02-Dec-16: Kenya, seeking Iranian oil and gas, learns again that it's getting a very different Iranian export

Kenya and Iran have been trying for some time
to identify what they have in common when it
comes to terrorism [Image Source]

Iran and terrorism are linked in the news again today. This time it's about a thwarted terror attack on Israelis in East Africa. And if that sounds vaguely familiar, it's because it should. Kenyan anti-terror police

detained two Iranian men using forged Israeli passports to enter the East African country, on suspicion that they may have been involved in a plan to carry out an attack there...

That was two years ago. We looked at the surrounding circumstances in a post at the time ["20-Sep-14: Iran is not commenting but Kenya may have just thwarted another Iranian terror attack"]

Here's what happened yesterday:

A Kenyan prosecutor has charged two Iranian men with collecting information to carry out a terrorist attack after they were allegedly found with video footage of the Israeli embassy. State Prosecutor Duncan Ondimu said in court on Thursday that Sayed Nasrollah Ebrahim and Abdolhosein Gholi Safaee were arrested Tuesday in an Iranian diplomatic car while taking the pictures of the Israeli mission using a mobile phone, including when they were intercepted. They were detained in the capital, Nairobi after they had come from visiting Kamiti Prison where they saw two other Iranians who have been jailed for 15 years on terrorism charges... A Kenyan driver, Moses Keyah Mmboga, who was chauffeuring the vehicle belonging to the Iranian embassy has been charged along with the suspects and also faces a separate charge of “abetting terrorism,” Ondimu said. [Times of Israel, today]

There was more trouble of a similar nature even earlier than two years ago. See another of our earlier blog posts: "3-May-13: Kenya discovers it is hosting a "vast network" of terrorists; convicts two Iranians and hopes for the best". 

In June 2013 a Kenyan court convicted two Iranian nationals of plotting attacks against Western targets in Kenya and sentenced them to life in prison (reduced on appeal to 15 years imprisonment). Ahmad Abolfathi Mohammad and Sayed Mansour Mousavi had been arrested in June 2012 and led officials to a massive stash of explosives. Kenyan anti-terror officials said at the time that the Iranians were members of the notorious Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Iran's English-language media kept silent about the 2012 arrests of Iranian terror suspects, about the 2013 convictions of Iranian terrorists and, as far as we can tell, about the thwarted 2014 Iranian terror attack. Truly, we can understand that.

We searched the English-language edition of the Iranian regime's FARS news site just now, and didn't see any mention of what has just happened in Nairobi. Searching there for "Kenya" produces nothing about IRGC people plotting to kill Israelis or Kenyans. We understand that too.

But strikingly there is this from two years ago:

Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani and his Kenyan counterpart Justin Bedan Njoka Muturi [met] in Tehran on Saturday [and] conferred on mutual cooperation in the fight against terrorism. "A part of our negotiations with the Kenyan speaker was focused on the terrorism crises which are seen in our region and East Africa as Kenya is in the fight against some terrorist groups," Larijani told reporters today in a press conference after meeting with Muturi. "Our views about war on terrorism are close and the two countries have identical determination to this end and we hope to expand our mutual cooperation in campaign against terrorism," he added. Muturi, for his part, underlined the need for activation of parliamentary friendship groups between Iran and Kenya, and said, "During my talks with Mr. Larijani, we underscored strengthening friendly ties and improvement of economic and cultural relations..."
In February 2015, Kenyan Foreign Minister Amina Chawahir Mohammed said that expansion of all-out relations with Iran stands atop her country's foreign policy agenda. "Nairobi is particularly interested in expansion of cooperation with Iran in oil and gas fields," the Kenyan foreign minister said in a joint press conference with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif in Nairobi. ["Iran, Kenya Discuss Anti-Terrorism Cooperation", FARS, September 24, 2016]

Not to sound rude, but how well do the Kenyan authorities understand what it means to pursue counter-terror co-operation with the Islamic Republic of Iran?

We have had our doubts in the past (see "24-Jul-15: Terror here? 'Ridiculous' say Kenyans, deploying their largest ever security blanket" and "16-May-14: More jihadist killings in East Africa today" and "27-Sep-13: Freeing terrorists and the Nairobi massacre"). If the US State Department doesn't return their calls (and the State Department knows a lot about Iranian terror even if they don't always own up to it), the Kenyans could go searching on the web.

A good starting point might be "Iran and state-sponsored terrorism" from Wikipedia.

28-Jun-16: Is Iran now threatening more nuclear plotting?

Boroujerdi [Wikipedia]

Over at the Washington Free Beacon ["Iran Threatens to Restart Nuke Program", Adam Kredo, June 28, 2016] they are dissecting some Iranian moves that may produce an outbreak of red faces in numerous locations:

Iran on Tuesday threatened to restart its contested nuclear program in violation of last summer’s international agreement if the United States and other countries fail to move forward with a massive sanctions relief program aimed at bolstering the Iranian economy, according to comments by a top Iranian leader.
Alaeddin Boroujerdi, chair of the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy commission, warned that the Islamic Republic would “resume large-scale uranium enrichment” if leaders feel the international community is not doing enough for Iran under the nuclear deal.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran’s response to the other side’s non-compliance with the implementation of the nuclear deal will be uranium enrichment,” Boroujerdi was quoted as saying in Iran’s state-controlled press.
The comments come on the heels of a similar warning issued by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei earlier this month. Khamenei expressed outrage over comments by Republican leaders criticizing the Islamic Republic’s commitment to the deal. “We do not violate the [nuclear deal], but if the opposite party violates it and tears it apart as the U.S. presidential candidates state and threaten at present, then we will burn it,” Khamanei was quoted as saying. [Washington Free Beacon, today]

Boroujerdi has been chairman of the Committee for Foreign Policy and National Security of Iran's Islamic Consultative Assembly, the national parliament of Iran, according to Wikipedia, for the past eleven years. He's no side-show performer.

Almost a year ago, we posted here ["29-Jul-15: Built not on trust but on... verification"] about the odd and strikingly inaccurate ways in which the mainstream media was reporting on the exquisitely named Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, described by President Obama as a deal not built on trust, but on verification [watch]. 

Iran's foreign minister Zarif strikes a classic pose while
taking a break from talks with the Obama
administration in Vienna last July [Image Source]

We, but not the State Department, not the White House, not AFP, not Washington Post, not Times of India, not Deutsche Welle/German Radio, not Los Angeles Times, not The National (UAE), not USA Today, and not a host of other media channels, said (a) it's not an agreement, (b) it's not signed, and (c) Iran sees it as not binding on Iran. 

We, and none of the above, quoted a senior Iranian regime figure who said in blunt language back then what almost everyone in the West was trying hard, via omissions and mis-statements, to obscure:

[Discussing what president Obama has called snapback and "real consequences"] "Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said the country will be able to “immediately” reverse its commitments under a final nuclear deal with world powers if it finds out that the other side has breached commitments under the [JCPOA]... Whenever Iran feels the other side has not honored its commitments, the “reversibility” of Tehran’s nuclear program will happen immediately, he said." [Tasnim News Agency, Iran, July 28, 2015]

Has that happened? Washington Free Beacon thinks so. For now, they and the rest of us can do little more right than watch closely and stay abreast of sources (like this one).

And remind ourselves that the Iranians have said from the outset that this was part of their plan.

27-Jan-14: On Holocaust Memorial Day, a reminder of who still denies it happened, and why

In some parts of the world, mainly in Europe and the UK, January 27 is marked as Holocaust Memorial Day. Over on the website of The Commentator, they connect the day with some serious Holocaust denial being done by, and on behalf of, the Iranian government. The entire article is reproduced here.

Iranian supreme leader's Holocaust denial not a mistranslation
Iran's smiling, moderate, foreign minister, who just charmed the world at Davos, exposed as a liar about the lies of his Holocaust denying supreme leader. Would you trust these people?
The Commentator | 26 January 2014 18:18

You can barely get into conversation with a Western peacenik or an Iranian diplomat on the subject of Iran without them trying to wriggle out of the extreme threats the regime has made to wipe out Israel or its vicious anti-Semitism by saying that this is all a mistranslation or it's been taken out of context.

This matters enormously because the premise of the latest moves in Western policy towards the Islamic repubic is that we can take Iran at its word. If a) all they're doing is lying to us and/or b) all the most damning charges against Iranian threats and rhetoric turn out to be true, we're heading into the abyss.

As many countries and international institutions mark Holocaust Memorial Day on Monday, it is perhaps fitting that one of those "mistranslation" dragons can now be slain.

It has now been definitively established that Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is a Holocaust denier and that Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who charmed everyone at Davos a couple of days ago, has been lying through his teeth in saying that he is not.

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) did the hard work that Western media organisations have not done and on Sunday exposed Zarif for what he and his ultimate boss really are. Zarif had told ABC's George Stephanopoulos last September that reports Khamenei had openly denied the Holocaust were as a result of "bad translation" and were taken "out of context." According to MEMRI [here]:

"Despite Zarif's claim that Khamenei's statements had been mistranslated from the Persian, MEMRI found that not only does Khamenei's original Persian statement appear on his Persian-language website, but that the English version on his English-language website is indeed an accurate translation – he did indeed refer to the "myth of the Jewish slaughter known as the Holocaust".

MEMRI's translation from the original of Khamenei's statements on February 7, 2006 reads:

"A more important topic is one that shames Western culture in terms of freedom of speech... This same freedom of speech – which they [i.e. the West] constantly champion – does not permit anyone to question the topic of the myth of the Jewish slaughter known as the Holocaust. On this topic there is no freedom of speech!"

Khamenei has been denying the Holocaust ever since, and supporting and applauding others that do the same. This leaves us with a moral conundrum and an issue over present day policy, both of which overlap and can be formulated into two questions. First, who is worse, the liar about the Holocaust or the liar who lies about the lies of the liar about the Holocaust? Second, would you trust these people as far as you can throw them?