A senior Israeli official said Saturday that sensitive intelligence information was withheld from the country’s hawkish foreign minister when he was the strategic affairs chief several years ago.
The official did not give the reason for the measure against Soviet-born Avigdor Lieberman, which would be rare for a top official and doubly extraordinary for a minister whose portfolio specifically deals with coordinating security initiatives. The most important work of the ministry in recent years has involved the threat from Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program.
However, immigrants from Communist nations are known to struggle with gaining security clearance — and this may be true of Lieberman, who is considered close to some top officials in his homeland. Furthermore, Lieberman’s situation has been complicated by years of corruption probes.
The official said Lieberman had not been given full access to secret information while he was minister of strategic affairs from October 2006 to January 2008. The official, who was speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, said that did not mean Lieberman was under any particular suspicion. The official did not know whether Lieberman’s security clearance was upgraded in 2009, when he became foreign minister in the current, more hawkish government.
Lieberman’s spokesman, Tzachi Moshe, said the allegations were “absolutely and unequivocally false,” adding that Lieberman passed a comprehensive security inspection and as strategic affairs minister held dozens of meetings with the heads of the Mossad intelligence agency.
A spokesman for Ehud Olmert, prime minister at the time, denied any knowledge of Lieberman’s supposed marginalization. He, too, spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity.
Lieberman, who immigrated from what is now Moldova some three decades ago, founded the hard-line Yisrael Beitenu party, which currently holds the third biggest faction in parliament, giving its leader significant clout. He is known for his combative style and a brash brand of diplomacy that seems to have won Israel few friends in his years as foreign minister.
He has, however, been warmly received in Belarus, which he has frequently visited and where he is considered close to the leadership, which is widely seen as one of the most authoritarian in Europe.
He is currently awaiting a final hearing on whether he will face corruption charges. Israel’s attorney general announced in April that he intended to indict the foreign minister on charges of breach of trust, aggravated fraud, money laundering and harassing a witness. Lieberman is suspected of illicitly receiving money and laundering it through shell companies.
If indicted, Lieberman would likely be forced to resign. He has denied the accusations.
The strategic affairs portfolio, created largely to accommodate Lieberman, is currently held by former military chief Moshe Yaalon.
US blog: Mossad behind Iran blast
Blogger Richard Silverstein claims Israel orchestrated explosion that killed 17 at Iranian missile storage facility, in collaboration with local militant group
ynet
US blogger Richard Silverstein said Saturday that Israel was the mastermind behind the blast the killed at least 17 people at an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps base near Tehran.
In his blog, Tikun Olam, Silverstein quotes an Israeli expert as saying that the Mossad was responsible for the explosion, in collaboration with the Iranian militant opposition group Mojahedin-e-Khalq.
“It is widely known within intelligence circles that the Israelis use the MEK for varied acts of espionage and terror ranging from fraudulent Iranian memos alleging work on nuclear trigger devices to assassinations of nuclear scientists and bombings of sensitive military installations,” Silverstein said.
He attributed an incident similar to Saturday’s explosion which occurred at a different IRGC missile base last year to Mossad sabotage.
Silverstein noted that his source “has never been wrong so far in the reports he’s offered.”
‘External sabotage unlikely’
Meanwhile, a former IRGC soldier said that the explosion occurred at military storage facility where Shihab missiles are stored. Hamed Ebrahimi, who served at the base for two months, told the Iranian online daily Rooz that the tough security at the facility makes it highly unlikely that the blast was caused by an act of external interference.
The soldier said that the base is split into two divisions; one stores missiles, while the other serves as an air force training center.
A senior IRGC officer was among the massive blast’s victims. The officer, identified as Hassan Tehrani Moqaddam, held a rank parallel to brigadier general, the Fars news agency said. He reportedly served as a researcher at a Tehran university and headed the “Jihad Self-Reliance” unit, mostly tasked with developing arms and missiles following the embargo imposed on Iran since 1979.
The explosion occurred 40 km (25 miles) outside Tehran, and was felt in the capital.
The IRGC ruled out the possibility that deliberate sabotage was behind the flare-up. On Saturday, it was reported that the blast occurred while munitions were being moved.
“The primary cause for the explosion is being determined, and will be made public at a later date,” IRGC spokesman Ramezan Sharif said, stressing that the 17 people who died in the incident and the 16 who were injured were all IRGC operatives, and not civilians.
The funeral procession for the victims has been scheduled for Monday, and is to leave the IRGC’s headquarters in Tehran.
