Arab Islamist and terror chiefs called
to Tehran for anti-Israel war planning
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
February 25, 2010
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has summoned all the terrorist groups Tehran sponsors - Islamist and radical Palestinian - for a broad gathering Saturday, Feb. 27, to finalize their roles in military operations against Israel in the event of a Middle East conflagration. This is reported by debkafile's Iranian and intelligence sources.
It will be the sequel to the preliminary discussions Ahmadinejad held with Syrian president Bashar Assad and heads of the Lebanese Hizballah and Palestinian Hamas Thursday, Feb. 25, during a brief visit to Damascus.
The guests of honor at the Tehran parley will be Hamas leader politburo chief Khaled Meshaal and Hizballah deputy leader Naim Kassem.
The Lebanese Shiite group's secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah will not be there because he never leaves his Beirut bunker for fear Israeli assassins will catch up with him, especially since the high-profile Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was killed mysteriously in Dubai last month.
And Nasrallah is not alone; some of his fellow terror chiefs hesitate to show their faces outside their strongholds - even in friendly Tehran - since the Dubai police disclosed that three of the suspects in the Mabhouh killing, carriers of Australian passports, departed Dubai for Iran. They were said to have travelled by sea ferry to Bandar Abbas, central headquarters of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, before flying out of Tehran international airport to unknown Far East destinations.
The Arab terrorist chiefs infer that even the Iranian capital and Revolutionary Guards headquarters are no longer secure against penetration by the Hamas commander's assassins.
The Iranians have therefore decided that their official statement on the conference, due to end Monday, March 1, will name only a few of the participants; the presence of many other key figures will be kept secret
According to debkafile's Iranian sources, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, assisted by a large team of aides, will lead the proceedings and steer them toward conclusions and decisions in line with Iran's regional goals. The conference, called to pull together Iran and its allies' preparations for war with Israel, will be presented officially as an effort to reconcile the feuding Palestinian factions.
Few will find this believable, especially when Hamas attends the conference on its own, except for several radical Palestinian splinter groups, and representatives of the rival Fatah and Palestinian Authority were not invited.
Presidential bureau personnel have performed most of the staff work on planning and the roles assigned the various organizations in any conflict with Israeli and/or Israeli forces. Senior members of the Revolutionary Guards and other sections of Iran's armed forces will be recruited to chair discussion panels and subcommittees aided by specialists in guerrilla and terror warfare.
