CIA using US consulate in Dubai to recruit Iranian spies: book

Dubai

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The CIA routinely uses the US consulate in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to recruit Iranian spies, according to a new book. In Dubai: The World’s Fastest City, author Jim Krane quotes two unnamed American diplomats who say that US consular employees in Dubai issue travel visas to the thousands of Iranians who request them “only in exchange for inside information on the country”. Washington has no formal diplomatic relations with Tehran, and so Iranians use instead the US consular office in Dubai, which is situated right across from Iran in the Persian Gulf. But upon requesting a US travel visa, Iranian applicants are “grilled for information”, while some are “recruited as regular spies or informants”, according to Krane. The author alleges that the information acquired from Iranian visa applicants is so valuable that the CIA stepped in a few years ago to prevent a planned closing of the Dubai consulate on money-saving grounds. A US State Department representative was contacted by British newspaper The Daily Telegraph but declined to comment on the allegations.