranium enrichment level in advanced centrifuges at Iran’s underground nuclear facility in Natanz is not significantly different from what the IAEA last knew about it. In other words, Iran is not keeping any secrets from the agency.
Nov. 12—Elliott Abrams tells Bloomberg TV that more sanctions will be imposed on Iran before January 20 and also dismisses concerns that Trump may be planning to launch military action against Iran, saying the so-called “maximum pressure” economic strategy had created “an enormous amount of leverage” for the next occupant of the White House.
Nov. 14—The New York Times reports that Abu Muhammed Al-Msari, said to be the second ranking leader of al-Qaeda, was gunned down in his car on a street in Tehran last August. The M.O. of the assassin, the Times notes, was similar to that used in the killings of a number of Iranian scientists in the 2010-2012 time period. In Tehran, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh denies the story.
Nov. 15-16—Iraqi Defense Minister Lt. General Juma Anad Saadoun, travels to Tehran on an official visit with a large entourage with the obvious intention of developing Iraq-Iran military relations. According to Iranian news reports, Saadoun meets with all of the top Iranian defense and security officials to discuss a range of topics relating to defense industries, security of the common border, exchange of experiences, training programs, and holding joint military exercises. Saadoun reportedly voices his country’s willingness to take advantage of Iran’s valuable military experience and its technological capabilities in the defense sphere. Plans to sign a military and defense cooperation agreement between Iran and Iraq are revealed.
Nov. 16—The New York Times publishes a story, citing unnamed sources, claiming that on November 12, Trump met with his national security team to seek options for a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program. A range of senior advisers reportedly dissuaded the President from moving ahead with a military strike, the Times said. While elements of the story may be true, it has the whiff of being a provocation itself, like an earlier Times story from late June claiming that Russian military intelligence was paying bounties to the Taliban to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Foreign Policy reports that the Trump Administration, led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, is mulling designating the Houthi movement in Yemen (Ansarallah) a terrorist group. This would have detrimental effects not only on efforts to end the war but also on humanitarian relief efforts in areas controlled by the Houthis. The motivation for such a decision would be not so much the Houthi drone and missile attacks on Saudi Arabia, which are responses to the Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen, but rather the support provided to the Houthis by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), already designated by the Trump Administration as a terrorist group.
Nov. 18—Iranian Government spokesman Ali Rabiee issues a warning against potential U.S. military strikes on Iran. He says he doesn’t believe the U.S. wants to “cause insecurity in the world and the region [by its actions]. Any action against the Iranian nation would certainly face a crushing response.”
Israel launches a series of air strikes against presumed Iranian targets in Syria. They include an Iranian headquarters at Damascus International Airport and a “secret military site” that served as a “hosting facility for senior Iranian delegations when they come to Syria to operate” and for the 7th Division of the Syrian armed forces, says a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces.
The U.S. Treasury Department announces new sanctions against the Mostazafan Foundation of Islamic Revolution, a foundation controlled by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as against the Iranian minister of intelligence and dozens of other entities and individuals.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issues a press statement, “The Importance of Sanctions on Iran,” bragging about the destructive effect sanctions have had on Iran’s economy, and vowing that the Maximum Pressure campaign will not be relaxed.
Nov. 19—Pompeo lands in Israel for a two-day visit. He meets with Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi on the Golan Heights, making very inflammatory statements regarding Israel’s rights in these places. Netanyahu gushes praise for the U.S. Maximum Pressure policy on Iran. Pompeo in turn thanks Israel for its support of the policy. Pompeo vows that the U.S. will not relax the sanctions on Iran.
Nov. 20—Associated Press, citing Iraqi sources, reports that Iran has put its allies in the region on alert not to do anything provocative during the next two months, until, as they expect, Joe Biden takes office.
Nov. 21-22—A pair of B-52 bombers takes off from Minot, North Dakota for a round trip flight to the Persian Gulf and back. The fact that the bombers can be followed on popular flight tracking websites suggests that the mission was a show of force and a message to Iran.
Pompeo lands in Baghdad, Iraq threatening more U.S. “measures” against Iraqi Shiite militias aligned with Iran. He does not specify what those measures might be. He makes no reference to the Iraqi defense minister’s visit to Tehran in his public statements. Both Iran and Iraq are currently in serious negotiations with China on “oil for infrastructure” agreements as part of the Belt and Road Initiative. It is likely that Pompeo, aligned with the most fanatic wing of the British and the Likud, is even more interested in sabotaging these developments than countering Iran-backed militias. (See “A Solution Is Possible—Iran, Iraq and the World in This Moment of Crisis” by Hussein Askary, in the January 10, 2020 issue of EIR.)
In an apparent message to Biden, Netanyahu declares during a speech in southern Israel that there must be no return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Nov. 25—Reuters reports that Elliott Abrams told a virtual Beirut Institute event the previous day that the Trump administration plans further pressure on Tehran, with sanctions related to arms, weapons of mass destruction, and human rights: “We will have next week, and the week after, and the week after—all through December and January—there will be sanctions that deal with arms, that deal with weapons of mass destruction, that deal with human rights…. So this will continue on for another couple of months, right until the end.”
Nov. 27—Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh is assassinated.
Schiller Institute International Online Conference
December 12-13
Save the Date and Register Today!
The World after the U.S. Election:
Creating a World Based on Reason
The unprecedented battle over the recent U.S. election is not only a domestic American event, but an event of the highest international strategic importance. The world must understand: This battle is the choice between World War III or peace. The two days of dialogue and deliberation will include these panel discussions:
Panel I. “Hang Together, or Hang Separately”: Free and Sovereign Republics, or Digital Dictatorship?
Panel II. Escaping the Danger of World War III: A Strategic Order Based on the Common Aims of Mankind.
Panel III. Overcoming the World Health Crisis and the Hunger Pandemic: Thinking on the Level of the Coincidentia Oppositorum.
Panel IV. A Human Future for Youth: A Beethoven-Driven Renaissance of Classical Culture.
