I wish I didn’t find this credible:
Kahlili says Iranian terrorist cells inside the U.S. have weapons, explosives, money and safe houses; they use contacts with Mexican and Latin American drug cartels to smuggle explosives and weapons into the U.S.
“They have very detailed information about sensitive sites such as bridges, railroads, airports, military bases, power plants, nuclear sites, water plants, railway stations,” he says.
If the U.S. or Israel attacked Iran, he says, sleeper cells inside the U.S. would launch suicide bombings and sabotage. Iran would attack Israel, and U.S. bases in Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf, he warns.
Kahlili says Iran has intelligence agents inside American universities, Islamic cultural centers and charitable institutions, posing as academics, policy experts and officers of nonprofits. They try to influence policymakers to encourage negotiations in order to give Iran time to develop nuclear weapons.
Kahlili says the Iranian leadership is motivated by Mahdism, the messianic belief that the 12th imam of Shiism, the Mahdi, will one day reappear to establish universal Islam. The trigger is the destruction of Israel.
Sanctions against Iran won’t work, Kahlili argues. “It’s not about the economy. It’s about ideology,” he says.
Of Obama’s many foreign-policy disasters, history may view his indifference to the Green Revolution, or indeed to the very notion of Iranian regime change, as his biggest.
Why do we see no evidence of such cells in Israel? The reason I ask about Israel is this: you could say that the USA hasn’t given Iran a reason to activate its sleeper cells yet. But most Muslim countries which are completely hostile to Israel have already been given ample reason to activate their cells. Israel has extensive border security, but even Iranians can visit, and certainly Muslims from a wide variety of countries visit Israel every day.
Today, terrorist attacks in Israel are largely rocket fire from beyond the security wall/fence. But even in the past, when terrorist attacks were regularly occurring in Israel, they usually took the form of Palestinians blowing up busses, and pizza places, not “bridges, railroads, airports, military bases, power plants, nuclear sites, water plants, and railway stations”. There were a few times Palestinians mounted more extensive and organized attacks, like this one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1974_Nahariya_attack and this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_Nahariya_attack) but those were uncommon, and notably, not operations by terrorists from other Muslim countries, like Iran. Why?
The answer might suggest that either the Israelis are doing something right that we should also do, or it might suggest that there are no Iranian sleeper cells.
Also note that the Iranian response to the Israeli agents killing nuclear scientists in Iran (and perhaps orchestrating larger explosions as well) was to attack Israelis in India and Georgia (the country, not the US state). Why didn’t they attack in Israel?
Bob-1, are you stupid, or just playing it on the Internet? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Israel actually controls its borders. Because unlike the U.S., they actually understand how important that is to national security these days.
What border provision would Israel take against sleeper cells? The whole idea of a sleeper cell is that they look like normal residents or citizens. Israel has a huge Muslim population, some with sympathy for Iran. Israel has a large number of Muslim visitors every day, visitors who pass through the protected border. Obviously they’ll keep out foreign agents who are the list of people to watch out for, and probably they can weed out other agents with border interviews and other kinds of border enforcement, but I’d say that the only provisions which could keep out all sleeper agents are the kind that would keep out all foreign visitors, and those clearly are not in force, as Israel is a tourist destination. And even Israel closed its borders to everyone, even Americans, that leaves 1 million Muslims within its borders who could be recruited to be sleeper agents for Iran.
So how could Israel prevent sleeper agents by controlling its border to the extent that it actually does?
My 2nd to last sentence should have read: “And *if*even Israel closed its borders to everyone, even Americans, that leaves 1 million Muslims within its borders who could be recruited to be sleeper agents for Iran.”
In case it isn’t obvious: I think there are no Iranian sleeper cells in Israel, because we would have seen them in action by now. And I claim that means that there are probably no Iranian sleeper cells in the USA, because Israel is a more tempting target for the Iranians than the USA.
Even if you think that the Iranians could set up sleeper cells in Israel, consider the possibility that they’re not so stupid that they want to start a war with Israel until they have deliverable nukes.
I consider that possibility alongside the fact that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is operating openly in Lebanon, and has repeatedly assisted Hezbollah in its attacks on Israel. And Iran smuggles weapons to Hamas in Gaza. And it was pretty clear that Iran attacked Israeli diplomats in Georgia and India. So, it isn’t like they are hanging back and not attacking. I think they just don’t use sleeper cells.
And of course, all of Israel’s neighbors have been at war with Israel. They didn’t wait to work on nukes first. In some cases, they attacked Israel knowing that Israel already had nukes (Israel considered going nuclear in the Yom Kippur war as their defenses collapsed.) Israel’s Arab neighbors took all sorts of stupid risks and lost. And yet, they didn’t use sleeper cells. And I think it would have been easy for them too.
It’s so interesting Bob, how you can rule out possibilities by looking into the minds of others. With a talent like that you should be playing poker rather than enlightening us.
We were talking about sleeper cells in the U.S. of A., not Israel. Iran is playing a cat and mouse game with us. They are working to have nuclear bombs and at a delivery system with many neighboring countries in range.
Activating sleeper cells now would make us respond like we did in Afghanistan over a decade ago. But inactive, it is enough to manipulate our state department.
Why add fantasy to the reality?
Bob-1, I think you answered your own question. Why no sleeper cells in Israel? They are not needed when there is Hamas on one side and Hezbollah on the other. Or if they are there why should they be activated when it is much easier for those groups to attack Israel? Maybe Iran would want to save them for something that couldn’t be accomplished by their Palestinian terror groups.
Hezbollah rockets are fired south to reach Israel’s North, Hamas rockets can reach a small area of Israel’s South. But if terror is the objective, they should go for Tel Aviv, which might be reached by sleeper cells (or better rockets, of course.)
Bob-1,
You missed a very important part of the article:
they use contacts with Mexican and Latin American drug cartels to smuggle explosives and weapons into the U.S.
This is the main difference between how we control our border and how Israel controls its border. They may allow people to flow back and forth, but they are very strict with who comes in, and especially ‘WHAT’ comes in. In the US, our border ‘control’ is essentially useless, unless you are a Joe Average citizen who just wants to cruise into Tijuana for a fun night.
Tom,
Google “smuggled into Israel” or “smuggling into Israel”. It happens all the time. There are stories about it constantly. Here’s a story that was published today:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4253632,00.html
The only reason I bring it up the egg story is because it was published hours before you made your comment.
Ah you say, well, that’s just eggs. What about weapons and explosives?
Happens all the time!
Read between the lines of this article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/world/middleeast/israel-guards-against-terror-from-laxly-patrolled-sinai.html?pagewanted=all
I missed the last paragraph of the story on the hundreds of thousands of smuggled eggs. Explosives were mentioned. Here you go:
“Who knows what went through security in those trucks without being inspected,” one police source said, adding, “explosives could also have been hidden in the trucks, they were never inspected.”
Do something like enforce the border?
We have an open and inclusive society that permits nearly every ideology. An Iranian-American or simply an Iranian spouting off anti-American rhetoric would fit right in with tens of millions of leftists and would draw no attention and if they actually tried to fly under the radar would totally blend in. Any act by the government to track down these foreign agents would be met with protests in the streets from our friends on the left making it unlikely that our government would do anything, just look at what happened in NYC, DHS, and DOD.
I really wonder how many sleeper agents would actually act on their orders; the USA is a much better place to live than Iran and they might enjoy living their life to a natural end here outside of a prison cell instead of the wasteland that will be Iran if they attack targets here in the USA.
But there have been Iranian terror plots busted all over the world this year and also a couple successful ones got off, it isn’t a good idea to be complacant. Let’s not forget an Iranian plot to blow up a restaurant in DC was foiled just a few months back.
“an Iranian spouting off anti-American rhetoric would fit right in with tens of millions of leftists and would draw no attention and if they actually tried to fly under the radar would totally blend in. ”
Israel has a greater diversity of mainstream opinions than the US. And as you say, a sleeper agent wouldn’t try to attract attention. They could fail to attract attention in Jerusalem just as well as in New York.
Israel has a greater diversity of mainstream opinions than the US.
No they don’t. I’m guessing that was a throwaway Bob. Why? Sleeper agents need access to the Workers of the World daily news in the morning and Fox in the afternoon?
Yes, they do. Just look at the list of parties in the Knesset.
Why do we see no evidence of such cells in Israel?
What would such evidence look like? The whole point of sleeper cells is to blend in with the background until activated.
But most Muslim countries which are completely hostile to Israel have already been given ample reason to activate their cells.
So we slide from Iran to a large number of theoretical countries. And I doubt you gave any thought to the strategy of using sleeper cells. Pretty much once they start doing overt stuff, then they’ll eventually get caught. So they’re more or less for creating considerable amounts of one time harm. Even completely hostile countries can make rational decisions on the strategic basis for using sleeper cells. And it strikes me that “use them now” is not the more competent decision.
And Israel does suffer a high level of internal terrorism and paramilitary attacks which would be consistent with the occasional activation of sleeper cells.
But having said that, sleeper cells are particularly unprovable one way or another unless someone inside one of the cells sheds light on things or they start blowing up things. I’m leery of claims in this area precisely because there is little to falsify it.
“And Israel does suffer a high level of internal terrorism and paramilitary attacks which would be consistent with the occasional activation of sleeper cells.”
Well, it used to suffer this. And when the terrorists’ identities were revealed, they were always Palestinians, despite Israel being at war with all of its neighbors. You didn’t see Egyptian sleeper agents blowing up bridges or whatever, even during wartime.
I don’t think Israel’s internal terrorism is consistent with sleeper cells. Here are some descriptions of various attacks — do you think some of these are sleeper cells?
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Terrorism/victims.html
So, is Iran different from Israel’s neighbors? Or is Iran just not at war with Israel? Well, consider that Israel is using agents in Iran to attacking people (and maybe blowing up bases), so why wouldn’t Iran activate its Israel-based agents? Rand suggests it is because they want to have a deliverable bomb first, but I’d say that Iran’s actions in Lebanon and Gaza already give Israel plenty of justification to attack Iran. If Iran doesn’t want Israel to attack it, it should stop many of its activities.
So Bob-1, why do you think Egyptian sleeper agents wouldn’t be “Palestinian”.
Goals. The goals of the attacks.
I’m assuming that Egyptian agents would attack strategic targets, just as the Iranian agents discussed in the article Rand linked to are supposed to be interested in attacking strategic targets.
If the Egyptian agents were instructed to act just like Palestinians, then yes, of course, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. But the Palestinians’ attacks have been very ineffectual from a strategic point of view, they don’t seem designed to achieve the anti-Israel goals Egypt was interested in, back when Egypt was attacking Israel militarily, and very unlike the anti-Israel goals Egypt has had since the Camp David accords.
If the Egyptian agents were instructed to act just like Palestinians, then yes, of course, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
Well, that is the point of being a sleeper agent, to blend in. And that’s the real problem with the assertion above of the story, namely, that it is unverifiable. Iran could have sleeper agents ready for sabotage and such or it might not, we just can’t tell until someone blows something up or a bunch of people publicly confess.
We also need to remember that Egypt very well could have had a bunch of sleeper agents poised in any of its wars with Israel. But Israel has the Mossad, which among other things is fairly skilled at rooting out secrets. Those sleeper agents may well have existed and gotten rounded up right at the beginning of the next war. After that sort of thing has happened to you a few times, you might become a little less sure of such tactics in Israel especially given the costs of setting such operations up. Or well, that might not have happened.
The US would be a different ballgame. Looser borders and you haven’t had the chance to fail yet since there hasn’t yet been a war… yet.
But please continue pretending that you somehow have a means to determine the truth or not of this story.
Well, Egyptians have been regularly blowing up pipelines leading into Israel since the Arab Spring and there have been a number of attacks out of the Sinai. Egypt could probably does have agents inside of Israel but they also coordinate closely with the Palestinian terror groups/government. Egypt is probably happy enough to help Palestinian terror groups attack Israel than to actually use their own agents; the same could be said for Iran.
They don’t have a DHS.
Rand,
Sometime in the next 4 years we’ll probably get the unfortunate chance to find out if this guy is stringing us along. For some reason I don’t think I’m going to be losing any sleep over his story though.
~Jon
This just put, “buy more ammo”, on my shopping list.
I’m inclined to doubt the cells are fully developed. If they were, they would have been activated before this with some rationalization. Moslems can /always/ find some excuse for attacking unbelievers.
The Black Moslem cells worry me more. Fully home grown, and the members are effective at killing (being recruited mainly from prisons).
Iran may be inside our perimeter for the purposes of conducting retaliatory mischief, but we can exact an immediate retributive cost to them that will hurt their cultural existence far more seriously than they can cost us even with a handful of never-tested nukes.
The Soviets knew that they could only begin to hobble us effectively if at least 20-some percent of our nation’s cultural/retaliatory infrastructure was destroyed at the outset of hostilities.
Iran won’t possess that skill set anytime soon; we do.
It will suck sfor the blue states but in every red state there will be freshly-minted armed Deputies guarding every piece of infrastructure in a day.
One thing to consider is we have some seerious intel due to the assets we have had inside Iran for a while due to our old ties with the Shaw.
And Stuxnet, Duqu, Flamer, and who knows what else.
Just to let you know, your MOBILE format is showing up on SAFARI desktop.
Please let your people know that SAFARI does not = MOBILE!
I’m not the only one that remembers all the bum information we got on Iraq too, right? Stuff that was entirely made up by the enemies of the Hussein regime?
I believe the parts of the story where his friends and innocent Iranians were hurt, tortured, raped and killed by the Khomeinists. That’s reason enough for some people to use any means necessary to bring about the downfall of the regime – even tricking the US into war. He has the motive, and clearly he sought out the CIA for a reason.
I don’t know whether this guy is lying or not. Maybe he’s right. But Bob-1’s points (for once, by God) are not entirely without merit. We shouldn’t accept this information uncritically.
Yes, and each Iranian sleeper cell has one of General Lebed’s old suitcase nukes.
The “sleeper cell” hypothesis is utterly non-falsifiable, usefully scary, and as far as I know has never been found to be true in any significant sense. There are serious logistical and operational challenges to maintaining a “sleeper cell” network, probably to a degree that renders the whole idea generally impractical, and far too many non-barking dogs in the history of espionage and covert operations for me to take yet another version of the story seriously.
It is, as I say, usefully scary, which is one more reason to be suspicious. It really ought to take more than one self-proclaimed inside source to overcome that suspicion.
Many years ago, I received periodic classified briefings on the Soviet missile threat. I didn’t really want them, because the knowledge caused me on many nights to wake up in a cold sweat, wondering if the next minute would be my last.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the declassified information that emerged made it clear that: a) the briefings I had received were very accurate, and b) the real danger was even greater than we knew.
Unless Bob-1 has a TS/SCI, I’d value his opinions as having exactly zero worth in this matter…