Azerbaijan Seen as New Front
in Middle East Conflict
Officials say they foiled a plot by Hezbollah and Iran to bomb the Israeli Embassy in revenge for the 2008 slaying of Imad Mughniyah. Anti-terrorism officials fear a new militant hub.
Reporting from Paris -- It happened in Baku, transforming the capital of Azerbaijan into a battleground in a global shadow war.
Police intercepted a fleeing car and captured two suspected Hezbollah militants from Lebanon. The car contained explosives, binoculars, cameras, pistols with silencers and reconnaissance photos. Raiding alleged safe houses, police foiled what authorities say was a plot to blow up the Israeli Embassy in Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic that borders Iran.
Police intercepted a fleeing car and captured two suspected Hezbollah militants from Lebanon. The car contained explosives, binoculars, cameras, pistols with silencers and reconnaissance photos. Raiding alleged safe houses, police foiled what authorities say was a plot to blow up the Israeli Embassy in Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic that borders Iran.
Western anti-terrorism officials say the arrests a year ago thwarted swift retaliation by Hezbollah and Iran for the slaying of Imad Mughniyah, the legendary warlord of the Shiite Muslim militia based in Lebanon whose death was widely blamed on Israel.
The prosecution remained largely a secret until this week, when closed court proceedings began for two Lebanese and four Azeris charged with terrorism, espionage and other crimes.
The case offers an inside look at one of the stealthy duels being fought by Israel on one side and Hezbollah and Iran on the other in remote locales, from Latin America to Central Asia.
"They had reached the stage where they had a network in place to do an operation," said an Israeli security official, who requested anonymity for safety reasons. "We are seeing it all over the world. They are working very hard at it."The prosecution remained largely a secret until this week, when closed court proceedings began for two Lebanese and four Azeris charged with terrorism, espionage and other crimes.
The case offers an inside look at one of the stealthy duels being fought by Israel on one side and Hezbollah and Iran on the other in remote locales, from Latin America to Central Asia.
Hezbollah steadfastly denies that it conducts armed activity outside Lebanon, the base for its military, political and social service wings. Iran rejects allegations that it sponsors terrorism. Both, however, have sworn to avenge the death in February 2008 of Mughniyah, one of the world's most-wanted terrorist suspects and the longtime nexus between Tehran and Beirut.
His assassination by car bomb in Damascus, Syria, which Hezbollah blamed on Israel, spurred into action a secret apparatus teaming Iranian intelligence with Hezbollah's external operations unit, say European, Israeli and U.S. officials.
That alleged alliance is accused in the bombings in Argentina of the Israeli Embassy in 1992 and a Jewish community center in 1994, attacks that left 114 people dead. Both were allegedly the work of Hezbollah suicide bombers directed by Iranian spies in response to Israel's assassination of Hezbollah leaders.
"In Buenos Aires in 1992, the attack came a month after an assassination in Lebanon," said Magnus Ranstorp, a top expert on Hezbollah at the Swedish National Defense College. "They strike where they have infrastructure, a network, a target in place."
The choice of Baku last year reflects Iran's influence, said Matthew Levitt, a former intelligence chief at the U.S. Treasury Department. He described the alleged plot as "in the advanced stages."
"The Iranians have a history of a presence there," said Levitt, who is now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "And they wouldn't mind undermining the country, given Azerbaijan's Western leanings." ... (more)
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