Iran Claims Israel Plotted To Sabotage Missiles With Defective Parts
Iran has accused Israel of plotting to sabotage its defense industry and the production of missiles by supplying defective parts, state media reported on Thursday.
Iran has accused Israel of plotting to sabotage its defense industry and the production of missiles by supplying defective parts, state media reported on Thursday.
Thursday night, Iran’s government-controlled media announced that a major security announcement would be made in hours, but nothing was announced. Finally, on Friday Iran released a video and a short report showing hundreds of parts said to have been defective and discovered due to the vigilance of intelligence entities.
However, Iranian journalists abroad pointed out that if the parts were indeed defective and reached Iran it means the Islamic Republic spent huge sums to acquire the fake or defective black-market parts, and now wanted to turn the fiasco into an intelligence success story.
"The intelligence unit of the Defense Ministry thwarted one of the largest sabotage plots targeting Iran's missile, aviation and airspace military industry," Iranian state TV said.
"This sabotage was carried out under the guidance of the Zionist intelligence services and their agents."
There was no immediate response from Israel. There have been reports in the past of foreign intelligence organizations succeeding in supplying defective dual-use parts to Iran. In 2010, a malicious computer worm dubbed Stuxnet was discovered in Iran that worked to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program by targeting supervisory control and data acquisition. It was believed that the bug was developer by Israeli and US intelligence services.
An unnamed Iranian defense ministry official was quoted by state media as saying a network of agents sought to introduce defective parts into the production of advanced missiles.
The Iranian foreign minister began a two-day visit to Syria, its close ally on Wednesday and will probably travel on to Lebanon to meet with the leadership of Hezbollah, its proxy militant group.
Unconfirmed reports earlier this month spoke of movements by US forces in Iraq and Syria possibly aimed at plugging holes on the Syrian-Iraqi border that allow Tehran to send weapons and fighters through Iraq into Syria.
Despite denials by Iraqi armed forces and the prime minister’s office, three unnamed Iraqi officials, including a leader of an armed faction stationed in northwestern Iraq, told the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that the US was repositioning its troops in the region, possibly preparing for a military operation outside Iraq. Another Iraqi government official told Asharq Al-Awsat that the alleged movements “are limited to locations outside the Iraqi border.”
Amir-Abdollahian’s call for US troops to leave the region was in response to a question during the press conference about these reports. “No party is capable of blocking historic transportation routes,” he retorted.
Amir-Abdollahian also condemned Israeli air strikes on targets in Syria and warned that these attacks would eventually face retaliation.
“I would like to strongly condemn the miserable attacks of the fake Israeli entity against Aleppo international airport and civilian areas in Syria and I confirm that the criminal practices by the Zionist entity in the region will not remain without retaliation.”
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years, but it rarely acknowledges or discusses the operations. Often the strikes target Iranian-backed armed groups and concentrations of Iranian weapons transferred to Syria.
Tehran has militarily and financially backed Bashar al-Assad’s government since 2011 when the Syrian civil war erupted. It has deployed its own military personnel, the Lebanese Hezbollah and thousands of militias from Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan to provide the manpower Assad lacked to fight against opponents.
Regarding Amir-Abdollahian’s possible visit to Hezbollah in Lebanon, a Tehran-based analyst close to the regime told ILNA news website that Iran’s renewed ties with Saudi Arabia is a topic of interest to the militant group. Massoud Assadollahi said that Hezbollah needs to coordinate its policies with Tehran amid media reports that the Islamic Republic might “abandon” its allies in the region as a concession to Riyadh. It is important for Hezbollah not to be affected by “psychological warfare,” he underlined.
The Iranian pundit also pointed out that this is a critical time for Hezbollah amid heightened tensions with Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s threatsagainst militant Palestinian and Hezbollah leaders.
The Iranian foreign minister’s visit to Beirut would enhance mutual understanding with Hezbollah in face-to-face discussions, he argued, and added that when Amir-Abdollahian travelled to Saudi Arabia earlier in August, an Iranian foreign ministry official also visited the Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Assadollahi also linked the foreign minister’s trip to Syria to his earlier travel to Saudi Arabia. “After some time elapsed from Amir-Abdollahian’s trip to Saudi Arabia, he travelled to Syria to inform the leaders of that country about the latest developments…” including the release of Iran’s frozen funds by the United States.
Mohammad Salamati, the head of the Islamic Revolution's Mojahedin Organization (IRMO), added in an interview with Rouydad24 website that the immense economic pressure on the people has made them politically indifferent. Salamati further attributed the government's failure to wrong policies as well as naivete and weakness of government managers.
Meanwhile, he called on the government and influential regime figures to pave the way for political participation rather than restricting people's choices before it is too late.
Salamati went on to say that the people are currently facing high inflation, unemployment and social restrictions including the government's heavy-handed control of the Internet and information dissemination. This, he said, has eroded people's hope and made them indifferent and reluctant to participate in the upcoming parliamentary elections in March.
"The Guardian Council’s vetting of the candidates and its discretionary supervision of the election has made the people certain that the vote is not going to change anything in Iran. It appears that a large part of those who hold political power in Iran do not believe in people's participation in determining their own fate," Salamati said. He was referring to mass disqualification of more moderate candidates in 2020 and 2021 elections.
"Salamati added that "Only a competitive, free and fair election can restore people's trust in the government. It is only in that case, and with an improvement in the people's livelihood that they may be encouraged to participate in the elections." However, he said that "hard-headed officials are not capable of doing that."
Meanwhile, in a report about Iran's economic situation, Khabar Online website wrote last week that "The Raisi administration has failed to control the inflation rate and quoted an economist as saying that chronic high inflation will lead to the gradual deterioration of the country's infrastructures."
Iranian economist Mohammad Salimi Boroujeni told Khabar Online that the situation has left many businessmen with no motivation and reversed many conventional economic mechanisms.
The website wrote that Raisi’s promises about reducing the inflation rate to single digits have led to no tangible results and currently the inflation rate is around 47.5 percent at the start of the third year of Raisi's presidency.
However, some officials, including Economy Minister Ehsan Khandouzi even claim that the administration is ahead of its plans in controlling inflation and liquidity growth. He also promised that by March 2024, the inflation rate in Iran will be at its lowest point in five years.
At the same time, economic experts have told Khabar Online that Khandouzi's statement is contrary to what they see in terms of the people's livelihood and their purchasing power.
Boroujeni told the website that inflation has risen and the economic crisis has further deepened although the price of oil has remained stable, and officials claimed that the government's oil income is at a desirable level adding that according to them Tehran receives the oil money in cash.
The economist added that the government's handling of the economy has reduced people's purchasing power, increased poverty and inequality and damaged growth and production in the country.
Nonetheless, he said that the government is likely to come up with a bigger budget deficit by the end of the year. However, he added that financial discipline, a reduction in the government's expenses and wasteful activities, as well as increased transparency about the its financial operations can restore people's trust in the regime.
