IRANIAN DEFECTOR TO ISRAEL SAY TEHRAN INCREASED SUPPLY TO HEZBOLLAH
JERUSALEM 10 July (IPS) Authorities in Israel said Monday that they had arrested an Iranian who had infiltrated in Israel two weeks ago, coming from Lebanon.
Identified as Khodayar Mehrabi, a Revolutionary guard, the defectori was detained after he entered the Jewish State from neighbouring Lebanon, Israeli sources and the Ma’ariv daily reported.
The 24-year-old Mehrabi told Israeli interrogator that he was close to the son of the Iranian president Mohammad Khatami and explained that he fled to Israel because he was persecuted in Iran for criticising its religious leaders, both the paper and the source said.
But informed sources said the Israelis doubted the defector’s declarations, as Mr. Khatami does not have such a son.
Mr. Mehrabi had also described himself as someone who held an important position within the Revolutionary Guard and was sent to Lebanon with five other Iranians.
Israeli security and intelligence officials who interviewed Mr. Mehrabi said they did not know if the fugitive had came to Israel to carry out "hostile activities" or had defected and was seeking political asylum, Ma’ariv added.
The news about the arrest of the Iranian defector came as western press reported that an 80 members strong Iranian battalion had taken position in South Lebanon, training the Lebanese Hezbollah fighters for new attacks on Israel.
The organisation is financed, armed, trained and supported by Iran and backed by Syria, the nation that profit most from its operations against Israel.
During his trip to Europe last week, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warned about Iran's growing influence in Lebanon through the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah guerrilla movement.
Sharon, according to the report, expressed concern over the development to French and German governments during his whistle-stop European tour last week and had also raised the matter with US President George W. Bush.
The London-based, Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat newspaper confirmed the defection, quoting a former Iranian official telling the Arabic daily that "a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard" had fled to Israel from southern Lebanon.
He told the daily that about 80 Revolutionary Guards, or Pasdarans, from the "Jerusalem Battalion" have been training Lebanese, particularly in firing medium-range missiles, the paper said.
Twenty other Revolutionary Guards were currently "manning four surveillance stations" in southern Lebanon and in the country's eastern Bekaa valley to monitor the movements of Israeli forces across the border, he said.
Dore Gold, a top adviser to Sharon, charged earlier last week that Iran is establishing a consortium of international terrorism in Lebanon with region-wide implications.
He told AFP that Tehran's Islamic clerical regime now had missiles on Lebanese territory that were pointed at Israel and under the "command-and-control" of Iranian forces.
But Israeli security sources and analysts cast doubts on these reports.
The conservative "Jerusalem Post" quoted Monday military sources saying there is no concrete evidence on a large Iranian presence in Southern Lebanon, this although it is known that Hezbollah has established some 20 outposts, mainly observation posts, near the border.
According to Western diplomatic sources, members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, primarily involved in training Hezbollah gunmen from the organization's fighting arm, the Islamic Resistance, have kept a low profile in Lebanon.
They have confined themselves primarily to the Bekaa Valley, under the close supervision of the Syrian Army, particularly its intelligence and internal security branches, "Jerusalem Post" said.
The diplomatic sources maintained that the presence of Iranian troops in south Lebanon would also upset the Lebanese and generate an outcry in some Beirut-based newspapers - something that would be counterproductive for
Hizbullah and Iran. ENDS IRAN ISRAEL DEFECTOR 10701