Top Iranian General says US leaders planned and executed 9/11

Politico.com

The commander of Iran’s ground forces said that American officials planned and executed the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to justify military intervention in the region.

 “These wars and these threats stem from a comprehensive American strategy. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Americans felt that a new force was beginning to materialize, namely the union between Sunnis and Shiites,” said Ahmad Reza Pourdastan in an interview with Iran’s Arabic-language Al-Alam state news network.

“The basis of this force was the blessed Islamic Revolution in Iran. This force is Islam, or the Islamic world. In order to prevent this force from materializing, the Americans did many things,” Pourdastan said, according to a translation of his remarks by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

“The first thing they did was to plan and carry out the events of 9/11, in order to justify their presence in Western Asia, with the goal of ruling it,” he said… (full article)

Former 60 Minutes consultant says Burgas bus bombing a fabrication

Friday February 15th   Big News Network

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts - The Bulgarian government earlier this month made a mockery of its political independence by publicly implicating Lebanon's Hezbollah in last year's attack on an Israeli bus in the resort city of Burgas, despite the fact that its "official investigation is still going on".

Sofia has yet to make an official announcement and there is an absence of trustworthy evidence to back the claim.

Under pressure for months by Washington and Tel Aviv to name Hezbollah as the culprit for the attack that killed five Israelis and a Bulgarian bus driver, as well as the terrorist carrying the bomb, Sofia has appeased Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who within half hour of the bombing last July publicly pointed the finger at Hezbollah and Iran.

Unsurprisingly, Netanyahu was extremely gratified by the news from Sofia and wasted no time in calling on Europeans to put Hezbollah on their list of terrorist organizations, a significant move that would likely exacerbate the present civil rights of Muslims in Europe, particularly those who are involved in charitable fund raising for Hezbollah's plethora of social welfare services in Lebanon.
The US government likewise conveniently interpreted as "conclusive" the preliminary finding in the Burgas investigation that the "military formation of Hezbollah might be involved" in that attack, to paraphrase carefully chosen words from Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov.

According to a Bulgarian expert, Professor Vladimir Chukov, Tsvetanov made a "hybrid statement" that "like Britain" makes the distinction between Hezbollah as a group and its "military wing". "This is a hybrid situation that goes on to suggest that there is little chance that Bulgaria will name Hezbollah and Iran as culprits," Professor Chukov has told the Bulgarian media.

Tell that to the mainstream media that wasted no time in its avalanche of reports that Bulgaria has implicated Hezbollah in the Burgas bombing. Case in point, in the various reports in the Wall Street Journal, London's Guardian, BBC, etc, there is virtually no mention of the fact that there is no official position of the Bulgarian government as of yet, and that the investigation is still on-going. According to Professor Chukov, the interior ministry's news leak was meant simply as "a test". Yet by all indications this is a poor and politically motivated move by an official of the Bulgarian government.

"It is obvious that Bulgaria's government has chosen a political approach and is only repeating the interpretation alleged by Israel on the very next day following the attack, when the investigation had not even started," said Sergey Stanishev, the head of Bulgarian Socialist Party, who is also the Chair of Party of European Socialists. "The investigation is currently under way and there is no way one can be talking about decisive evidence regarding the direct perpetrators, much less regarding the organization that is behind this tragic event ... This is absolutely unjustified in view of national security and the risks that are taken with respect to people in Bulgaria."

There is no dearth of suspicion in Bulgaria and beyond that the government official's statement that the bombing "was most likely" the work of Hezbollah militants and that there are "obvious links" to Hezbollah is based less on hard facts and more on external political pressure. According to Minister Tsvetanov, two individuals - one Canadian and the other Australian - who have lived in Lebanon since 2006 and 2010 respectively, have been linked to the attack and "there is data showing" their "obvious links to Lebanon."

Tsvetanov's statements are backed by Rob Wainwright, the director of Europol, claiming that there is "reasonable assumption" based on "forensic evidence, intelligence sources and patterns in past attacks" that "point to Hezbollah's involvement." Not so according to Stanishev, who has labeled as "poor evidence" the data cited by officials to point accusatory fingers at Hezbollah. In fact, there is a great deal of contrary evidence to suggest the attack was a carefully orchestrated Israeli "false flag" operation aimed at smearing Hezbollah and Iran and pressuring the European Union to brand Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.

The distinct possibility of an Israeli 'false flag' operation can be garnered by a careful and methodical examination of the public information, including the photographs, amateur videos and instant reports on the bus attack that occurred at exactly 5:30 pm last July 18, on the anniversary of the 1994 bombing in Argentina that Israel insists was the work of Iran and Hezbollah. That was perfect timing for Israel's propaganda machine.

As stated in this author's investigative article written immediately after the bus attack, there are at least 10 valid reasons to question the official story that a busload of Israeli tourists was the target of a terrorist bombing. Lest we forget, the autopsy results in Sofia have shown that the dead terrorist was "white and had light eyes" and initially was identified as a member of al-Qaeda, much to the chagrin of Israelis who have shown zero interest in any suspect other than Hezbollah-Iran.

To reiterate the gist of this author's own probe of this matter, a good deal of evidence exists that suggest the targeted bus was empty and the only passengers hurt were inside the adjacent bus and received light injuries.

This author has carefully examined dozens upon dozens of photographs of the Israeli tourists in question, who no doubt would have received much worse facial and other bodily injuries if they were inside the targeted bus. After all, the severed head of the bomber had been discovered some 60 meters away from the bus and an instant video shows the bus in full flames, ie, impossible for the majority of 42 purported passengers, especially the elderly females seen on stretchers en route to the hospital in various photos, to escape with little or no bodily harm, thus warranting the following 10 questions:

1. Why the amateur video of the bus taken within seconds of the explosion doesn't show anyone jumping down the bus?

2. Why so many passengers survived with only light hand and foot injuries in an explosion involving (according to the Bulgarian officials) three kilograms of TNT in front of the bus?

3. Why did the Israeli group known as Zakar appear immediately on the site and collected the bodies of the dead, per several images, when this should have been done by Bulgarians? Why was this group at the airport at that time? And where were the Bulgarian security officials during the whole time monopolized by the Zakar individuals (in yellow uniforms)? Indeed, the fact that the Bulgarians allowed the Zakar all over the crime scene and move the dead victims (who were then frisked quickly to Israel) speaks volumes about the travesty of police investigation in Bulgaria.

4. Why did the bomb kill the Israelis sitting in the back of the bus (per reports in the Israeli media) while simultaneously killing the bus driver in the front and leaving the vast majority of bus passengers only lightly harmed?

5. Why have some bus witnesses told the media that they tried to get out through the front door but found it locked and managed to get out through a "hole on the side" when both the videos and reports indicate an instant fire following the explosion engulfing the bus?

6. Why is there no report of any injuries to the bus driver in the next bus, which sustained major damage especially on the driver's side? Could the bus driver killed be the one in the second bus?

7. Why was there no extra security precaution even though according to the Israeli media prior to the landing of Israeli passengers the tour company had received a call that they would be "greeted with two bombs"?

8. Why was the trunk of the targeted bus empty and no sign of any luggage (per numerous images that also show the inside of the bus and the absence of any section for luggage contrary to the claim of one of the Israeli passengers who is quoted widely)?

9. Why did the passport and license of purported terrorist remain intact despite the raging fire in the bus?

10. Why did Israel rush all the passengers back to Israel early next morning instead of allowing the Bulgarian investigators to interview them? After all, Israel made no similar attempt to protect the lives of thousands of other Israeli tourists vacationing in Burgas, bottom line since it had no real worries about any terrorist attack against them after having pulled off its spectacular 'false flag' that must surely be a source of current pride among its Mossad intelligence officials.

Mossad agents must be patting themselves on the shoulder now for a job well-done, but then again their script perhaps was too neatly executed, given Netanyahu's instant finger toward Hezbollah and Iran, or the widespread use of a replica bus on full flame, which on closer examination shows to be different from the actual targeted bus.

The Israelis have now mastered the art of political manipulation and their latest victory in Bulgaria simply educates us about why they are ahead of the game and keep winning the battle for the world public opinion.

(The writer Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, has worked as a consultant to CBS's "60 Minutes" and has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, Voice of America, and Al-Jazeera. He is a regular contributor to The New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Global Dialogue, and Asia Times. Afrasiabi is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press). He is author of Reading In Iran Foreign Policy After September 11 (BookSurge Publishing, October 23, 2008) and Looking for Rights at Harvard. His latest book is UN Management Reform: Selected Articles and Interviews on United Nations CreateSpace (November 12, 2011).

US planned 9/11 attacks to invade Middle East: Iran cmdr.

Commander of the Iranian Army Ground Forces Brigadier General Ahmad-Reza Pourdastan (file photo)

- Press TV

 

A senior Iranian commander says the United States planned the 9/11 terrorist attacks to use them as pretext to invade the energy-rich Middle East.

“The US, looking for a pretext to invade the Middle East, masterminded the 9/11 incident and pointed an accusing finger at Muslim countries,” Commander of the Iranian Army Ground Forces Brigadier General Ahmad-Reza Pourdastan said on Saturday.

Pourdastan added that following the fall of the Soviet Union, the US introduced itself as the world’s sole superpower and moved to instill the new world order to prove its supremacy.

The Iranian commander noted that the US later found its geopolitical policies a failure and decided to follow a geo-economic policy and control the world’s energy resources, 60 percent of which was located in the Middle East.

“To achieve that goal, they launched preemptive attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, and Iran was their next target, but wise policies adopted by the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei along with the unity of the Iranian nation prevented them from achieving their objective,” Pourdastan said.

On September 11, 2001, a series of coordinated attacks were carried out in the United States leaving almost 3,000 people dead.

The US, under the administration of former President George W. Bush, invaded Afghanistan in 2001 after claiming that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by members of al-Qaeda harbored by the then Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

The US also attacked Iraq in 2003 claiming that the Middle Eastern country was in possession of weapons of mass destruction. Washington’s wars on Iraq and Afghanistan have claimed the lives of more than a million people.

India's false-flag follies continue: Journalist and Iranians were innocent patsies

Almost all of India's "radical Muslim terror" has been exposed as radical Hindu-Zionist false-flag terror designed to fan the flames of the Zionists' global war on Islam.

  Now investigative journalist Gareth Porter has exposed India's latest false-flag scandal: The framing of innocent journalist Syed Mohommed Ahmad Kazmi and four innocent Iranians for the false-flag bombing of an Israeli embassy car. If history is any guide, Israel bombed its own embassy car and paid off its assets in the Indian police to frame the designated patsies.

Israel has been caught repeatedly bombing its own embassies, Jewish community centers, etc.:

Israel bombs own embassy in Buenos Aires, March 17th, 1992, and then bombs the Jewish Mutual Building on July 18th, 1994, in failed efforts to implicate Iran

Former MI5 agent reveals: Israel bombed own embassy in London

Below is  the first  installment of Gareth Porter's three-part report.

-Kevin Barrett

Evidence in Delhi Embassy Bombing Suggests Journalist Was Framed

Tuesday, 28 August 2012 13:31     By Gareth Porter, Inter Press Service | Report

In "The Delhi Car Bombing: How the Police Built a False Case", a three-part series beginning today, award-winning investigative journalist Gareth Porter dissects the Delhi police accusation against an Indian journalist and four Iranians of involvement in the Feb. 13 bombing of an Israeli embassy car.

Washington - New Delhi police officials have released hundreds of pages of documents from their investigation into the Feb. 13 bombing of an Israeli Embassy car. The documents aimed to show that a well-known Indian Muslim journalist aided an Iranian conspiracy to plan and carry out the bombing.

But a review by IPS of the evidence filed in the case suggests that the Indian journalist accused in the case has been framed by the police, at least in part to implicate the Iranians in the terror plot.

The "charge sheet" on the embassy car bombing filed by the "Special Cell" (SC) of the Delhi police July 31 claims Indian journalist Syed Mohommed Ahmad Kazmi confessed to helping officials from Iran plan the bombing plot in return for payments totalling 5,500 U.S. dollars.

It also says that a moped used for reconnaissance by the Iranian said to have carried out the bombing was found in Kazmi's residence and that forensic bomb-making evidence was discovered in the hotel room of that same Iranian.

But an analysis of the documentation included in the filing reveals that the evidence is highly questionable.

The SC has a long history of cases against alleged terrorists that were rejected by the court as involving framing people and planting false evidence.

Kazmi is an unlikely candidate for participation in an Iranian terrorist plot. A 50-year-old senior Indian journalist, he had his own web-based news service, a regular job as a columnist for the leading Urdu-language weekly and a retainer as Urdu newscaster for India's state-owned television channel Doordarshan.

He did not need the 5,500 U.S. dollars police claim he received for helping the Iranians plan the bombing. Nor did he need the 2.26 million rupees (40,000 U.S. dollars) in foreign remittances that Delhi police chief B. K. Gupta asserted in a press conference in mid-March that the journalist and his wife had received in their bank accounts. Gupta declared that Kazmi and his wife had been "unable to explain" those remittances.

But Kazmi's family has produced bank documents showing that the remittances had come from relatives in the UK and Singapore in 2009 and 2010. Furthermore, the "Economic Directorate" of the Indian Police assigned to investigate the remittances could find nothing incriminating in them, the Indian press has reported.

A more serious problem with the SC case is that it depends heavily on Kazmi's alleged confession of guilt. That confession, consisting of five separate statements between Mar. 6 and 24, is inadmissible as evidence under Indian law on the assumption that police will inevitably coerce those in their custody to make confessions.

Kazmi has denounced all the "disclosure statements" attributed to him as false. He charged in a handwritten petition to the court Apr. 16 that the SC had coerced him into providing his signature on blank pages. He said the police threatened that his family with "dire consequences" if he did not do as they directed.

Except for the very first "disclosure statement" dated Mar. 6, all of them are followed by the handwritten notation "Accused refused to sign".

Most of the five "disclosures" were clearly written by the Special Cell in order to implicate both Kazmi and three Iranians in the bombing plot. The disclosures make Kazmi appear eager to incriminate himself, even though the police account offers no reason for considering Kazmi a suspect, except that his mobile phone number was said to have been called by a Houshang Afshar Irani, who in turn was said to have been contacted by an Iranian involved in the Feb. 14 explosion in Bangkok.

The disclosure dated Mar. 6 and supposedly given to police before Kazmi was even under arrest confesses to having been informed of the plot for a bombing in Delhi by a Seyed Ali Mahdiansadr during a visit to Tehran in January 2011, and having agreed to help the plotters.

Kazmi is also portrayed in the statement as admitting to having been given a Kinetic brand moped by Irani for safekeeping at his home during the first week in May 2011. The police cite that statement as the justification for immediately arresting him and for allegedly seizing the moped from Kazmi's residence.

There is good reason to believe that the police had already followed Irani's trail during his two-week visit to Delhi in late April and early May 2011 and had learned before Kazmi's arrest that he had purchased a used black Kinetic moped at a commercial showroom in Delhi on Apr. 26.

Kazmi's family and lawyer Mehmood Pracha say the moped taken away from his residence Mar. 6 was not the one identified in the police "seizure memo", which has the same identification number as found on the receipt for Irani's purchase of the scooter, but one left by Kazmi's brother two years ago and never used during that time.

The memo for the scooter is signed and dated by Deputy Chief of Police Sanjeev Yadav, the senior police official in the SC investigation, and one other officer. It is signed but not dated by a third officer. The fact that Kazmi's signature is on the document without any date suggests that he signed a blank sheet of paper.

The Kinetic moped is crucial to the SC effort to link Kazmi to Irani's alleged reconnaissance of the Israeli embassy to prepare for the bombing, because there is no other evidence except Kazmi's own discredited "disclosures". But the story about the moped raises serious questions about its plausibility.

It would have made no sense for a terrorist to purchase a moped for that purpose, since Kazmi owned a car that would have made the task far easier as well as more secure.

The alleged turnover of the moped to Kazmi by Irani at the end of his two-week visit makes even less sense, because it suggests that he was planning to use it again for the actual bombing operation. But someone contemplating an operation to affix a magnet bomb to a car would never have considered using a moped for the job. A Kinetic moped normally cannot go faster than 20 miles per hour and is notoriously poor in acceleration, making a getaway for the bomber highly problematic.

In the event, Irani rented a motorcycle when he returned, suggesting that had probably disposed of the moped by reselling it cheaply.

Another sign that the police had trouble linking Kazmi to Irani's reconnaissance of the Israeli Embassy is the statement attributed to him in one of the "disclosures". Whenever he met with Irani, his supposed disclosure says, "I used to leave my mobile phone at my residence."

That sentence was evidently included to explain why a search of Kazmi's mobile phone records would not reveal any activity in the area where the "disclosure" claims Kazmi and Irani were carrying out reconnaissance of the Israeli Embassy during Irani's two-week stay.

The police used the same argument in a 2007 terrorism case in which they had alleged that the accused had taken a trip to Kashmir to collect explosives but had left his mobile phone at his guest house.

The Court did not find the assertion credible, however, and threw out the charges.

*This story is the first in a three-part series, "The Delhi Car Bombing: How the Police Built a False Case", in which award-winning investigative journalist Gareth Porter dissects the Delhi police accusation against an Indian journalist and four Iranians of involvement in the Feb. 13 bombing of an Israeli embassy car.

http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/08/evidence-in-delhi-embassy-bombing-suggests-journalist-was-framed-part-1/

Iran's Intelligence Minister: "Bin Laden dead long before US raid"

http://edition.presstv.ir/detail/178898.html

Iran's intelligence minister says the country has reliable information that former head of the al-Qaeda terrorist group Osama bin Laden died of disease some time ago.

“We have accurate information that bin Laden died of illness some time ago,” Heidar Moslehi told reporters on the sidelines of a Cabinet meeting on Sunday.

He questioned Washington's claim that bin Laden was killed by American troops in a hiding compound in Pakistan on May 1.

“If the US military and intelligence apparatus have really arrested or killed bin Laden, why don't they show him (his dead body) why have they thrown his corpse into the sea?” Moslehi asked.

“When we apprehended [former Jundallah ringleader Abdul Malik] Rigi, we showed him and also aired his interview,” ISNA quoted the intelligence chief as saying.

By releasing such false news, he said, the White House seeks to overshadow regional awakening.

Moslehi said US officials resort to such PR campaigns to divert attention from their domestic problems as well as their “fragile” economic situation.

US President Barack Obama claimed that Osama bin Laden was killed by US forces on May 1 in a hiding compound in Pakistan.

A US official later announced that bin Laden's body was abruptly buried at sea, falsely boasting that his hasty burial was in accordance with the Islamic law, requiring burial within 24 hours of death.

However, burial at sea is not an Islamic practice and Islam does not have a timeframe for burial.

US officials also claimed their decision for a sea burial was made because no country would accept bin Laden's remains, without elaborating on which countries were actually contacted on the matter.

Analysts, however, have raised serious questions as to why US officials did not allow for the application of a DNA test to officially confirm the identity of the corpse before its hasty burial.

Arab-Muslim Public Opinion: 9/11 perps US and Israel - NOT 9/11-truth-seeking Iran - are the real threats

Chomsky: WikiLeaks Cables Reveal "Profound Hatred for Democracy on the Part of Our Political Leadership" (Source: Democracy Now!)

"Commenting on the revelations that several Arab leaders are urging the United States to attack Iran, Chomsky says, 'latest polls show] Arab opinion holds that the major threat in the region is Israel, that’s 80 percent; the second threat is the United States, that’s 77 percent. Iran is listed as a threat by 10 percent,' Chomsky says. 'This may not be reported in the newspapers, but it’s certainly familiar to the Israeli and U.S. governments and the ambassadors. What this reveals is the profound hatred for democracy on the part of our political leadership.'"

* * *

Iran Urges Trial of Those Behind 9/11

World Public Opinion poll: "On average less than one in four (Muslims surveyed) believes al Qaeda was responsible for September 11th attacks."

Iran urges trial of those behind 9/11

Nov. 18th, 2010 - Press TV

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has renewed his call to establish an independent fact-finding committee on the 9/11 incident, urging trial of those who engineered the event.

"Plotters of the September 11 incident should be brought to trial. While regional nations knew nothing about the event, yet countries were occupied [because of it]," IRNA quoted President Ahmadinejad as saying in a press conference in the Azeri capital of Baku on Thursday.

"A fact-finding committee which is trusted by nations should investigate the 9/11 event," he added.

The president emphasized that if US statesmen truly possess firm documents about what happened during the incident, as they claim, they should not fear the establishment of a fact-finding committee and can produce their evidence to the body for a probe.

The Iranian chief executive went on to add, "If it is proved that such crimes were carried out by those who have presence in our region, regional countries and nations will duly punish them by themselves."

In his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September, the Iranian president called for the formation of an independent probe committee to investigate the 2001 event in New York and Washington.

President Ahmadinejad's call for a probe triggered a row in the White House with US President Barak Obama criticizing the Iranian president's remarks as "hateful."

The Iranian president later defended his proposal, saying it did not mean Tehran was insensitive to the pain of the families of the victims but rather showed a commitment to finding the truth behind an incident that triggered wars in Iran's neighboring countries.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Ahmadinejad expressed Iran's constant readiness to hold fair talks with P5+1 group -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the US plus Germany.

"We have always advocated negotiations but talks should be based on justice and respect. However, certain Western countries pursue arrogant behavior and think they can win concession if they exert pressure on Iran," he said.

"We believe that talks should be held for friendship and justice and that everyone who intends to impose their demands is mistaken. Iran will not be affected," he added.

The Iranian chief executive pointed out that negotiations are currently underway to set the venue of talks between Iran and P5+1.

On October 14, EU Foreign Affairs Chief Catherine Ashton proposed three-day talks to be held in mid-November in the Austrian capital of Vienna, expressing hope that Tehran would "respond positively" to the offer.

Iran's proposed date and venue for talks with the P5+1 were announced on November 9 in a letter sent by Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Saeed Jalili to his counterpart Catherine Ashton.

Ashton accepted Iran's proposed date for talks, but suggested Vienna or Switzerland as the venue for the first meeting.