Mossad is using Azerbaijan to spy on Iran: reports
Sunday, 12 February 2012
By Sara Ghasemilee
Al Arabiya
Israel is using Azerbaijan, a former soviet republic bordering Iran,
as a base to spy on the regime in Tehran, the London Times reported
Saturday.
The newspaper cited testimony from an anonymous Mossad agent, referred
to only as Shimon.
`This is ground zero for intelligence work,’ Shimon told The
Times. `Our presence here is quiet, but substantial. We have increased
our presence in the past year, and it gets us very close to Iran. This
is a wonderfully porous country.’
According to Shimon the Azerbaijan-Iran border, just a few hours south
of the capital Baku, is prime territory for the Israeli intelligence
service to gather information on Tehran’s activities.
However, there are even more members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary
Guards operating in Azerbaijan than Israeli agents, but their methods
are different than those used by Mossad.
`There is a great deal of information there from people who regularly
and freely travel across the borders. It is unregulated –
almost. Except for the Iranians who are watching us watch them,’ said
Shimon.
Azerbaijan, a secular Muslim country with a Shiite majority, is home
to more than 9,000 Jews and has friendly ties with Israel and the
United States. The country is a major energy producer, and exports oil
to Israel and imports weapons and military hardware in return from the
Jewish state
Israel has also been able to capitalize on a decline in relations
between Azerbaijan and Iran.
There are several possible reasons for the strained relations between
the two neighbors. Baku has often complained of an institutionalized
discrimination against ethnic Azeris by the Persian majority in the
Islamic republic.
In a move likely to irk Tehran, a group of Azerbaijani lawmakers have
recently proposed the country changes its name to Northern Azerbaijan,
to emphasize the fact that the Azeri nation is split between an
independent state, the Republic of Azerbaijan, and a province in
northern Iran, known to many Azerbaijanis as Southern Azerbaijan.
Iran has also recently strengthened its ties with Azerbaijan’s
regional rival, Armenia. Baku and Yerevan have been locked in conflict
of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh territory since the early 1990s.
Sixteen years after a truce was signed, more than 20,000 Armenian and
Azerbaijani continue troops stare at each other from trenches on
either side of the cease-fire line.
However, not all Azerbaijanis have a positive view of improving ties
with Israel.
In January authorities arrested two men suspected of plotting to
attack targets including Israel’s ambassador and a local rabbi.
Azerbaijan’s National Security Ministry said the men were connected to
an Iranian citizen who had links with his country’s intelligence.
`Citizens of Azerbaijan – Rasim Aliyev and Ali Huseynov – were
preparing an attack on public figures, who are foreign citizens,’ the
National Security Ministry said at the time in a statement.
The ministry said the Iranian citizen, identified as Balagardash
Dadashev, had helped the two buy weapons Iran and smuggle them to
Azerbaijan.
The announcement came after several state websites in Azerbaijan were
rendered inaccessible for hours by hackers who posted images of the
devil over photographs of the Azeri and Israeli presidents, alongside
messages saying `Servants of Jews’ and `Enemies of Islam.’
Despite the cooling of ties between Iran and Azerbaijan, Iranian
companies continue to operate and have stakes in oil contracts in the
Caspian Sea state, which exports around 1 million barrels of crude a
day (bpd) westward through a pipeline operated by a consortium led by
British Petroleum.
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/02/12/194168.html