"Mr. Pesticide" Part 2: The World According to Asaad Al-Zoubi

Gen. Asaad Al-Zoubi, "Mr. Pesticide"
Part two of four: 
The World According to Asaad Al-Zoubi (in 2016)
September 20, 2019

<< Part 1: The Saudis' Man for Scuttling Peace

On searching around now, it seems General Asaad Al-Zoubi made a lot of mainstream news stories during 2016 due to his position as the HNC's head of delegation, compared to none before and very little since. A few more recent statements of interest regarding the Kurds and chemical weapons are covered in parts 3 and 4, but first this overview of 2016 comments. Just in those limelight months, this unhinged conspiracy theorist promoted at least the following dubious, false, and troubling claims to support his and the HNC's tough anti-Assad bargaining stance.

* March: The Assad government was using "fatally dangerous" North Korean mercenaries to crush the Syrian peoples' movement. (UPI, Anadolu Al-Arabiya)

* October: “Brigadier Asaad Al Zoubi” said in an interview with Sky News Arabia in Riyadh: "There are 2 types of soldiers who are now blocking the city of Allepo. First is the Assad Shia regime forces, and the second is a mercenary army consisting of the Russian military, Iranian Shia, Palestinian mercenaries and Nujaba militia from Iraq," He then explained how it was the latter group of foreign “mercenaries” and not the Syrian Arab Army as claimed, leading the re-conquest of eastern Aleppo city. This suggests, as opposition hacks often do, that Syria's Sunnis majority does not support the government, except via fighting under compulsion with the "Shia regime" in the SAA. (translated from EraMuslim, Indonesia, October 2016)

It should be noted president Assad is an Alawite, said to lead an “Alawite regime” he and most Syrians would just call Syrian. Oh, and secular. Further, while Alawism is an offshoot of Shi'ism, Alwaites have tried to avoid the Shi'ite label and forge their own identity. This common display by certain Sunnis of "seeing through that ruse" and calling it Shia suggests they're keyed into a troublingly widespread mindset – they see a global satanic conspiracy by the Shi'ite infidels - the enemy within Islam and increasingly seen as the only enemy that matters. If this is how the man speaks publicly when he's being careful, then in private he might buy into such hateful thinking full-tilt.

* May: Unable to contain the rebellious Sunni majority, Assad was planning an Alawite state apart from Syria. (Asharq al-Awsat - (Saudi-owned, I think) He was allegedly planning this from the start in 2011, initially as a desperate escape from a Syria in revolt. It would be the Alawite-majority coastal districts to break away, presumably. The plans kept seeming imminent, but even in 2019, never came close to materializing. How do these people get such faulty predictive powers? Aren't they supposed to be the most cutting-edge in their grasp of reality everyone else is out-of-touch with?

But in this different plot al-Zoubi relates … In more detail but via Peoples' Mojahedin of Iran, for an idea of who gobbles this kind of story: “al-Zoubi confirmed that based on a Russian plan, which is getting Russian-Iranian collaboration, mayhem will be sparked at the core of Syria in the upcoming few hours. The campaign will launch on the premise of annihilating all signs of revolution and will set the foundations to Syria shifting to federalism. ... The eventual aim of the plot is to provide Alawites a northern state. However, a part of the western side of Aleppo is expected to be handed down to the Kurds.” The Alawite state would be named "Handy Syria" (?) and basically run across the Turkish border (Afrin and Khamsi are given as bounds of the area). I didn't map this out, but I don't think it has any Alawite-majority areas, just Kurdish and Sunni Arab, with a lot of enclaves. So the Alawite part of "Handy Syria" would include previously Sunni areas. Was ethnic cleansing planned? The Russians wanted it on the Turkish border in order to cut off all the "Syrian people" in the heartland from any support from the friendly Turks. The Kurds and the Alawites could be trusted guarding the twin gates in this nefarious plot. And again, the plot was set to unfold starting in the next “few hours.” Was there some chaos unleashed? Did any moves that way happen? Here we are, some 66,000 hours later by my quick count ... Maybe they gave up on the plan after Zoubi outed them? Just didn't want to show him right?

So in contrast to earlier Alawite state alleged plots, the breakaway state would stay allied with a Syria still under Assad's rule (and the Kurdish one would be controlled by Russia). So ... why make it separate? Just because this kind of "federalism" is such a bad thing to him? The kind of thing terrorist Kurds and terrorist Alawites do? Or because it leads to implications of further acts of genocide that would be required? And that's more reason to be all stern and stuff when you go back to Geneva next time? If so … do they let these guys brew up their own methamphetamines too?

* April: Assad cooperated with ISIS is a staged re-capture of Palmyra, suggesting the Islamic State movement is not truly a Sunni Muslim force to support (as with all other Sunni extremists, including Al-Nusra). (Qantara.de) Al-Zoubi might feel, as many do, that ISIS is rather a part of the satanic Shi'ite conspiracy against them. He seriously might believe just that.

* September: “(Al-Zoubi) added that the Arab League abandoned Syria in favour of taking the UN Security Council’s lead and did not hand Syria’s seat at the league to the opposition, a move which he described as supporting the Syrian regime. He also claimed that the Arab League did not support Syrians in overthrowing the regime that killed them and sold away their homeland to Iranians and Russians, according to his statement.” (Middle East Monitor) Is the Arab League in on the conspiracy? He seems to be wondering that, threatening to wonder more if they don't play by his rules.

* March: "There is an international conspiracy and a cover-up of Russian massacres and a cover-up for (president) Bashar," said Zoubi, who is chief negotiator for the High Negotiations Committee (HNC)." International conspiracy, huh? Is it the Jews? No, probably not. The Shi'ites! They run everything! (Reuters, March 10, 2016)

* May: Hezbollah killed its own military commander Mustafa Badreddine during clashes in Syria. Why? Maybe just to make the Sunni "revolutionaries" look bad? So Zoubi understands false-flag logic, as long as it's by the Shi'ite conspiracy side. (Al-Jazeera, reaction tweet)

* March 30: "Syrian Kurds are pressuring the Syrian opposition to resign Asaad al-Zoubi, the head of the Syrian opposition delegation to Geneva talks, after he suggested Kurds were “bandits and “mercenaries throughout history”. " (ARA News). The HNC initially had Kurdish representatives included, but they resigned from the effort on March 29, likely after less-public requests to the same effect were rebuffed. (Wikipedia - HNC) Al-Zoubi stayed at HNC. The Kurds are generally Sunni Muslim, not Shi'ite, but a bit secular-minded. Perhaps for this reason – and for being part of the HNC's broad membership, Al-Zoubi had to cut them some guarded slack, but be extra-annoyed when even they seem to get in the way of the really Sunni Arab freedom fighter-types (plus Chechens, Uighurs, etc.) ...

* September: Zoubi complains The U.S. "preferred to work with Kurdish ‘terrorist’ groups such as the People’s Protection Units (YPG), Peshmerga forces and Yezidis, “while refusing to deal with the FSA that effectively fought against ISIS in Northern Aleppo, and recently in Jarabulus.” Furthermore, he says Kurdish (and perhaps Yezidi) forces are "terrorists," unlike "FSA," and their ilk, including Jabhat al-Nusra.  (ARA News, tweet)

Sunni Muslim women used as human shield by Kurdish terrorists … no, wait...

Jaish al-Islam for example is super-cool by him despite the horrific reality, including killing and mass kidnapping of civilians just because of their religion (see again my best overview here). It's not as clear if he lumps these popular groups into the broad conspiracy along with ISIS (whom the Kurds and Yezidis were fighting, sometimes desperately) and of course thence with the other terrorists like Hezbollah and the "Assad Shi'ite regime." But that sounds like his kind of thinking.

My Semi-Informed Observations

There's an ugly sectarian thinking that's grown in the last decades and drives Sunnis of the extremist, takfiri persuasion from across the globe to come and kill Shi'ites in Iraq, and now Alawites in Syria, besides in other battlefronts across the globe against various regional infidels. These supposed villains, as the impressionable hear it, are killing Sunni Muslim babies for sport, a global satanic conspiracy by the Shi'ite infidels - the enemy within Islam and increasingly seen as the only enemy that matters.

The public words of Al-Zoubi, just as seen in this short sampling, give reason to suspect he susbscribes to such views. He's far from unique in that regard, unfortunately. I don't know how especially he needs to be called out over it; he just happened to seem extra interesting to me in light of his later comments on the Douma chemical attack in 2018 (see part 3, and later part 4), and then seeing his scrap with the Kurds and Twitter (see part 3).

In Syria at least those riled up to fight the Satanic conspiracy get all sorts of outside assistance and enabling, and usually get paid to kill – by design, better than Syria can afford to pay its own soldiers. Of course, sources in the Persian Gulf tyrannies supplying most of the money. But to Saudi-sponsored Al-Zoubi, only those supporting the government side, and especially Shi'ite forces, - the ones legally invited to help, by the legal and popular government of Syria – are spitefully dismissed as “mercenaries.” Whereas on the opposition side, he'll call everyone but ISIS just “rebels” at worst, since even he can't pretend they're all “Syrian freedom fighters.” Naturally, he would ignore or tacitly approve of any crimes they committed in the pursuit of the divine mission.

So he paint a simplified picture of heroic Jihadists vs. regime villainy he calls it “Shi'ite” at almost every chance. And there's some broader global conspiracy involved, trying to obscure Assad's and Putin's crimes in Syria. This might help show how it's not just Shi'ites as people here but something broader and insidious working through them and others - like Satan, maybe, pulling a great many strings as he would, so one's God could seem more awesome compared to the challenge. I don't need to read the full version to know the plot includes Russia and Syria, of course, plus Iran, and North Korea. It's it's not clear who else - probably China? Yes, Satan is big on commies, and generally on Russians, besides Shi'ites. Non-state parties he'd include: Hezbollah, Shi'ite forces or forceful voices anywhere, various media outlets and reporters, other parties to be decided as he feels the need to exert leverage here or there. (e.g. September example above: suggesting maybe the Arab League has been swayed to the dark side too - not explicitly here, but if the friction grew over time, I bet he could talk himself into that corner.)

He seems alarmed at this pro-Assad conspiracy, maybe because it was so sneaky as to get a shitload of factual truth behind it, or to simply get reality itself bought off? No, he wouldn't want to put it like that. But yes, that has to aggravate the man. Anyway, he could calm his panic, if he wanted to, by noting how the Western world, the Gulf tyrannies, and half the rest of the world's media and leaders seem totally immune to their plot. They remain staunchly anti-Assad, and open to nearly any propaganda claim against him, no matter how absurd. Nonetheless, the faith might have been waning, skepticism growing. So, blame a conspiracy.

He keeps fairly mum about the Alawites, suggesting he has nothing but venom for them. The exception is his urgent warning of the plot for Alawite and Kurdish states “Handy Syria” set to begin within hours. A lot of Sunni Arabs might have to be forced out or killed to facilitate that plan. He might expect gleeful Alawite militias would help with the rape and rounding up of the people in the way of their new homes.

As noted above, the secular-leaning Kurds might be guardedly tolerated by Gen. Zoubi, as fellow Sunnis, until they get in the way, then he's instantly ugly about the treachery, and stays that way. He's cool sitting with Christian George Sabra, because George echoes the opposition line. He doesn't represent Syria's Christians, who tend to support Assad and thus to Al-Zoubi, any of them who takes up arms would classify as terrorists, like most or all Kurdish forces anywhere, and perhaps the Yezidi (sort of Christian) forces in Iraq.

Another suggestion of his comments: no Sunnis who rise up to fight the government class as terrorists – he might agree in form about Al-Nusra Front, but then take every chance to cover for them anyway. Only Islamic State / ISIS / ISIL / Daesh classes as terrorist for him, but he seems to think they're part of the Shi'ite conspiracy, so ... he seems to be delusional.

Al-Zoubi's flippant, or flipped-from-correct, use of the “terrorist” label comes a matching penchant for moralistic exaggeration, with phrases like “annihilating all signs of revolution.” The basic gist of his firm stance is deep certainty – no mere suspicion – that Assad is the only real problem in Syria, and his victory would “bring destruction to the whole country.” Heck, it might usher in an epic genocide of all the Sunnis, and threaten the whole world. To the great moral philosopher Asaad Al-Zoubi, the foreign-backed “rebels” from FSA to Jaish al-Islam and the “Syrian people” they represent are pure as snow. Again except for all the parts of it they managed to sweep under that ISIS (Persian!) rug.

So not only is he wrong and delusional, he insists on being extreme about it. But he was the right kind of wrong, and the right kind of certain – to some influential minds. So it shouldn't be surprising that this FSA general was selected by the Saudi royal family, along with a leader of a sectarian terrorist group they sponsored, to head up deciding the entire opposition's demands for the Geneva III stall-a-thon. That alone would suggest a rather bad apple, but it surely helps to have such a peek inside the parts of his brain he shows the world. That peek continues and goes deeper in part 3. Again, all this above was just from 2016, in his polished showing under the limelights at Geneva. Afterwards, it gets more scant but less sanitized.

Coalition Air Attack on the Saeqa Army Base

December 12, 2015
(incomplete) 
last edits Dec. 20

Aircraft of the US-led anti-ISIS coalition almost certainly did deliberately attack the Saeqa military camp near Deir Ezzour the  night of December 6, killing four Syrian army soldiers and wounding 13 others. 

This is probably why the coalition knew they could/had to deny it immediately, unlike a subsequent claim of civilians killed in another strike in Hasakeh. That one, maybe - they were bombing in the area. But Saeqa, no way. Their operations in that area and that time only hit ISIS targets and were 55 kilometers (35 miles) away from the base, to its southeast. It's a day's walk at least, and takes way longer if you're dragging a fighter jet. How on EARTH could they be here and also get over there in the same night?

No, that's not all - they have other evidence: a radar track of a Russian "backfire bomber" that passed by the same place and time and hit that base, presumably on accident. Well, it's been repeated by everyone, with suspended disbelief, but they can only cite one or two anonymous officials so far speaking of this from knowledge. The claim may solidify with confirmation by other, named people. Or it might still melt away into a complicated accident story. But so far, the US is clear it was not them or anyone allied.

I still haven't read everything available or studied any videos, and there will be plenty of new information coming anyway - but I got a sort of incoherent start (rough week) at the talk page for the ACLOS page Airstrike on Saeqa military camp near Deir ez-Zor Here, I'll share a quick copy of main points and the mapping. Sources etc. soon. We can see why this non-coalition explanation is not going to stick.

The Significance of this Area

Saeqa base is (apparently) the northern base shown here in orange, just outside Ayash. The pink-shaded area here is government-held, with the gray ISIS/Daesh-held. Blue = oil fields. Ignore the goof up at the bottom.

Note just this one oil field (el-Mashash, see below) is still government-held. For many miles on all sides and miles on the other side of the nearby Iraq border, is Daesh gray.






See overall situation map, small form - the pink spot right of center. This is the last little island of  "regime control" - outer Deir Ezzor, Ayash, and a small swathe of land including two army bases and the one government-held oil field in the whole region.  the last slight roadblock speedbump between Mosul and Raqah. This is Syria holding on by its fingers to its last and shrinking island in a sea of Deashbags. Someone with jets stomped on those fingers.

Below is the area in detail.

Daesh forces just 2 km away in fact took advantage of the attack to attack the base themselves, but this was "repelled," for the moment.They still plan to overrun it and everything else here. More attacks like the one on December 6 could really help them out.

As Damascus worded it in their official letter of complaint, "This hampers efforts to combat terrorism and proves once again that this coalition lacks seriousness and credibility to effectively fight terrorism."

Who has a potential, logical motive to remove more territory from Syria's government control and balkanize the place, and has openly lobbied for just that? The US-led coalition side is the one with a strong possible motive to hit this base, obviously. That's why Russia's doing it must've been a mistake. They have zero motive. 

 

Mapping Syria's Story
From the soldiers at the base up to Damascus and the Kremlin, so far ... it seems like this is what they're saying happened (subject to revision):

4 US-led coalition jets flew north from the Bukamal area at the Iraq border (after flying from or through Iraq?). Two of them behaved like the US says its acknowledged jets acted  - they hit targets about 55 km southeast of Ayash, which is all ISIS turf. (no US details on flight directions yet to compare)

The other two - nationality to be announced, but coalition member state(s) - peeled off a bit to the west and blasted the Saeqa base. 

Sources say the attackers then flew north and hit target (of no mentioned interest) in Daesh-held Shadadi. 

Here's how that maps out compared to US claims. This is how they deny the area. 55 km southeast, it seems, is just a bit further back on the attack flight path. 

They MAY still officially deny this by saying it was the Russians who snuck in between them all and launched this goof-up. But they may well admit this too merits investigation. Then they would investigate it for a long time.

An Hour Earlier?
They also deny it by time, and that also fails. An anonymous official told US News how a dozen Russian bombers flew in from Russia, on an unusual route via Iran and Iraq, and secretly bombed Bukamal and Deir Ezzour. This was all seen on radar. "One senior official said the Russian aircraft were in the air around 9 p.m. Sunday near the city of Deir el-Zour, whereas the coalition aircraft were flying an hour earlier about 55 kilometers away."

The time zone this is rendered in isn't certain; local time (GMT +2) is usually given, but they may be using Iraq time (GMT +3), meaning 8 pm in Syria. It's either this or there's disagreement when the attack happened. The officials say "one of the TU-22s made a pass over the area of the army camp within one minute of the explosion that killed the Syrian troops" at around 9. But the Syrians always said the attacks was shortly before 8 pm, give or take ("according to the Syrian General Staff ... between 19:40 and 19:55 local time (+2 hours GMT)." - RT).

So did it happen about the same time coalition jets were said to be there, making that acknowledged strike on about the same path witnesses describe? If so, the coalition confirms their presence in the location and time to be the attackers, and their alleged Russians got there too late to fit the bill. Otherwise, he's using the wrong time zone and confusing things, while claiming to have done its local strikes at around 7pm local. We shall see if anyone bothers sorting that out.

Coordinated with ISIS?
Syrian Perspective passes on a unique story where ISIS was already attacking the Saeqa base and called in support strikes to Turkey, who called them into the coalition. There's enough logic to that it's possible, bit I doubt it. More likely, they just took advantage. I'm curious though if they were extra-prepared at the moment.

No News, My Guess
Added December 20: It's now been almost 2 weeks since the event, and over 10 days since the last word from either side. That was by Russia. They said on the 9th (MoD statement, via Facebook) "As soon as the Syrian officials publish the results of the incident investigation and munition inspection, the Russian Defence Ministry is to get information about the aircraft, which performed the airstrike on the Syrian troops."

They and everyone knew it seemed to be a coalition attack, maybe just by its flight path from and maybe back into Iraq. However, the coalition blaming Russia says the Russian attackers flew in through Iraq, so that's their explanation for that.

And only one side has specified a model of aircraft; the coalition says the Russians used a TU-22, long-range "backfire bomber" (jet-style bomber), and had about a dozen of them in the group.

Both sides claim good evidence against the other, but neither has come out with any more of it. My guess is this: the Syrians and Russians finished the munition inspection are are now stumped over how to break the news that it was apparently a Russian-made jet that hit the base. Now they're left with proposing a "conspiracy theory" that the coalition somehow (Kiev?) acquired a TU-22 or a few of them (probably not a dozen), and used that to implicate Russia.

And that can't be done on accident, but as part of a deliberate plan to stomp on Syria's fingers in this delicate location - and blame Russia for it (with Iranian and Iraqi airspace complicity at least built into the story).

But the alternative the coalition offers makes virtually no real-world sense. So, if my hunch is true, Moscow and Damascus should come on out with it. And maybe they will, but they want a well-assembled case first. Will it be more days? Weeks? Months? Decades/forever?

Base Location
A stitched panoramic view from attack site video shows the place has trees. the most common indicated area doesn't seem to have any. Syrian Perspective's map here points to "Camel Corps" base almost in Ayash, and there are trees. Another map I found on Twitter points to army storage next to that, also maybe consistent. (anyone trying, this is most likely a morning shot, so the gate is south of the camera, and remember panoramic views "bend" the scene, so don't take visible angles too literally) (also, it's quite possible two or more areas were hit.)

We'll probably have an exact geolocation someday. But all sources agree it was somewhere in that pink, well-known pocket of government control, so exactly where doesn't matter so much except for pinning down finer points of the story (we may or may not get that far).

Mina Hajj Tragedy: Saudi Arabia Blames Iran

Mina Hajj Tragedy: Saudi Arabia Blames Iran
October 3/4, 2015
(last edits Oct. 4, princes updated and minor edits)

The massive human compression tragedy in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) just over a week ago is one of the deadliest in recent memory. The September 24 "stampede" during the Hajj (Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca) claimed  at least the 769 lives the kingdom claims, probably over 1,000 and maybe over 1,500, as claimed by Iran, who lost far and away the most citizens - nearly 500.

This tragic event was not a deliberate massacre, one presumes. But it was at least preventable (to all but the the few minds in the kingdom who declared it an "act of God"). It's being marketed and anti-marketed  on the world stage, in a drama involving Saudi Arabia and Iran - players in the Syria and Iraq conflicts that can be "defamed" by this - by false versions or by the truth, depending. How can I not be tempted to dive in?

With small but valuable input from others, I've been hashing over this with the ACLOS wiki article and its talk page. The news has covered this incident and Iran's massive share in the loss - currently at least 464 considered or confirmed dead. Tehran claims embassy staff were denied visas to come help identify the victims, amid talk of mass burial together inside the kingdom. This is all being negotiated, but if Iran's numbers are right, KSA so far also claims it just never found at least half of the Iranian victims, besides however many of the hundreds still just "missing" from other countries. 

Everyone knows Shi'ite Iran blames its Sunni rival Saudi Arabia for incompetence or worse, and most even seem to understand why. But less visibly, the seeds of the dubious inverse story - where Saudi Arabia blames Iran - might be sown already. The charge isn't yet overt, but I sense this is coming, and is worth calling out in advance, even at the risk of halting their plans and mooting my prediction.

Disputed Cause: Inept or Worse vs. Unruly or Worse

Until I see reason to do otherwise, my general presumption of the cause is mainly an accidental storm of the many mental ailments accumulating for nearly 300 years of al-Saud family totalitarian rule. General incompetence and bungling might be enhanced by entrenched and extreme sectarian bigotry against Shi'ites, little regard for the truth, and willingness to use barbaric means to achieve any amoral goal they decide on, all left unhinged by a lack of accountability.

By my cursory reading so far, survivor accounts bear that out, citing poor management and general callousness adding to the disaster in various ways. But some alleged details go beyond that and point in a disturbing direction - police keeping help at bay and discriminating against Iranians in delivering aid, and so helping ensure as many victims as possible - especially Iranians - died from the ordeal (see here, for example). 

Further, Saudi authorities may have initiated the tragic wrong move. Many reports blame the blockage of a street 206 (see here and here) by royal escort for Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud, a son of king Salman. Some say he's the Chairman of the Higher Committee for Haj, and so they may mean a different prince (Khaled bin Faisal?). It's a crucial allegation with some confusion best covered in detail elsewhere, but some prince allegedly made an unusual visit to Mina for unclear reasons, with his massive security buffer leading to the closure of "street 206" in Mina, disrupting the traffic flow, and thus causing the crush.

The main point here is KSA denies this possibility quite clearly in the media (second link above). Consider also the incident mapping by royal-owned al-Arabiya shown below, that gives the wrong incident location and denies any connection between it and this disputed street 206. This visual denial just underlines the problem by displaying touchiness on the subject. 

But the denial they aim for helps keep the blame slot open to fill, so far, with random improprieties by poorly-trained pilgrims violating movement rules all on their own. First, it was reported African Hajis were reportedly blamed. This was met with ridicule, but actually may have never been said (KSA denies it and I can't find the source). But it's undeniable they've blamed unruly Iranians, and they may consider it more than a simple mistake. We'll get to the details of that shortly.

Disputed Death Toll: Hundreds "Missing"

For the first week, Iran had a large batch of citizens, numbering around 300 (now lower, once higher)  whom they persistently listed as missing - not vouched for as dead or injured, but out of contact. Each day they failed to turn up after disappearing on the day so many died the more likely they were to be simply dead. 

The first published count of missing Iranians was 344. That shrank by 103 to 241 missing by the 29th. In the same span, confirmed deaths rose from 136 to 239, an increase of ... 103. The pattern down the line seemed to be that the "missing" were all laying dead in Saudi Arabia but with delayed confirmation. Carried over to the last 241, it seemed likely that as many as 480 Iranians were killed. And Tehran now say it was 464, then 465 and likely to inch up a bit higher.

So many Iranians killed in a prentable mishap in the virulently anti-Iranian Kingdom is something its rulers might want to cover up. They've offered no official number of Iranian dead, but have stuck to their overall death toll of 769, too low to allow nearly that many Iranians. So, they implicitly deny it.

Iran's consistent range: "at least" 1,200/1,300 killed, "expected" to exceed 1,500, or perhaps "2,000" if rounding up. (The dramatic 4,000 claim is a fluke with no support). But an AP study found Iran's total plus other nation's confirmed death tolls is over 1,000, with 600 still "missing" like Iran's 300 once were (see here) Numerous ways of counting of 1,000 or more have piled up, but are formally refuted; since the 25th, KSA has stuck with 769 and denied all arguments for a higher number - perhaps because denying half their dead is part of their plan to blame Iran. And they may feel locked into that dispute.
 

Other nations have/had comparable numbers of "missing" and likely dead (Egypt and Nigeria especially) but only Iran has that on top of so many confirmed dead, and has made the dramatic leap to all dead. And only they are now apparently set to take the blame.

The open cause and disputed fatalities may be foundations for a looming accusation that Tehran somehow set this all up to embarrass the noble kingdom. On the one hand it was an "act of God," on the other hand it was perhaps an Iranian plot, but in no way shape or form was it any fault of the noble kingdom 

Suggested Motive for this Iranian Plot

The apparent motive is fairly clear, and the one part of the proposition that works. The episode plays perfectly into Iran's ongoing campaign to improve their perception in the world, to weaken Saudi influence and prestige, and lately to de-Saudize the Hajj. When a giant crane collapse killed 111 pilgrims at the grand mosque two weeks earlier, including one of Iran's top space scientists, Tehran was already calling Saudi management inept at best. As the Hajj belongs to all Muslims, they argued, it should be managed by all, working through the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC). That call has gained far more acceptance outside Iran after the September 24 incident.

This reasonable solution to a real problem, on top of nuclear agreements and a supposed thaw with the West, turns in the Syrian conflict, and their mammoth tragedy added up quick; the world uncomfortably finds itself sympathizing with and almost cheering for Iran.

With a compelling motive, it all comes down to moral willingness to follow through, and that's a no-brainer to Saudi-sponsored "thinkers" - those villainous Shia will sacrifice any number of their people just to smear the kingdom and to garner this global sympathy. In fact, it's unlikely that would have happened without a dramatically large death toll among Iranians, and so we can even see a potential motive to take that hit.

This semi-logical reason to suspect Tehran, coupled with the need to keep the blame off themselves, might make blaming Iran irresistible to KSA. See now some Saudis who can see that motive, like this editorial in Asharq Al-Awsat English (London-based but Saudi-supported):

It is a never-ending story. Whenever an emergency occurs during the Hajj season, certain parties blame Saudi Arabia who, nevertheless, continues to give pilgrims top priority. [...] When the tragic stampede occurred in Mina, Saudi Arabia was blamed again by those who seem to have wished for the accident to happen in order to exploit it politically.

Perhaps with this in mind, the foreign minister Adel Al-Jubeir, standing with Secretary of State John Kerry, said: “I believe the Iranians should know better than to play politics with a tragedy that has befallen people who were performing their most sacred religious duty.” Jubeir vowed a full and open investigation and truth, and that anyone who made mistakes "will be held accountable." That's sure to be true if they decide the guilty were Iranians and their mistakes were intentional.

Suggested Plot Mechanics: 300 Suicide Saboteurs?

One problem with this potential allegation is the question of how he plotters could engineer a mass casualty event inside KSA without the Saudis detecting and halting the operation. The question doesn't seem very well-answered yet.

Recalling the once-missing Iranians, once numbering 344, it's interesting how KSA also both made them "missing" by not verifying their deaths and also had at that time a batch of "around 300" Iranians who they say caused the tragedy. The numerical similarity itself might be a coincidence, but the guilty Iranians are clearly alleged and must be considered. Some pass the story on eagerly as the way out of the mess: pro-Saudi Arab News is widely cited in blasting Crush Cause: 300 Iranians violated rule. They cite "sister publication" Asharq al-Awsaat, who ran Hajj stampeded caused by Iranian pilgrims not following instructions: Hajj mission official on September 26.

The alleged source is an anonymous (and so unverifiable) official from Iran’s Hajj mission, so an insider, who they say "revealed" (to AA exclusively, it seems)  a story totally contrary to the one real Iranians were telling. The article says he told them all the problems began:

...after a group of around 300 Iranian pilgrims failed to follow orders requiring them to wait for clearance to leave Jamarat—the site where pilgrims perform the “stoning the devil” ritual. Instead, the group went back to their mission’s headquarters as other groups were on their way to the site as scheduled, according to the official. “The group stopped for a while, causing the coming pilgrims to take a route no more than 20 meters wide,” he said, adding that such behavior often leads to tragic consequences in crowded areas. The Iranian pilgrims were scheduled to leave Jamarat hours after the accident took place, the official said.

So KSA media tells us these victims were instructed to wait at the bridge but for unclear reasons they turned back to the their tents, which jammed up the chute as the next batch was coming in. That would presumably be accidental, leading as it did to the death of hundreds of fellow Iranians, probably including themselves. But some people may be arguing otherwise.

Alleged Iranian Movements

This is a little complicated. At right, an area map set to true north. Mecca and the grand mosque are to the west. Here is the Jamarat bridge structure, site of the "stoning the devil" ritual, and the tent city of Mina to the southeast. The incident was in the near end of Mina from Jamarat. Movements will be explained.

Daily Star (Bangladesh) reports on Saudi claims the suspect group of 300 "did not follow the instruction to go to their tents from Muzdalifah (to the south, apparently) and went to Jamarat with their baggage, the Saudi media said. “They had been instructed to take rest in their tents and wait for the time allotted for them to perform their stoning ritual.”" That would be northbound towards the bridge area. The problem: they were in a hurry to get to the site, and got there at the wrong time.

Then another wrong move. A report from 5khtawat.com, auto-translated from Arabic, says Al-Arabiya reported this first; 300 Iranians "decided to return in the opposite direction after" the stoning ritual. An included al-Arabiya video (Youtube direct link) shows a computer animation of the scene and the allegation. The defiant Iranians' wrong moves - north past the tent city (from another site to the south) and then southeast into Mina from Jamarat - are shown in this.

So they were allowed in at the wrong time, and told they had to stay for their full wrong time slot. But again they walked the wrong way at the wrong time and - get this - no one stopped them on safety grounds, or put in a call to adjust traffic or anything, as the disaster unfolded at walking speed over more than a kilometer. Even if this story is true, Saudi handling of the incident was terrible - and the story is most likely not true.

I found the actual September 26 Al-Arabiya report (Arabic): Iran Hajj mission official: 300 reversing Iranian pilgrims behind the stampede As auto-translated, this explains:

The official said, in an interview with the Middle East (Asharq al-Awsat) "The violation details began when this group ... moved Thursday morning directly to the stoning ritual and did not come down in their allocated camps as is the case for the whole of pilgrims to put their belongings and wait for an appointment time, and then went contrary to the trend at 204 Street . "

The official added that this made up of about 300 pilgrims Iranian group, did not wait for the completion of throwing cinder Aqaba, according to the instructions which demands that you wait in the camp until the deadline, and decided to go back in the opposite direction, which coincided with the exit other missions by the ad hoc schedule for the stoning ritual , and resulted in a direct collision with human blocs. 

I thought at first AA was claiming these Iranians left the site of the crush alive, but it seems that referred to Jamarat. However, Riyadh does insist on a low number of victims and refused to acknowledge nearly 300 Iranians as dead. So this might be, or might have been, an unspecified plank of their case - the instigators somehow caused the event and just walked away. That would be a third wrong (alleged) move authorities also failed (allegedly) to prevent.


Why is the incident mapped wrong? 

The incident is mapped wrong in al-Arabiya's video, if not in their whole narrative. For reference, here's the area the evidence suggests, and its connecting streets. All agree people died on street 204. By most sources the crush was at the intersection of that and 223, with dead on both streets. The photo at top was taken on street 223, facing southwest towards 204 in the early afternoon (metal roofed structure starts at picture's right edge). I'm not clear yet on which directions the victims on 204 were concentrated in, or how each group was moving, but people clearly died on 223 as well as on 204.


But Saudi sources seem to deny this. As shown at right, al-Arabiya's animation has the collision happening entirely on a straight stretch of street 204, well south of the intersection. A blind corner would make more sense, but here two groups just kept on walking and pushing towards each other, despite being able to see it coming for some time. (on the left, northbound pilgrims headed to the stoning ritual, right, stationary Iranians jamming things up. Red is center of disaster. Orange I guess is ways the left group was forced to divert into but couldn't, due to poor site design that leaves pilgrims jammed into inescapable chutes.

The corner it happened at makes more sense than this, but the real site includes street 223, and that connects to street 206, allegedly blocked for the crown prince. And in this Saudi animated version of the incident - coincidentally - that intersection explicitly does not even exist. An imaginary row of tents prevents any real intersection, and so 206 must be unconnected. Not that anything happened there anyway, right? What a move. What can this verifiable map alteration do except show how touchy they are about the 206 connection?

Re-Considering the Original Story

Details like this may be added to the "revealed" story, and the core issue remains: is the Hajj official's alleged statement real, or just an unverifiable work of fiction? Was it perhaps distorted from a true conversation? Here's a narrative to consider:

The Hajj mission (there won't be an embassy, obviously) got several calls from this group of about 300 Iranians, as they turned back unexpectedly - and maybe there were details about why that the Mission didn't mention or that Aawsat chose to ignore. The mission told the Saudi authorities that they feared these people were among the dead, simply giving a last known location and direction of travel, hoping for information. Maybe these parts were also left out of the version handed to al-Awsat, and then the distorted plea was re-packaged as some whistle-blower's smoking gun testimony that the Iranian victims may have deliberately set this up.

Do note that anyone in the crush is also a witness to their part of this incident. Those speaking so far seem to be relatively unaware of what caused the initial wrong move, although the closure of street 206 is mentioned. These accounts are from the ones who lived, who will tend to be those on top, originally furthest back from the initial spark of the tragedy.

In contrast, the pilgrims who changed direction - after encountering the crown prince's guard or not - share these traits:

* Were allegedly Iranians and numbered around 300
* In turning around they allegedly caused the tragedy
* They would know the most about why they turned around
* If it was because of 206 being closed, they'd be southwest-bound on street 223, the denied area.
* By the stats, they overwhelmingly wound up dead and unable to tell us why they turned around.

I don't suppose this was actually set up by the House of Saud either just to kill some Iranians and then have to come up with some bizarre explanation. These Iranians couldn't both cause a deadly stampede and walk away. In the end they'll have to blame suicide saboteurs if they follow through on this, and having to do that hardly seems like something they'd want to do. But once there was an incident sufficient to spark panicked thinking, this is what a senile dynasty's thinkers might come up with to deflect blame. And consider how the field would be left open for them to give it a try if the best witnesses wound up dead.

Suicide Ringleader? Ambassador Roknabadi

One of Iran's more prominent missing likely victims of the tragedy is Ghazanfar Roknabadi, their former ambassador to Lebanon and apparently still an influential figure. He joins two news reporters and a prominent political analyst on that list, state media reported. Like them, he was consistently reported missing for the first week - not confirmed as dead or injured but not answering his phone, and now considered dead.

Allegedly, Saudi authorities have denied Roknabadi was even in the kingdom at all, unless he sneaked in on some secret work. The original report is credited to al-Arabiya, and heartily refuted in Iran. Press TV (Iranian state-run) reports

The Saudi-owned Arabic-language TV channel Al Arabiya claimed earlier in the day that there had been no official records showing that Roknabadi had arrived in the Saudi territory for performing Hajj rituals. The report said that the diplomat could have entered the kingdom through unofficial channels.

This implies clandestine work, perhaps with a fake Hajj stamp, and up to no good. Perhaps with the media people he sneaked his way right up to this disaster, and helped set upthe mob of saboteurs hell-bent on crashing themselves into the kingdom's public reputation to help Tehran make its arguments. If Iran insists on showing he was there, it's proven. All documents to the contrary were likely burned, all witnesses to the contrary locked up or beheaded.

I checked Al-Arabiya's website, searching for his family name in English and Arabic ( رکن‌آبادی،) and found no recent matches on English or Arabic pages (he does appear in older reports under this name. But where it matters most, in their 28 September report- which I finally found - it has the wrong name. Why? 

Saudi sources told Al Arabiya News that official records show that the name of the former Iranian ambassador to Beirut Ghazanfar Abadi does not appear among this year’s pilgrims.

If his presence during the pilgrimage is confirmed, that would mean that he has entered the country by “unknown manners,” possibly registering with a different name and description.

This might be a legitimate difference in reading his name. They have  Ghazanfar (Rukn-)Abadi vs. Ghazanfar Asl Roknabadi (Or actually Ghazanfar Mohammad Aslroknabadi as his visa says - see below). Iran is being quite open about the pseudonym of this potential ringleader. Or ... is this a glimmer of Saudi incompetence we've been hearing about?  Or was it just a fake cause to suggest he was up to no good, and claim simple error once it fell apart? Why bother? I guess its ineptitude.

Continuing with Press TV's report, which shared the visa as shown at right: Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham on Monday described the Al-Arabiya report as “incorrect” and "hasty" ... saying the ministry has documents showing that Riyadh had approved an ordinary Hajj visa for the missing diplomat.“Mr. Roknabadi set off for the Hajj pilgrimage with his ordinary passport and detailed information on the passports of all pilgrims, including his, are at the disposal of the authorities of the Saudi government,” Afkham said. Further. videos aired in Iranian media seem to show the man on Hajj in Mecca before he vanished.

Just in case it was proven he was there (and it sounds like that) he must have snuck in, KSA may be saying (not clear). They may or may not push that, may keep this reason or come up with another one. Maybe they'll see their error, check again, and find that no Ghazanfar Mohammad Aslrokn ever passed through either.

Will it Come Together?

There's still no clear sign I've found that they're going further with this, and I now suspect they won't, on their own advice or that of an ally. Bt in case they do, keep an eye on how may planks will they  with:

* 769 dead, or under 1,000 anyway / around 300 Iranians missing
* Mr. "Abadi" sneaked in and is among the unconfirmed/missing
* An Iranian group, likely his, caused the incident, through no fault of KSA

Will they expand on the implications they did it willfully, in collusion with Tehran, in ... this "act of God" ... that mainly killed Iranians? Someone may well be laying a different basis as this one crumbles, official clerics would  bless it, ... I kind of hope they miss this preview and make the prediction come true. But if they don't - this was why I suspected they were seriously thinking about doing it.

An Iranian Hand in the Houla Massacre?

August 11, 2015
last edits (minor) Aug. 29

One of the more widely-read pieces on the May, 2012 Houla Massacre remains this piece in the Guardian I haven't explicitly tackled yet: Houla massacre: US accuses Iran of 'bragging' about its military aid to Syria  Chris McGreal in Washington Tuesday 29 May 2012 16.51 EDT

Victoria Nuland, the state department spokeswoman, said that Iran's hand is clearly visible in the killing of more than 100 people, including scores of young children, by a Syrian militia group, the Shabiha, which closely resembles an Iranian militia, the Basij.
...
"We took this action (expelling Syria's ambassador) in response to the massacre in the village of Houla – absolutely indefensible, vile, despicable massacre against innocent children, women shot at point blank range by regime thugs, the Shabiha, aided and abetted by the Iranians who were actually bragging about it over the weekend," said Nuland.

This accusation of a clear "Iranian hand" in the massacre might sound about like the picture at right, minus the question mark; the Mullahs in Tehran directly and knowingly assisted in sectarian slaughter like the rebels allege happened in Taldou that day. But the argument - and the Guardian's reason for attaching "Houla Massacre" to this report about general military aid - is kind of roundabout.

The actual accusation, which accompanied the expulsion of Syria's ambassador, was that Iran was helping Syria in general with boosting its local paramilitaries now called National Defense Forces. The derogatory nickname for these - "Shabiha" - does not mean "thug" as widely believed, or anything exactly. It's apparently derived from the militia's original name, Lijan Shabiya, or Popular Committees (sometimes called Local Committees, I think) distorted maybe to imply "ghosts" or the act of tearing a person apart (see here). And they are not an Alawite death cult as widely claimed, but of whatever faith the locals are, and secular in operation. After the Iranian-aided boost, they became the more official and capable NDF we see today fighting and often dying in the field. 

The purely Sunni and largely foreign rebels hate the "Shabiha" and from 2011 forward have blamed them for a slew of horrific crimes, most notably this Houla Massacre, creating a mythical, cartoon villain version of the real militias. This is the version Nuland is talking about.

It's never alleged that Tehran helped directly in the operation of the massacre itself, just that they sent their barbarity over to take root as its own Syrian version, with continued general assistance, and that led to the killings. The State Department analysis, as passed on by Nuland, found similarities between the "Shabiha thugs" and the Iranian Basij militias. But if "the Basij and the Shabiha are the same type of thing," as Nuland says, that does not mean they're definitely organized by the same people. Models can just be copied, or naturally wind up the same, as with adaptation in the wild.

But there was a more concrete sign of a connection alleged: The Guardian piece continues:

Nuland further implicated Iran by drawing attention to the timing of a claim by the deputy head of its Quds force, Esmail Ghani, that it has played a "physical and non-physical" role in Syria, and that if it were not present "the killing of citizens would be greater."

Nuland noted the timing of this, coming over the weekend immediately after the killings in Houla. This "Bragging" just then could have one of two non-coincidental reasons, depending how the evidence pans out:
1) They were excited to be involved in the genocide against Sunnis and hoped to help expand the killing (the implication of State's allegation)
2) They were excited to help the local militias prevent more destabilizing terrorist massacres like that, in their allied nation of Syria.

The quote included "if (Quds) were not present "the killing of citizens would be greater."" Well, that's not option 1) unless they're talking in code, as State probably meant to imply. These were candid, intercepted calls? And that's the juiciest quote they could find? Sounds to me like they're talking, honestly, about option 2, expressing worries that wind up being the ones supported by the best evidence.

It turns out rebel-supplied video evidence of the events of May 25, carefully analyzed, contradicts the rebel-supplied narrative on which all the Shabiha blame is based. Opposition sources said rebels were in charge in the "village" of Houla (but were really in charge of most of the 3-town area), but they ran away under regime shelling of the "village." This let the local Shabiha, mostly from a few nearby Alawi (Alawite) villages, march in to murder random Sunni families. This is the version Nuland referred to.

Taldou, security posts vs. massacre sites

But the scant video shows no government attack, and instead shows that Sunni rebels shouting Allahu Akbar attacked security posts on the day of the massacre, overrunning the last government-held part of the Houla region. This was the southern half of the southernmost town of Taldou, and it was immediately before the lamented families were massacred in southern Taldou, behind that erased line of protection. (see The Battle for the Houla Massacre, report with all lodged challenges and updates, here).

So who would be best positioned to carry out a massacre there on that day? Maybe the same folks who wound up with all the bodies after? That would be the anti-government forces, FSA and probably al-Qaeda, supported in myriad ways by the United States and its allies. With actual video evidence, not just words, ... well I wouldn't say Washington's hand is clear in this massacre of whole families in Syria, but... that would be way way closer to the truth than blaming Iran and the defenders they were supporting.

martyred Taldou defenders, May 26, allegedly Iranian-backed

Any proto-NDF Popular Committees fighters involved in the battle for Taldou would be local defenders who, like their colleagues in the Army, were unable to stop that unprecedented rebel assault. In fact the guy in civilian clothes laid out here, with some soldiers killed in the Battle for the Houla Massacre, might be one of them. (Source: ANNA News video, Taldou, May 26 - composite view)

We don't know for sure who the civilian victims really were, but the more credible witnesses and sources - the ones who mentioned the rebel attack rebels themselves deny - have a prevailing explanation. According to them, the victims were of 2 types, one being Sunnis (mostly named al-Sayed) accused of rejecting the rebellion, being in the military, or having a family relation to a member of parliament (secretary Mashlab, just sworn-in).

But the major part of the victims were former Sunnis who converted to Shi'ism That was the extended Abdulrazaq families, with intermarried others totaling as many as 90 of the 100+ civilian victims (see here for that little-known tidbit). The most credible version says they were Shia (Shi'ites), members of the same majority religion in Iran, of which Assad's Alawi faith is a localized offshoot. Sunni extremists hate Shi'ism worse than anything, and faith traitors who would willingly embrace it.

 
So ... 

"We find it interesting that it was on this very weekend that the deputy head of the Quds force decided to take credit for the advice they're giving to Syria," she said.

No one could deny it was likely the Houla Massacre that spurred Ghani to this discussion. On the weekend following a great loss of civilian lives, of coreligionists no less, massacred by rampant, foreign-backd Sunni extremists, they were overheard discussing how to boost local defense forces to stop further massacres. This is Nuland's idea of shady timing, but they "brag" only that if they and their help weren't there, "the killing of citizens would be greater."

The empired condems Iran's involvement to limit the number of dead. State suggests that's code for wanting to kill more. But it's far more likely Nuland and so many others are seriously talking in an established code when they go on about saving lives. The Houla Massacre had to give Victoria Nuland a hard-on. This bleeding of Syria - by destabilizing terrorist events just like that - is essential to the script, and she knows it.

1988: Iran Air 655 - Casus Belli Behind Lockerbie Bombing?

Caustic Logic
July 4, 2015

Note, July 4, 2015: I'm simply re-publishing this post from another of my blogs (original posting from March 15, 2010) to mark the 27th anniversary today of this horrific and dubious incident that seems to have sealed the fate of Pan Am 103 later in the year (see whole site connected to that post).

The USS Vincennes and the Downing of IA655:
Iran Air Flight 655 was a scheduled 28-minute flight from Bandar Abbas airport to Bahrain, on July 3 1988. An Airbus A300B2 flown by Capt. Mohsen Rezaian, IA655 left the ground at 10:17 am local time to cross the Straits of Sidra. It seems the plane was talking normally with ground control on open frequencies, was listed in flight registries, flying well within an established civilian air corridor, and transmitting the right civilian transponder code that clearly means something like the car window sign "Baby on Board." [1]

As IA655 steadily climbed to cruising altitude (14,000 feet for this short journey), it was suddenly struck with two powerful SM2 missiles fired from an American ship in Iranian waters below. The 290 passengers and crew (including 66 children) were all killed, either in the explosion and breakup, or after a three mile fall to the Persian Gulf below.

Officially, the crew of the USS Vincennes, which had opted to fire the missiles at that plane, had simply gotten confused in the thick of a separate naval battle they'd gotten into. After missing IA655's listing in the 'do not shoot' registry, misreading its transponder code as of military origin, and erring on its speed, heading/location, and altitude profile, the crew had decided the airbus was a fighter jet swooping down towards them for the attack, as all their misreadings jointly suggested. [2]

The troubling details and explanations of this bizarre accident are worth covering elsewhere, but ascribing the best intentions, the Vincennes fired in what seemed clear-cut self-defense, while they happened to be within Iranian waters. As such they fully earned their later commendations, like the responsible air-warfare coordinator, who won a navy medal for "heroic achievement [...] under fire." [3]

End of the War
At the Iraq-Iran war's commencement in 1980, the United States had sanctioned the bloodshed, so long as Iraq was on top. By the latter 1980s, the situation had shifted. Increased U.S. assistance and even direct shooting reflected fears that Iraq might lose forever the territory Iran was gaining. By the end of 1987, “we became,” a senior U.S. officer told ABC News, “forward air controllers for the Iraqi air force.” [4]

Operation Praying Mantis responded to Iranian mining of the Gulf with escalated U.S. attacks on Iranian gunboats, oil platforms, and tankers in April. [5] Immediately, protection of "neutral shipping" was also expanded; it was to enforce this protection that the Vincennes had been called to the Gulf. 

At the same time, Washington and thence the UN Security Council was calling, with Resolution 598, for the war to simply end with past borders restored. Both sides had to see the benefit of an end to the grueling war, but after their own heavy sacrifices had improved their odds, Iran was reluctant to concede on the West's terms and timetable.

Along with a renewed Iraqi air and chemical offensives into Iran's cities in the spring and summer of 1988, the bizarre accident of IA655 had to have hastened  Iran’s effective surrender a few weeks later. The precise role it played – minor, major, or peripheral - cannot be known for sure. However, an Iranian scholar stated at a conference hosted by the Woodrow Wilson Center [paraphrased]

"A turning point in Iran's thinking came with the shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane in July 1988 by the American cruiser USS Vincennes. That incident apparently led Ayatollah Khomeini to conclude that Iran could not risk the possibility of U.S. open combat operations against Iran and he decided it was time to end the conflict." [6]

There is every reason to believe that’s just what the Americans wanted to get across, after the tragedy if not shortly before as well. Aside from unapologetic "regret” over the loss of innocent life, and blaming Iran for the warship's mistakes, the American message was best put by White House media handler Marlin Fitzwater in putting the accident in context:

Only an end to the war, an objective we desire, can halt the immense suffering in the region and put an end to innocent loss of life. Our goal is peace in the Gulf and on land. We urge Iran and Iraq to work with the Security Council for an urgent comprehensive settlement of the war pursuant to Resolution 598. Meanwhile, United States forces will continue their mission in the area, keenly aware of the risks involved and ready to face them. [7] 

That is, as the Iranians likely read it, "we’ll keep on shooting at anything that might possibly be a threat as long as we “have to” hang around there, which is until Iran surrenders." About seven weeks after IA655 was torn down, an agreement was reached and hostilities between Iraq and Iran were officially and physically ended on August 20 1988. No territory was lost, but nearly a million people were. 

But even after the cease-fire, one more battle loomed. It would be just as one-sided as the battle of IA-655, just about as deadly, and just as unacknowledged. Again, the perpetrators would go unpunished as innocents paid the price for others' crimes.  

Revenge Pronouncements / Connective Tissue
Only in 1996 was a comprehensive legal agreement over the incident settled between Iran and America. Officially Iran accepted the accident story and took a small settlement $132 million and no acceptance of any guilt, exactly as offered by the US eight years earlier. [8] "Official" acceptance doesn't always mean that much; especially when the blood was fresh and tempers hot, Tehran never bought the bland American statements that the shoot-down was purely accidental. It's not even an unreasonable suspicion on their part - it's their apparent response I can't agree with.

Researcher Ludwig De Braeckeleer has assembled a useful compendium of Iranian death threats following the supposed accident. By this, various officials and ambassadors accused the United States of ''a barbaric massacre'' and an "act of terrorism." They pledged to launch "an appropriate response," to the "American crime," to "avenge the blood of their martyrs," and mete out "punishment to prevent further occurrence or recurrence of such unfortunate incidents." Most pointedly, hardliner Ali Akbar Mohtashemi (alt Mohtashemi-Pur), widely believed to have headed up the "appropriate response" planning, publicly "swore that there should be a "rain of blood" in revenge." [9]


This wasn't just hardcore posturing for the Iranian street, but something representing a real danger; everyone in the know expected retaliation, and likely in-kind - the Iranians would seek to now kill American civilians on an airplane and see how we liked it.  While uncertainty persists with no adequate investigation, the supposed payment was $10 million to the Ahmed Jibril's PFLP-GC. An early 1991 report, prepared by the National Security Agency for Gulf War intelligence use, stated:

"Mohtashemi is closely connected with the Al Abas and Abu Nidal terrorist groups. He is actually a long-time friend of Abu Nidal. He has recently paid $10 million in cash and gold to these two organizations to carry out terrorist activities and was the one who paid the same amount to bomb Pan Am Flight 103 in retaliation for the US shoot-down of the Iranian Airbus." [10]

The revenge moved swiftly, it seems, perhaps starting before the cease-fire even. It was in early October that the GC cell in Neuss, West Germany was set up, October 13 that bomb maker Khreesat arrived and set to work, and October 26 when the cell was busted up in Operation: Autumn Leaves. Most have always suspected their goal had been to destroy an American airliner on Iran's instruction and with support from Syria, using the type of radio-disguised altimeter bomb found in the car with Khreesat.

Three other such bombs were missed in the first raid and only found later, and one bomb at least was never intercepted. Vincent Cannistraro, who headed the CIA's Lockerbie probe, was interviewed for a program Shadow Over Lockerbie:

"[Cannistraro] says authorities focused on the likelihood that Marwan Khreesat's fifth bomb had blown up the Pan Am 747 over Lockerbie. "The immediate feeling was: we've missed someone. That someone in that cell had escaped with one of the explosive devices and succeeded in planting it on Pan Am 103." [11]  

In other words, the terror tree was shaken and the "Autumn Leaves" had fallen and scattered, but they weren't all raked up neat. One may have drifted into the belly of PA103.

Obvious, Then Nothing
When the other shoe fell, the horror and carnage clearly mirrored IA655 with a mid-air explosion leaving 259 to deal with five miles of pure gravity however they did before dying against the cold winter soil of Scotland. To clarify the issue, just hours after the attack, two phone calls were placed from London to the Associated Press and UPI declaring in broken English:

"We, the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, are undertaking this heroic execution in revenge of blowing the Iran Air plane by America a few months ago." [12]

A CIA memo of the following day listed this first among a short list of responsibility claims. Among Islamic Jihad, the Ulster Defense League, and Mossad, the report said "we consider the claim from the Guadians of the Islamic Revolution as the most credible; previous attacks claimed by this group suggest it is pro-Iranian." It then listed several, with responsibility usually called in by an anonymous man: two assassination attempts on exiled Shah era leaders in exile, a plane hijacking a plane to secure the release of said assassins, and killing by car bomb a German businessman accused of selling missiles to Iraq while the war was on. [source]

Avenging the killing of 290 innocent Iranians by a US gunship seems in-line with the Guardians' philosophy, or perhaps some other Iranian agency, and most likely with technical help of the altimeter-triggered kind. Investigators, media reports, and the whole public mind went that way at first for at least a year, from no later than this ABC News broadcast of Feb 16 1989. Behind the suspicions of the PFLP-GC cell and its Khreesat bomb "a senior source overseeing the investigation" revealed that  "some hard-line members of the Iranian revolutionary guard" may have arranged for the attack through these suspects. "Revenge for the shooting down of the Iranian Airliner by the USS Vincennes in the Persian Gulf last summer was their motive," said reporter Brian Dunsmore in Lockerbie.  [13]

And still in early 1990 Steve Emerson and Brian Duffy wrote in The Fall of Pan Am 103 how sponsorship ran with Syrian supports up to Tehran, driven by revenge for IA655, "shot down for the Fourth of July holiday, the Mullahs believed, to celebrate America's independence." [14] To repay these expensive 4th of July fireworks with an early Black Christmas present, followed by a Body Boxing Day and a few more, might be a potent signal.

Officially, Iran denies involvement in the bombing, but some, like suspected mastermind Mohtashemi, have claimed a leading role on candid occasions. In 1995, an Iranian magazine ran an interview where "Mohtashami-Pur said that he would soon reveal the "Lockerbie files" to the readers." The report was quashed from above and the magazine closed down. [15] Former Iranian president Abdulhassan Bani Sadr also has admitted proudly, in the 1990s, that “Iran ordered the attack and Ahmed Jibril carried it out,” [16] a claim he repeated to deBraeckeleer in 2008. [17]

As these statements were made and as of late 1991 the U.S. was officially and exclusively pursuing Libya for the crime, freeing some Persian tongues to confess with impunity, it seems. And yet, the U.S. says, there was no Iranian revenge. The faint possibility of Tehran's involvement in Libya's atrocity has been whispered, but never clarified or pursued in the slightest. [see: Iranian vs. Libyan Role in the Lockerbie Bombing]

Iranian leaders had planned to take down an American plane (at least one), had paid for it and had bombs built and ready to go. With hard cash, glory, and blood vendetta driving them, Mohtashemi and and his contractors must have given up after the Germany bust. This is just what the FBI, CIA, USG, Scottish Police, Camp Zeist judges, and others claim to find most likely. And then just as precisely as item 8849 from Malta replaced the Bedford suitcases in the luggage container's deadliest corner, the Libyans took their own incidentally identical revenge at just that time. 

It's never been decided which motive drove the Libyans, but it's widely presumed to be the nearly three-year-old Operation: Eldorado Canyon bombings by U.S. forces. For the death of his adopted toddler daughter and a few dozen other Libyans, he ordered the Lockerbie bombing, while the level-headed Iranians waited for the court settlement and reparations after IA-655.  


At least, that's what the FBI's SCOTBOM evidence strongly illustrates. A desperate defector, an amazingly resilient timer fragment, a bizarre unverifiable printout, and a pliable soon-to-be-millionaire witness, all prove the Libyans did it through Malta, however much sense that makes. And nothing solid implicating Iran or Syria or the PFLP-GC was found anywhere in there. Move along, nothing to see here - the real Lockerbie bomber was behind bars for a while.  
---Sources: 
[1] Ghasemi, Shapour. “Shooting Down Iran Air 655 [IA655]” Iran Chamber Society: History of Iran. 2004. http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/shootingdown_iranair_flight655.php
[2], [3] Charles, Roger. "Sea Of Lies: The Inside Story Of How An American Naval Vessel Blundered Into An Attack On Iran Air Flight 655 At The Height Of Tensions During The Iran-Iraq War-And How The Pentagon Tried To Cover Its Tracks After 290 Innocent Civilians Died." Newsweek. July 13 1992. http://www.newsweek.com/id/126358
[4]  "The USS Vincennes: Public War, Secret War" ABC Nightline, Aired July 1 1992. Full Transcript, with extensive notes. ...
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jksonc/docs/ir655-nightline-19920701.html
[5] Operation Praying Mantis. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Praying_Mantis
[6] Steinberg, Dana. "The 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War: A CWIHP Critical Oral History Conference." http://wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.print&news_id=90411&stoplayout=true 
[7] See [1]
[8] Wikipedia. Iran Air Flight 655. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
[9] DeBraeckeleer, Ludwig. "Tehran: 'The Blood of Our Martyrs Will Be Avenged' [Diary of a Vengeance Foretold] Part 2." Oh My News International. July 4 2008.
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=383015&rel_no=1
[10], [15], [17] DeBraeckeleer, Ludwig. "Former Iranian President Blames Tehran for Lockerbie." http://www.thetorah.tv/misc/Former%20Iranian%20President%20Blames%20Tehran%20for%20Lockerbie.htm
[11] Biewen, John and Ian Ferguson. Shadow Over Lockerbie. 2000, American Radio Works. http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/lockerbie/story/printable_story.html 
[12]  Emerson and Duffy p 56
[13] ABC News. Feb. 16, 1989: Pan Am 103 Flight Investigation. "A bomb hidden in a cassette player brought down Pan Am 103 in December 1988." Anchor, Ted Koppel. Reporter, Barry Dunsmore, Lockerbie. Video currently viewable at:
http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=9443717 
[14] Emerson and Duffy, p 59.
[16] The Maltese Double Cross. Produced, written, and directed by Allan Francovich, Hemar Enterprises, released November 1994. 2 hours, 36 minutes. Quote at 34:00 mark. Google Video