Tehran challenging US presence in East Africa and
bypassing sanctions in the Indian subcontinent, says Ahmad Hashemi
Ahmad Hashemi,
center, translates at a meeting between Iranian Vice President Mohammed Reza
Rahimi and a minister from Zimbabwe, June 25, 2011 (photo credit: Iranian
presidential website)
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Iran has attempted to increase its military
presence in the Horn of Africa and tried to initiate an “Islamic arms industry”
as part of its bid to challenge Western hegemony, a defecting government
translator told The Times of Israel in an interview.
Ahmad Hashemi,
who worked as an English and Turkish translator at Iran’s foreign ministry
until his defection in June 2012, wrote in a Times of Israel blog post that
Iran continues to insist on developing nuclear
weapons capabilities, using deceptive tactics to mislead the world
regarding the true nature of its nuclear program.
But over the past five years Hashemi also attended
numerous meetings pertaining to Iran’s international military involvement, the
details of which he shared with The Times of Israel on Monday in a phone
interview from Turkey, where he fled as a political asylum seeker. The details
he divulged could not be independently corroborated, but they did
correspond with recent reports regarding Iran’s oversees activities.
Iran proposed an
Islamic military alliance
Iranian defense
minister Ahmad Vahidi on Saturday proposed the formation of a
“NATO-like military organization” by
Islamic states, tasked with defending Muslims across the world. According to
London-based news daily Al-Hayat, Vahidi said the primary goal of the new
alliance would be “to defend Palestine.”
Some two years ago, Hashemi was privy to a closed
meeting in which Vahidi raised a similar idea.
Hashemi translates at a
meeting between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and a cleric from
Azerbaijan (photo credit: Iranian presidential website)
The meeting took
place in late 2010 between Vahidi and Bambang Brodjounegoro,
director general of the Islamic Research and Training Institute (IRTI), a
financial research center based in Saudi Arabia and owned by the Islamic
Development Bank. In it, Vahidi raised the idea of creating an “advanced Islamic
arms industry.” The idea, reported Hashemi, was dismissed by Brodjounegoro, an
Indonesian national.
Vahidi is among
the five Iranian and Lebanese nationals wanted by Argentina for his suspected
involvement in the 1994 terrorist attack against the AMIA Jewish community
center in Buenos Aires which left 85 people dead. On Sunday, Iran and Argentina signed
an agreement to cooperate on a “truth commission” investigating
Iran’s involvement in the bombing.
Iran’s
involvement in Africa
On May 20, 2008,
Hashemi attended a highly confidential closed-door meeting between Qassem
Soleimani, head of the Quds Force, a branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps (IRGC) tasked with overseas operations, and the president of
Eritrea, Isaias Afwereki. The meeting was also attended by Iranian foreign
minister Manouchehr Mottaki.
At the meeting,
the Iranians offered Eritrea assistance in developing its military capabilities
and combating neighboring Ethiopia. The officials also discussed the need to
curb the US presence in the Horn of Africa and take control of the Bab
Al-Mandeb Strait, located between Eritrea and Yemen at the mouth of the Red
Sea. Iran offered to deploy a Quds Force logistics and financial support team,
tasked with creating an ammunition factory and training the East African
country’s army.
A report published last month by
Conflict Armament Research, a London-based center, traced Iranian
ammunition in nine African countries from 2006 to 2009, including Sudan and
Kenya in the east and Cote D’Ivoire and Nigeria in the west. Most of the
ammunition was detected in the hands of non-state forces. The report found only
one case of direct illicit supply of arms from Iran to Nigeria, in 2010,
contravening a UN ban on Iranian arms export.
Bypassing the
UN sanctions regime
Hashemi attended a number of meetings in which Iran
discussed ways of exporting its goods to the Indian subcontinent.
In early 2012, he attended a meeting between
Iranian and Indian officials who discussed the exchange of Iranian oil in
return for Indian commodities.
On the Iranian side, the meeting was attended by
Ali Bagheri, deputy head of Iran’s National Security Council, deputy president
Hamid Baghai and deputy foreign minister Hussein Sobhaninia.
According to Hashemi, the Indians wanted their
goods to be transported from Iran’s Chabahar port to the Afghani city of Herat
and then onward to markets in Central Asia. The Indians insisted the trade be
done in rupees, while Iran preferred a more bold violation of
international banking sanctions, demanding direct transaction through the
countries’ financial institutions.
Also in early 2012, the governor of Sri Lanka’s
central bank, Ajith Nirath Cavraal, visited Iran and discussed ways of
bypassing the international sanctions imposed on Iran with minister of industry
and commerce Mehdi Ghazanfari and central bank governor Mahmoud Bahmani.
According to Hashemi, who was present at the meeting, Cavraal offered to put
Sri Lanka’s central bank at Iran’s disposal to acquire products banned by
international sanctions.
Leaving Iran
Hashemi began
working as an interpreter for Iran’s foreign ministry in January 2008, but
joined the opposition’s Green Movement surrounding the elections
of June 2009, he said.
Ahmad Hashemi (photo credit:
courtesy)
In early 2012,
Hashemi decided to run for parliament, but his candidacy was disqualified under
the pretext of an election bylaw which demands adherence to “the Islamic
system” and allegiance to the Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Ali Khaminei –
E.M). When Hashemi appealed the decision, he was fired from the foreign
ministry and his entry to the building was banned. Throughout his service,
Hashemi said, he was questioned numerous times by the ministry’s security
department, known as Herasat, which
ordered him to cease his opposition activity.
In May 2012 Hashemi began writing political
articles for reformist dailies Shargh and Etemaad. At that point, he said, he
started receiving anonymous death threats in late-night phone calls. One call,
which explicitly threatened to behead him and toss his body in a nearby
forest, particularly scared him.
Hashemi booked a
return ticket to Istanbul, Turkey, in June and although he was stopped for
questioning and a full physical search at Tehran airport by the
Revolutionary Guard, he was eventually allowed to board the airplane, never to
return to Iran. He told The Times of Israel that he continues to fear for his
life, even in the relative safety of Turkey.
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