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In a Dangerous Game of Cat and Mouse, Iran Eyes New Targets in Africa

Fifteen people arrested in Ethiopia were part of what American and Israeli officials said was a foiled Iranian plot against diplomats from the United Arab Emirates.


The downtown business district in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, where 15 people were recently arrested in what Ethiopia said was a plot against the Emirati Embassy. Credit...Mulugeta Ayene for The New York Times

By Declan Walsh, Eric Schmitt, Simon Marks and Ronen Bergman

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/15/worl ... -plot.html

Feb. 15, 2021

NAIROBI, Kenya — When Ethiopia’s intelligence agency recently uncovered a cell of 15 people it said were casing the embassy of the United Arab Emirates, along with a cache of weapons and explosives, it claimed to have foiled a major attack with the potential to sow havoc in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

But the Ethiopians omitted a key detail about the purported plot: who was behind it.

The only clue was the arrest of a 16th person: Accused of being the ringleader, Ahmed Ismail had been picked up in Sweden with the cooperation of friendly

African, Asian and European intelligence services,

the Ethiopians said.

Now American and Israeli officials say the operation was the work of Iran, whose intelligence service activated a sleeper cell in Addis Ababa last fall with orders to gather intelligence also on the embassies of the United States and Israel.

They say the Ethiopian operation was part of a wider drive to seek soft targets in African countries where Iran might avenge painful, high-profile losses such as the death of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/worl ... illed.html Iran’s top nuclear scientist, said to have been killed by Israel in November, and Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/03/obit ... -dead.html the Iranian spymaster killed by the United States in Iraq just over one year ago.

Citing Western intelligence sources, Rear Adm. Heidi K. Berg, director of intelligence at the Pentagon’s Africa command, said that Iran was behind the 15 people arrested in Ethiopia and that the

mastermind of this foiled plot,

Mr. Ismail, had been arrested in Sweden.

Ethiopia and Sweden collaborated on the disruption to the plot,

Admiral Berg said in a statement.

Iran denied the accusations.

These are baseless allegations only provoked by the Zionist regime’s malicious media,

said a spokeswoman for the Iranian Embassy in Addis Ababa.

Neither Ethiopia nor the Emirates said anything about Iranian interference in these issues.

Iranians gathered in Tehran for a candlelight vigil for Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani in January 2020. Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times

The United Arab Emirates angered Iran when it normalized relations with Israel https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/15/us/p ... hrain.html in September as part of a series of agreements brokered by the Trump administration in its final months and known as the Abraham Accords.

A spokesman for the Ethiopian police, which named just two of the 15 people arrested, declined to say why Ethiopia did not finger Iran for the plot. Several diplomats said that Ethiopia, as Africa’s diplomatic capital and home to the headquarters of the African Union, tries to avoid getting publicly embroiled in delicate issues involving major powers.

Even so, Ethiopia’s National Intelligence and Security Service said that a second group of plotters had been preparing to hit the Emirati Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan. A Sudanese official confirmed that account.

A senior United States defense official linked the arrests in Ethiopia to a failed Iranian plan to kill the United States ambassador to South Africa, which was reported by Politico https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/1 ... lot-413831 in September. The American and Sudanese officials agreed to discuss the matter on condition of anonymity because of its diplomatic and intelligence sensitivity.

Still, much about the Ethiopian arrests and alleged Iranian role remained murky. The Ethiopian police have yet to formally charge the 15 plot suspects, only two of whom have been identified. Israeli officials say that as few as three of them may be actual Iranian operatives, with the others having been caught in the Ethiopian dragnet.

And the arrests in Ethiopia come at a time of heightened political sensitivity in Iran and the United States, as the Biden administration considers its posture toward Tehran and whether to revive the Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran that President Donald J. Trump scrapped in 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/worl ... -deal.html

Adding to the pressure on President Biden, Iran’s intelligence minister suggested last week that his country might seek to obtain nuclear arms https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/09/worl ... hreat.html if American sanctions were not lifted soon.


President Biden, at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Friday, is considering his administration’s posture toward Iran. Credit...Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times

While Admiral Berg confirmed several details about Iran’s role in the Ethiopian arrests, other military and diplomatic officials in Washington declined to discuss it.

In contrast, officials in Israel, whose government is openly hostile to any thaw between Washington and Tehran, highlighted the purported plot as further evidence that Iran cannot be trusted.

For all its efforts, Iran has yet to deliver on its promises of vengeance for its high-profile losses, beyond a missile attack on American forces in Iraq in January 2020, days after General Suleimani was killed.

Any plan to hit the U.A.E., as suggested by the arrests in Ethiopia, would be a curious choice, given its potential to undermine Mr. Biden’s putative nuclear diplomacy with Iran, said Aaron David Miller, https://carnegieendowment.org/experts/1744 a foreign policy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Other analysts, though, said that the U.A.E. was high on Iran’s list of enemies and that the embassy in Ethiopia might present an unchallenging target at a time when Ethiopia is distracted by a war that has been raging in its northern Tigray https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/05/worl ... ained.html region since November.

Africa is a relatively easy place to operate, and Ethiopia is preoccupied with other issues,

said Bruce Riedel, https://www.brookings.edu/experts/bruce-riedel/ a former C.I.A. officer now with the Brookings Institution.

The murky episode seemed destined to become the latest in a series of cat-and-mouse episodes between Iranian and Israeli operatives on African soil in recent years.

During the 1990s, Iran enjoyed close ties with Sudan under the autocratic ruler Omar Hassan al-Bashir, and in the next decade it was able to dock its warships in Eritrea. (????????????)-[Not true]

Israel struck back in 2009 with airstrikes against a convoy of smuggler trucks in Sudan that aimed to stop Iranian-supplied weapons from reaching the Gaza Strip, American officials said.

But Iran’s ties to the Horn of Africa have withered in recent years, and Israeli and Emirati involvement has grown.

The Emirates helped mediate https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethi ... SKBN1KT1QX a landmark peace deal between Ethiopia and Eritrea in 2018, and now it is Emirati warships that are docked in Eritrean ports.

In November, following a call between the Ethiopian prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, and Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, a team of Israeli drone pilots arrived in Ethiopia https://www.ena.et/en/?p=18371 to help eliminate the locusts that have plagued the country’s farmers.


Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, center, in Jerusalem in 2019. Credit...Menahem Kahana/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Weeks later, Yossi Cohen, the chief of the Mossad, Israel’s covert intelligence service, met with his Ethiopian counterpart to discuss what they termed

counterterrorism operations.

Elsewhere in Africa, Israeli intelligence officials say they frequently tip off friendly countries about suspected Iranian activity.

In Kenya, two Iranians arrested in 2012 http://kenyalaw.org/caselaw/cases/view/147443/ and charged with possession of 15 kilograms of explosives are now serving 15-year prison sentences. Kenyan officials said the men were members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force. Their lawyers said they had been interrogated by Israeli intelligence while in Kenyan custody.

Four years later, in 2016, Kenya deported two Iranians https://in.news.yahoo.com/kenya-iranian ... 06201.html who had been arrested outside the Israeli Embassy with video footage of the facility. Iran said the men, who had been traveling in an Iranian diplomatic car, were university teachers. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-keny ... SKBN13R1VF

Iranian agents have been suspected in attacks or thwarted attacks in countries including Georgia, Thailand and India. On Feb. 4, a Belgian court stripped an Iranian envoy of his diplomatic status and sentenced him to 20 years in prison https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/worl ... -plot.html for having organized a thwarted bomb attack aimed at an Iranian opposition rally in France in 2018.


Outside a courthouse in Antwerp, Belgium, last week where an Iranian diplomat was convicted in a bomb plot. Credit...Virginia Mayo/Associated Press

That failed plot and another in Denmark prompted the European Union in 2019 to impose sanctions https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/08/worl ... tions.html on Iran’s external spy service, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security. Israeli officials say the same agency orchestrated the operation in Ethiopia.

Sofia Hellqvist, a spokeswoman for the Swedish Police Authority, referred questions about the arrest of Mr. Ismail, the alleged ringleader, to the authorities in Ethiopia.

A spokesman for the United Arab Emirates did not respond to a request for comment.

Given the stakes, it was unclear why the Iranians might risk a rapprochement with the Biden administration by mounting an operation now.

Farzin Nadimi, a specialist on the Iranian armed forces with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Iran may wish to send a message to the Biden administration officials that

unless they reach a deal with Iran quickly this is what they get: a dangerous neighborhood.

Declan Walsh reported from Nairobi; Eric Schmitt from Washington; Simon Marks from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; and Ronen Bergman from Tel Aviv. Rick Gladstone contributed reporting from New York.

Correction: Feb. 16, 2021
An earlier version of this article misidentified the location of a missile attack on American forces in January 2020. It occurred in Iraq, not Iran.

Declan Walsh is the Chief Africa correspondent. He was previously based in Egypt, covering the Middle East, and in Pakistan. He previously worked at the Guardian and is the author of The Nine Lives of Pakistan. @declanwalsh

Eric Schmitt is a senior writer who has traveled the world covering terrorism and national security. He was also the Pentagon correspondent. A member of the Times staff since 1983, he has shared three Pulitzer Prizes. @EricSchmittNYT

Ronen Bergman is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, based in Tel Aviv. His latest book is “Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations,” https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/book ... 400069712/ published by Random House.

Biden administration approves $197m arms sale to Egypt

Sale includes rolling airframe tactical missiles and related equipment


US State Department spokesman Ned Price stands at a podium during a news conference at the State Department in Washington, February 16, 2021. Pool via REUTERS

Joyce Karam

https://amp.thenationalnews.com/world/t ... -1.1167536

February 17, 2021

The US State Department on Tuesday approved an arms sale to Egypt valued at about $200 million, the first weapons sale under the Biden administration.

The notification of approval said the sale included rolling airframe missiles and related equipment for an estimated cost of $197m.

Egypt had requested up to 168 Rim‑116C Ram Block 2 missiles, it said, along with shipping and storage containers, operator manuals and technical documentation, and support services.

This proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to improve the security of a major non-Nato ally country that continues to be an important strategic partner in the Middle East,

the department read.

The sale is designed to support the Egyptian Navy’s fast missile craft ships and boost Cairo’s defence capabilities in the country's coastal areas and approaches to the Suez Canal.

The main contractor for the sale will be Raytheon, based in Arizona.

By US law, Congress will have 30 days to review the sale but its approval is not required for the transaction.

Neither President Joe Biden nor Secretary of State Antony Blinken have called Egyptian leaders yet.

Last May, the Trump administration approved a deal to provide Egypt with equipment to refurbish 43 AH-64E Apache attack helicopters for an estimated $2.3 billion.

Meanwhile, State Department spokesman Ned Price said US officials were aware of reports that family members of activist Mohamed Soltan had been detained, and were looking into the situation.

We have and we continue to engage with the Egyptian government on human rights concerns and we take seriously all allegations of arbitrary arrest or detention,

Mr Price said.

The US' 2020 Elections: From Conspiracy Theory To Conspiracy Fact

By Andrew Korybko (American political analyst)

http://oneworld.press/?module=articles& ... ew&id=1915

10 FEBRUARY 2021



Time magazine admitted in a report last week that a self-described “conspiracy” run by a “well-connected cabal of powerful people” “got states to change voting systems and laws” and “successfully pressured social media companies” among other achievements aimed at “democratically” toppling Trump, the revelation of which represents an attempt by the Democrats to flex their newfound post-election narrative power over their opponents as well as possibly provoke the most unstable at-risk ones among them to overreact in a violent way that could then be exploited for justifying the next phase of their “conspiracy”.

The Cat's Out Of The Bag

The Democrats and their supporters previously defamed everyone speculating about secretly concerted efforts against former President Trump in the run-up to and after last year's elections as “conspiracy theorists”, and such individuals even risked being deplatformed from social media for exercising their constitutionally enshrined freedom of speech depending on how they articulated their personal views in this respect. They were told that publicly expressing such an interpretation of events is equivalent to spreading “disinformation” and attempting to “delegitimize” the “democratic” outcome of the US' electoral process. That makes it all the more surprising then that Time https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/ magazine admitted in a report last week that a self-described “conspiracy” run by a

well-connected cabal of powerful people

got states to change voting systems and laws

and

successfully pressured social media companies

among other achievements aimed at “democratically” toppling Trump. In other words, “conspiracy theory” became “conspiracy fact”.

Politically Inconvenient Questions

This naturally begs the question of why that pro-Democrat media outlet would so proudly brag about

The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election,

as its piece is titled.

Time can't be “discredited” by the Democrats otherwise they'd inflict the same such damage against the dozens of individuals named in their report who voluntarily cooperated with journalist Molly Ball in order to show, as one of them phrased it, that

the system didn't work magically

and that

democracy isn't self-executing.

Whether they intended to or not, they confirmed this hitherto so-called “conspiracy theory” as a “conspiracy fact”, thereby vindicating every Trump supporter who earlier expressed such sentiments. Not only that, but they also tacitly acknowledged that those who were deplatformed were victims of the same self-described “conspiracy” run by a “well-connected cabal of powerful people”. It's seemingly inexplicable why they'd do this, but deeply reflecting on the deliberate decision to reveal all of this provides some plausible explanations.

The Democrats' Post-Election Narrative Power Flex

The first is that, since

Every Democrat Is A Wannabe Dictator,

http://oneworld.press/?module=articles& ... ew&id=1772 the party wanted to flex its newfound post-election narrative power to humiliate its opponents.

The message being sent is simple enough, and it's that they're able to not only get away with literal “conspiracies” such as this one, but are powerful enough to weaponize the institutions under their control (Big Tech, government, mass media, etc.) in order to politically suppress those who dare to call them out on it. As predicted in the author's analysis late last year about how

Biden's America Would Be A Dystopian Hellhole,

http://oneworld.press/?module=articles& ... ew&id=1779 the Democrats want to rapidly impose a de facto one-party dictatorship onto the rest of the country in collaboration with their “Republican In Name Only” (RINO) allies.

They're drunk enough on power after having successfully pulled off what RT's Nebojsa Malic rightly described as a Color Revolution https://www.rt.com/op-ed/514770-time-el ... evolution/ and thus winning what the author of the present piece earlier called the Hybrid War of Terror on America http://oneworld.press/?module=articles& ... ew&id=1501 that they're excited to move full speed ahead towards this goal without any hesitation.

Maximum Demoralization Motives

The Trump-inspired “Make America Great Again” http://oneworld.press/?module=articles& ... ew&id=1864 movement is mired in a political war with the RINOs http://oneworld.press/?module=articles& ... ew&id=1888 while simultaneously struggling to purge itself of subversive QAnon elements. http://oneworld.press/?module=articles& ... ew&id=1867 This makes it weaker than it ever was at any moment since its inception and thus unable to adequately organize any meaningful political resistance to this scheme. There's never been a better moment for the Democrats to strike in dealing what they hope will be the death blow to their most important opponents' morale, especially since their revelation was disclosed at the time that swamp-captured Trump http://oneworld.press/?module=articles& ... ew&id=1862 decided to ally with the GOP Establishment http://oneworld.press/?module=articles& ... ew&id=1907 in the likely misplaced hope that the party can regain control of Congress during the 2022 midterm elections. The intense frustration that some of the Democrats' opponents might understandably feel about all of these overwhelming developments happening at once might even incite some of the most unstable and at-risk ones such as the QAnon cultists to overreact in a violent way that could then be exploited for justifying the next phase of this “conspiracy”.

Dictatorship Through “Democratic” Motions

After all, there's little doubt among the Democrats' opponents that the party is now going all out in its attempt to impose a de facto one-party dictatorship onto the rest of the country, especially after Time proudly bragged about how they pulled off the first phase of their self-described “conspiracy” to “democratically” topple Trump due to the “secret” efforts of a “well-connected cabal of powerful people”. Even though they've made it clear that they'll weaponize their control over institutions to politically suppress others through defamatory attacks, deplatforming, and perhaps worse on the basis of indisputable narrative double standards, they still want to complete their full seize of power by going through superficially “democratic” motions. It would therefore greatly advance their grand strategic goal if an unstable, at-risk, and uncontrollably distressed Trump supporter was triggered by this revelation to plot or even God forbid carry out a domestic terrorist attack. In fact, that doesn't even have to happen in reality since the context is already set to invent that allegation if needed.

Confusion Reigns

One of the implied supplementary objectives of admitting to the “conspiracy” against Trump by a “well-connected cabal of powerful people” is to make it impossible for anyone to really know what to believe anymore. For this reason, any reports about domestic terrorist attacks or plans by Trump supporters in response to Time's surprising disclosure can't be taken at face value since there will always be the lingering but nevertheless plausible doubt that such allegations are also part of the larger “conspiracy” that was recently confirmed. As such, it wouldn't be surprising if many people suspected that such an attack was a false flag or that those implicated in planning something of the sort were entrapped by the secret police (FBI), if the latter even happened at all that is. The intent in so directly addressing this isn't to automatically extend credibility to those interpretations, but just to draw attention to how likely they are to emerge in the aftermath of Time's scandalous report.

“American Solidarity” Is The Only Realistic Solution

The domestic political impact would nevertheless be the same whether they really happened as might be reported or not since those incidents would certainly be exploited to advance the Democrats' grand strategic goal of imposing a de facto one-party state onto the rest of the country. Admittedly, there doesn't seem to be anything that dissidents can do to stop this, except perhaps immediately organizing an “American Solidarity” movement modeled off of its historic Polish counterpart, even if it too might take years to have any noticeable effect, if any at all considering the drastically different domestic political conditions in which it would peacefully operate. Not only would any attempt to organize violent resistance be illegal and arguably immoral, but it would simply facilitate the Democrats' plans by providing real evidence of what they'd describe as a domestic terrorist plot for justifying the accelerated implementation of the next phase of their “conspiracy”. For these reasons, “American Solidarity” is the only realistic (albeit possibly long-term) solution to this predicament.

Concluding Thoughts

The Democrats made a deliberate decision to have one of their most prominent mouthpieces so proudly brag about the self-described “conspiracy” that a “well-connected cabal of powerful people” pulled off against Trump. This was done to humiliate and demoralize their political opponents, as well as likely provoke the most unstable and at-risk ones such as the most radical QAnon cultists into overreacting by committing acts of violence that could then be exploited as the justification for next phase of their “conspiracy”. The messages being sent are several: the Democrats have successfully captured control of all institutions and are now weaponizing them to politically suppress their opponents on the basis of double standards; this revelation was widely known long ago by all sides but only publicly acknowledged by the culprits at this point due to its strategic timing; and nobody can ever take the Democrats' and their proxies' (including institutions') statements at face value any more. In truth, while one Hybrid War on America just ended, another has only begun.

Hands off, the HOA! It's time for our region to move forward with economic prosperity - Minus the #TPLFisaTerroristGroup. Meanwhile, this new US admin should worry about its own problems especially on Human Rights; instead of pointing fingers @ others!

‘BRING SUNDIATA HOME’: THE CASE FOR FREEING ELDERLY POLITICAL PRISONERS

Sundiata Acoli has been locked up for 48 years. At 84 years old, and after contracting COVID-19 in prison, Acoli's health is suffering—and a coalition of friends, family, and faith leaders are calling for him to be released before it's too late.

BY EDDIE CONWAY

https://therealnews.com/bring-sundiata- ... -prisoners

FEBRUARY 1, 2021

At 84 years old, Sundiata Acoli has been in prison for 48 years, and has been denied parole six times. Last December, he was diagnosed with COVID-19. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, Rev. Lukata Mjumbe of the Sundiata Acoli Freedom Campaign joins Eddie Conway to discuss Acoli’s life as an organizer, mathematician, artist, and poet; the push by his friends and family, along with faith leaders, to secure his release; and the challenges aging prisoners face to their health and well-being.

Tune in every Monday for new episodes of Rattling the Bars. https://therealnews.com/rattling-the-bars

_______

RATTLING THE BARS

Rattling the Bars, hosted by former Black Panther and political prisoner Marshall “Eddie” Conway, puts the voices of the people most harmed by our system of mass incarceration at the center of our reporting on the fight to end it.


EDDIE CONWAY
Executive Producer