Abducted Iranian defense official reportedly held in Israel

Ali-Reza Asgari

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Iran’s former deputy defense minister, who went missing during a 2006 official visit to Turkey, was kidnapped in a joint Israeli-German-British operation, according to an Iranian newsmagazine. Brigadier general Ali-Reza Asgari, who once commanded Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, disappeared on December 9, 2006, from his hotel room in Istanbul, Turkey. Little more than a year later, Hans Rühle, former Director of Policy Planning in the German Ministry of Defense, wrote in Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung that Asgari was in Western hands and that “information was obtained” from him. Since then, other sources have alleged that Asgari defected willingly, including Dafna Linzer of the Washington Post and intelligence historian Gordon Thomas, in his 2009 book Secret Wars: One Hundred Years of British Intelligence (see intelNews book review). Read more of this post