The covert intelligence war

There has been a lot of talk in the press lately about a “cold war” being waged by the United States, Israel and other US allies against Iran. Such a struggle is certainly under way, but in order to place recent developments in perspective, it is important to recognise that the covert intelligence war against Iran (and the Iranian response to this war) is clearly not a new phenomenon, writes Scott Stewart.

Indeed, Stratfor has been chronicling this struggle since early 2007, including  analyses of events such as the defection to the West of Iranian officials with knowledge of Tehran’s nuclear program; the Iranian seizure of British servicemen in the Shatt al Arab waterway; the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists; the use of the Stuxnet worm to cripple Iranian uranium enrichment efforts; and Iranian efforts to arm its proxies and use them as a threat to counteract Western pressure. These proxies are most visible in Iraq and Lebanon, but they also exist in Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, the Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.

While the covert intelligence war has been under way for many years, the tempo of events that can readily be identified as part of it has been increasing over the past few months – many of these the result of hidden processes begun months or even years previously.

While visible events may indeed be increasing, the efforts responsible for many of them began to increase much earlier. What the activities of recent months do tell us is that the covert war between Iran and its enemies will not be diminishing anytime soon. If anything, with the current withdrawal of US troops from Iraq and Iranian nuclear efforts continuing, we likely will see the results of additional covert operations — and evidence of the clandestine activity required to support those operations.

Ramping Up

All eyes were on this covert intelligence war after The New York Times published an article on January 15 reporting that the United States and Israel worked together to create and launch Stuxnet against the Iranian nuclear programme. The visible events related to the intelligence war maintained a relatively steady pace until October 11, when the US Department of Justice announced that two men had been charged in New York with taking part in a plot by the Iranian Quds Force to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir, on US soil:

• An early November  new International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report detailed Iranian efforts toward a nuclear weapons programme, resulting in an Israeli-led diplomatic and public relations campaign urging more effective action against Iran, ranging from more stringent sanctions to military operations;
• In the early afternoon of November 12, an explosion occurred at an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) ballistic missile base near Tehran, killing 17, including a high-ranking IRGC commander, a critical figure in Iran’s ballistic missile programme. Iran has insisted it was an accident, but speculation has since spread that the explosion could have been part of a sabotage operation carried out by Israeli intelligence, with Israeli intelligence officials not-so-subtly strengthening this perception;
• Later on November 12, the Bahraini government went public with the discovery of an alleged  plot involving at least five Bahrainis travelling through Syria and Qatar to carry out attacks against government and diplomatic targets in Bahrain. Iran vehemently denied involvement and portrayed the plot as a fabrication, just as it responded to the alleged plot against the Saudi ambassador;
• Next day, the Iranian press reported that Ahmad Rezai, the son of Mohsen Rezai — secretary of Iran’s Expediency Council, a former IRGC commander and a presidential contender — was found dead in a hotel in Dubai. The deputy head of the Expediency Council told the Iranian press the son’s death was suspicious and caused by electric shocks, while other reports portrayed the death as a suicide;
• On November 20, the Los Angeles Times reported that US intelligence officials confirmed the CIA had suspended its operations in Lebanon following the arrest of several of its sources due to sloppy tradecraft on the part of CIA case officers assigned to Beirut;
• Following this report, the Iranian government announced the arrest of 12 CIA sources due to tradecraft mistakes. We have been unable to determine if the reports regarding Lebanon are true, merely CIA disinformation or a little of both;
• On November  21, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom launched a new wave of sanctions against Iran, based on the aforementioned IAEA report, designed to impact Iran’s banking and energy sectors;
• On November 28, there were unconfirmed press reports of  an explosion in Esfahan, one of Iran’s largest cities and home to numerous military and research and development facilities, including some relevant to Iran’s nuclear efforts. We are unsure which facilities at Esfahan were damaged by the blast and are trying to identify them;
• Elsewhere on November 28, Iran’s Guardians Council, a clerical organisation that provides oversight of legislation passed by Iran’s parliament, approved a bill to expel the British ambassador and downgrade diplomatic relations between the two countries. The next day, Iranian protesters stormed the British Embassy in Tehran, along with the British Embassy’s residential compound in the city. The angry — and well-orchestrated — mob was protesting the sanctions announced on November 21.  Iranian authorities did not stop the mob from storming either facility;
• On Decem∫er  1, the European Union approved new sanctions against some 180 Iranian individuals and companies. The European Union did not approve a French proposal to impose a full embargo on Iranian oil;
• In the early hours of December 4, a small improvised explosive device detonated under a van parked near the British Embassy building in Manama, Bahrain; and
• The next day, an unnamed US official confirmed December 4 reports from several Iranian news outlets that Iran had recovered an RQ-170 “Sentinel” unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in Iranian territory.

Outlook

The United States is currently in the process of completing the withdrawal of its combat forces from Iraq. With the destruction of the Iraqi military in 2003, the US military became the only force able to counter Iranian conventional military strength in the Persian Gulf region.

The US. withdrawal from Iraq will create a power vacuum that the Iranians are eager to exploit. The potential for Iran to control a sphere of influence from western Afghanistan to the Mediterranean is a prospect that not only frightens regional players such as Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey but also raises serious concerns in the United States.

As noted before, we don’t believe that a military attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities alone is the answer to the regional threat posed by Iran. The country’s  power comes from its ability to employ its conventional forces and not nuclear weapons.

Therefore, strikes against its nuclear weapons programme would not impact Iran’s conventional forces or its ability to interfere with the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz by using its conventional forces asymmetrically against US naval power and commercial shipping. Indeed, any attack on Iran would have to be far broader than just a one-off attack like the June 1981 Israeli strike at Osirak, Iraq, that crippled Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons programme.

Because of this difficulty, we have seen the Israelis, Americans and their allies attacking Iran through other means.

First of all, they are seeking to curb Iran’s sphere of influence by working to overthrow the Syrian regime, limit Iran’s influence in Iraq and control Hezbollah in Lebanon. They are also seeking to attack Iran’s nuclear programme by coercing officials to defect, assassinating scientists and deploying cyberwarfare weapons such as the Stuxnet worm.

It is also necessary to recognise that covert action does not occur in a vacuum. Each covert activity requires a tremendous amount of clandestine intelligence-gathering in order to plan and execute it. With so much covert action happening, the clandestine activity undertaken by all sides to support it is obviously tremendous. But as the frequency of this activity increases, so can sloppy tradecraft.

Finally, as we examine this campaign it is remarkable to note that not only are Iran’s enemies using covert methods to stage attacks on Iran’s nuclear programme and military capabilities, they are also developing new and previously unknown methods to do so. And they have shown a willingness to allow these new covert attack capabilities to be unveiled by using them — which could render them useless for future attacks.

This willingness to use, rather than safeguard, revolutionary new capabilities strongly underscores the importance of this covert campaign to Iran’s adversaries. It also indicates that we will likely see other new forms of covert warfare emerge in the coming months, along with revolutionary new tactical applications of older forms.

(This is a slightly shortened version of an article published by Stratfor on 8 December )