Ali Hashem: With Khobar bomber’s arrest, Saudi Arabia deals blow to Iran/ Arash Karami: Will Rouhani serve a second term?

With Khobar bomber’s arrest, Saudi Arabia deals blow to Iran
Ali Hashem/Al-monitor/September 01/15

 Intelligence officials were waiting for Ahmed Ibrahim al-Mughassil, the man authorities blame for the 1996 bombing of US military barracks in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, near the Dhahran air base. The blast killed 19 US Air Force personnel and wounded 372. Mughassil is said to be the head of Saudi Hezbollah, also called Hezbollah al-Hejaz, a group that Saudi authorities accuse of being an Iranian arm in the country. As three men from Lebanon’s intelligence branch watched, Mughassil, also known as Abu Omran, was “heading from the plane to the airport security booth to stamp his Iranian passport, which had been issued under a false name,” according to a Lebanese security source. The source revealed that none of the security personnel who arrested Mughassil knew who he was, yet “they knew he was a most-wanted fugitive.”“Everything was in place to make sure this operation was carried out with no mistakes,” the source said.

According to information acquired by Al-Monitor, the Aug. 7 operation was a joint effort that involved Lebanese, Saudi and US security. The intelligence part was mainly Saudi and American. “They provided the trusted Saudi information branch with the information, and they did the operation,” said the security source. On Aug. 15, also at Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport, another major intelligence-driven operation took place, this time by Lebanon’s General Security, the Hezbollah-trusted security apparatus. Radical cleric Ahmad al-Assir was arrested; he was using a forged Palestinian travel document and a pseudonym. Assir is suspected of being responsible for the killing of at least 10 Lebanese soldiers in June 2013, when clashes erupted in the town of Abra near the southern city of Sidon between him on one side and the Lebanese army and the Hezbollah-backed Resistance Brigade on the other.

 “There’s no link between the two arrests,” said the security source. “Assir isn’t following the Saudi line — he is financed by another regional party. Since the battles of Abra in June 2013, he has become a liability to his backers.” The security source explained that Mughassil cannot be compared to Assir in any way.“Mughassil’s arrest is a major under-the-belt hit by the Saudis to Iran; now we are waiting to see the response, if there will be any.”Hours after the arrest was announced Aug. 26, a statement by Hezbollah in Hijaz said, “We hold the Saudi regime and its proxy in Lebanon, the Future Movement, responsible for this cowardly act. We hereby call for the release of our leader and our detained brothers. We stress that the regime, through this crime, has opened a door that will bring them ongoing harm.”

Mughassil was interrogated after his arrest for a few hours by the information branch, and was later handed over to Saudi Arabia.
“The decision to hand over Mughassil to the Saudis came from Prime Minister Tammam Salam after consulting [Future Movement leader] Saad Hariri,” said a political source to Al-Monitor. “Salam didn’t even know who Mughassil was. Many here in Beirut thought he was an al-Qaeda operative until the Saudis announced the news.”Saudi Arabia accused Iran of being behind the Khobar bombing, but Iran denied any involvement. There were also accusations that slain Lebanese Hezbollah military commander Imad Mughniyeh had a hand in the bombing. A third theory pointed to al-Qaeda, whose leader Osama bin Laden didn’t confirm or deny responsibility when asked by veteran Palestinian British journalist Abdul Bari Atwan in 1996, according to Atwan.

Mughassil, born in 1967, is a Saudi national. He was the senior Saudi Hezbollah official interacting with the Iranians at the time of the bombing. US authorities believe that Iran directed Mughassil to identify US facilities in Saudi Arabia and that he began surveillance of the Khobar Towers facility and the nearby Dhahran air base nearby in 1994. According to the indictment issued in 2001 by the US Department of Justice, Mughassil made regular trips to Dhahran to direct surveillance and recruit Saudi Shiites for the attack.

The indictment said that the bomb was made by Lebanese Hezbollah and that Mughassil remained in contact with his Iranian handlers throughout the planning and implementation of the attack. Authorities believe Mughassil drove the truck containing the bomb up to a protective wall near the barracks and then detonated the bomb remotely. It generated an explosion equivalent to 20,000 pounds of TNT. In addition to the Americans casualties, dozens of Saudis and South Asian guest workers were injured. Mughassil was thought to have fled to Iran after the attack and his arrest at the Beirut airport now confirms this long-held suspicion.

Will Rouhani serve a second term?
Arash Karami/Al-monitor/September 01/15

Iran’s Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli caused a stir when he said that President Hassan Rouhani would serve a second term as president. When asked about the administration’s midterm scorecard and how many of his ministry’s plans have become operational, Fazli said, “This administration has not reached midterm yet, it’s only spent a quarter of its duration. Mr. Rouhani is to be president for eight years.”Fazli is a traditional conservative politician politically aligned with parliament Speaker Ali Larijani.

His entrance into the Rouhani administration as interior minister, with one of the main functions being to implement elections, was disappointing to some Reformists, although it helped deepen ties between Rouhani and Larijani and the bodies they lead.  The Reformist Etemaad published, “It’s unlikely that an individual like [Fazli], who entered the moderate administration under the conservative umbrella, does not know what his former political friends will interpret and infer from this one sentence.

With the emphasis on such an issue, it shows that, at the least, officials from the administration do not want to keep their comments to themselves like they did before.”The article continued, “These comments might be a response to those groups who as of now are drawing lines to end the political life of Hassan Rouhani’s administration. … A message to the extremists that apparently after the administration’s success in foreign policy and the nuclear agreement have a common agenda to not allow this administration to exceed four years.”In criticism of Fazli’s comments, hard-line Raja News wrote, “The executive of the elections has stated the results of the 2017 elections.”

The article continued, “By citing the interior minister’s latest comments, perhaps it is easier to understand the logic of the attacks on the Guardian Council from the officials in the administration.” On Aug. 20, Rouhani and the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Mohammad Ali Jaffari, clashed when the president suggested the Guardian Council’s role in the elections should be limited. The Guardian Council is the body that evaluates a candidate’s qualifications to run in the elections and is headed by hard-line Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati. Raja News continued, “It is not unlikely that the attacks on the Guardian Council is [part] of a larger puzzle to result in the engineering of the elections.”

While the parliamentary and Assembly of Experts elections are six months away, there have been major announcements. A conservative union between the Islamic Coalition Party, Society of Devotees of the Islamic Revolution and the Endurance Front was announced. It is too early to tell if the union between a traditional Islamist group, a group that counted Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as its member and one led by hard-line Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi can remain together.

Hojat al-Islam Morteza Agha-Tehrani, the secretary of the Endurance Front, said Aug. 31 that none of the three groups will present separate candidates. The newly formed Reformist group, the Union of Islamic Iran Party, elected Ali Shakouri-Rad as its secretary in its first meeting Aug. 20. At a news conference Aug. 31, Shakouri-Rad said that his group will work with all Reformist groups and would not consider any other Reformist group a competitor. Some media accounts reported that Shakouri-Rad was arrested after his news conference; however, Iranian news agencies reported that he went to court to answer questions.