According to Ashtari, he met three French businessmen at a conference in Paris and they agreed on a common venture. He had never thought that those three pleasant French businessmen, who offered to equip his computers with modern satellite communication devices as well as some other upgrades, could turn out to be Israeli spies.This up-to-date equipment became very popular among Iranian government agencies. However, Ashtari later started suspecting that something was wrong: it turned out that all the mail and communications that were sent via this new equipment could be monitored by those who installed the equipment. He finally understood that he was in fact working for enemy intelligence when he was asked to copy some secret information and to install spying equipment in the country’s Rocket center. However, it was too late for Ashtari to back away and he had to follow the instructions of the spy network.On 28 November 2008 Ali Ashtari was executed, however, there was no guarantee that he was the only Israeli spy who had access to secret government information.
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In early March 2007 one of the highest-ranking officers of Iran, ex-deputy commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, ex-deputy Defense Minister and Presidential councillor Ali Rezi Askari, went missing in Istanbul. Iranian officials claimed that he was abducted by US intelligence services with the help of their Israeli colleagues and with the silent agreement of Turkish authorities and that he was held somewhere in a US facility on Turkish territory.
The Turkish foreign minister denounced the allegations; however, the people of Turkey were quite concerned, as they didn’t want Iran to seek retribution if the government had something to do with the general’s disappearance. Police had to work double shifts in order to avoid possible acts of terror; people discussed the situation and blamed Jews and Americans for all their troubles.
However, a few hours later the tension eased, as a Saudi media agency reported that the general wasn’t abducted and that he voluntarily defected to the West, where his family had already been living for some time.
It was obvious that the report came directly from the US, so Iran had to cease its rhetoric, even though Teheran didn’t withdraw accusations against Ankara. General Ali Rezi Askari’s defection damaged Iran’s reputation and security gravely.
General Ali Rezi Askari was born in 1950 in Shiraz. He was a regular activist in the Islamic Revolution, but later he joined the ‘Pasadran’ paramilitary organization, that later grew into the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. There he served in the intelligence department and proved himself to be very capable fighting mojakheds. Later he was assigned to coordinate efforts against the new enemy of Iran – Saddam Hussein.
After the Iran-Iraq Ali Rezi Askari became the personal aide to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard leader and was assigned to organize a military network in Lebanon: he had quite a success too, and the organizations he helped create became very influential (for example, Hezbollah).
A number of bloody bombings organized by the general helped evacuate the international contingent from Lebanon in 1985. But the general wasn’t going to stop at what had been accomplished…
To be continued
