On Tuesday, Western intelligence was accused by Iran's top police chief of kidnapping a former high-ranking defense official. According to Tehran, the official went missing on a private trip to Turkey.
Iran suspects that the CIA and the Mossad are involved in the disappearance of Ali Reza Asghari, a retired general in the elite Revolutionary Guards and a former deputy defense minister. As as result, Israeli security has increased at the nation's embassies worldwide. On Monday, a British newspaper reported that there was a possibility that the missing official possessed information on Ron Arad, the Israeli Air Force navigator that has been missing since 1986.
Arad's whereabouts have been in question since then, when his plane was shot down over southern Lebanon. Reports claim that pro-Iranian Hizbullah took the Israeli from Amal security chief Mustafa Dirani the following year and that in 1988 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard took Arad and transported him to Iran.
Additionally, Asghari may have intimate knowledge of Iran's nuclear development program, according to the British Daily Telegraph report.
On Tuesday, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported that Asghari arrived in Turkey on a private visit from Damascus, Syria.
However, al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper sources also claimed on Tuesday that Asghari had not abducted, but rather fled to the United States "along with the secrets he carried" shortly after arriving in Turkey.
Israel announced that they would be tightening security at a number of its embassies around the world for fear of a retaliatory kidnapping.
© 2007 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
