Israel is aiding Iranian opposition groups, says Strategic Threats Minister Lieberman

August 28, 2007, 4:14 PM (GMT+02:00)

	Iranian opposition Kurdistan Free Life Party

The minister was answering questions from listeners to the Israeli Broadcasting Service’s Farsi program Monday night, Aug. 27. Avigdor Lieberman said Israel is extending aid to those opposition organizations which are proving effective. He is therefore the first member of the Israeli government to expose the clandestine war gaining ground between Israel and Iran in recent weeks, say DEBKAfile’s sources.

The also disclose that ten days ago, Iran alerted Shiite militias under their control in Iraq to a report that the Israeli Mossad intelligence service had delivered long-range shoulder-borne, anti-air and anti-tank missiles to PJAK, the Iranian Kurdistan Free Life Party. The message warned that these missiles may turn up anywhere in Iran or Iraq.

Confirmation of Tehran’s intelligence would mean that Israel has begun retaliating for the hefty Iranian arms consignments to Hamas and Jihad Islami in Gaza and responding in kind to the relentless Palestinian Qassam missile onslaught on Israel by arming Kurdish rebels with weapons for fighting Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

Tehran has never hitherto referred to Israel as being involved in any of the minority uprisings taking place against the Islamic regime, such as the ethnic Arabs of Khozestan, the Turkomen and the Baluchis. The finger was only pointed at the United States, Britain and anti-Iranian Iraqi elements. Now, apparently, the high-quality weapons in Kurdish hands demand an explanation.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Israel has not yet responded to the massive short- and long-range missile deliveries Iran has been sending Hizballah via Syria’s Latakia seaport, which defense minister Ehud Barak disclosed Monday, Aug. 27. Trucks are bringing the new missiles to south Lebanon, where they are deployed at Hizballah’s new forward lines north of the Litani River. These deliveries include the extended-range Zelzal which can reach as far as Tel Aviv.

The minister also disclosed that, although the supplies violate the arms embargo imposed under UN Security Resolution 1701 which ended the Lebanon war in August 2006, Lebanese soldiers are helping to unload them. The UN peacekeepers mandated by that resolution to prevent Hizballah’s rearmament are therefore virtually unemployed. In any case, since the UN troops are keeping their heads well down since June when a Spanish patrol was blown up and lost six men.