As the West’s conflict with Iran over its nuclear program heats up, New York City – with its large Jewish population – becomes an increasingly attractive target.
On Monday, Israeli embassy workers in the capital cities of India and
Georgia were targeted in terrorist attacks that Israeli officials believe
were planned and carried out by Iran and its client, the militant group
Hezbollah. The bomb in Tbilisi was defused, but the bomb in New Delhi,
planted in an embassy worker’s car, exploded and injured at least two.
Iran’s next target could well be on American soil. In Senate testimony last
month, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper stated that Iranian
officials “are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in
response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime.”
As evidence, Mr. Clapper cited an alleged plot foiled last October in which
a naturalized U.S. citizen of Iranian descent, directed by the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard Corps, hired a member of a Mexican drug cartel to
assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States. The plan involved
blowing up a Washington, D.C., restaurant<potentially killing hundreds of
Americans in the process.
Iran has a proven record of using its official presence in a foreign city to
coordinate attacks, which are then carried out by Hezbollah agents from
abroad, often leveraging the local community<whether wittingly or not<as
facilitators. Most notable are the 1992 and 1994 bombings of Israeli and
Jewish targets in Argentina, which killed 29 and 85 people, respectively.
The New York City Police Department, where I work as director of
Intelligence Analysis, sent a team to Argentina to study the modus operandi
of those attacks and to meet with Argentine security officials who worked
the investigations. Coupled with open source information, this is what the
NYPD learned:
Iranian agents were sent to Argentina years before the attacks, where they
integrated into society and became Argentine nationals. Mohsen Rabbani is
believed to have been in charge of coordinating the 1994 attack and is
subject to an Interpol arrest warrant for his involvement. He first came to
Argentina in 1983, where he subsequently became the main imam at At-Tauhid,
an Iranian-funded mosque in Buenos Aires.
After traveling to Iran in August 1993 to participate in a meeting that
allegedly gave the planned attack the green light, Mr. Rabbani returned to
Argentina as a cultural attaché to the Iranian Embassy, conveniently
providing him diplomatic immunity. Then, Hezbollah agents from abroad
received logistical support from members of the local Lebanese-Shiite
community and the Iranian Embassy to carry out the attack.
The Argentine attacks were by no means isolated incidents. Hezbollah has
been tied to failed attacks in 2009 against Israeli and Jewish interests in
Azerbaijan, Egypt and Turkey. Last month, Thai officials arrested a
suspected Hezbollah militant for possibly planning attacks there or perhaps
facilitating the movement of weapons through Bangkok.
The NYPD must assume that New York City could be targeted by Iran or
Hezbollah. On Feb. 3, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
threatened that Iran “had its own tools” to respond to sanctions and threats
of military action against it. Indeed, as the West’s conflict with Iran over
its nuclear program continues to heat up, New York City<especially with its
large Jewish population<becomes an increasingly attractive target.
This is neither an idle nor a new threat. As one example of Iranian agents
acting in New York, in 2004 two security guards attached to the Iranian
mission to the United Nations were sent home by the State Department after
being caught conducting surveillance of city subways and landmarks. Iran’s
U.N. mission allows officials from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence to live
and operate in New York with official diplomatic cover.
Iran also has a presence in New York via the Alavi Foundation, a nonprofit
ostensibly devoted to charity works and promoting Islamic culture. In
December 2009, Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New
York, described Alavi as having “effectively been a front for the government
of Iran.” A contemporaneous complaint filed by Mr. Bharara’s office led to
the seizure of Alavi’s assets<including the Islamic Institute of New York,
the largest Shiite mosque in the city and the location most closely
affiliated with Iran’s U.N. mission. The NYPD Intelligence Division also
played a role during the initial stages of the Alavi investigation.
Hezbollah and its supporters have a presence in New York and the surrounding
area as well. In 2008, two Staten Island men pleaded guilty to providing
material support to Hezbollah. Just down the road in Philadelphia, 26
people<including a former Brooklyn resident<were indicted in federal court
in 2009 for conspiring to provide material support to the terrorist group.
Lebanese-linked businesses in the tri-state area and elsewhere have been
implicated in a massive money-laundering scheme benefiting Hezbollah. This
scheme was revealed in a civil suit filed against several Lebanese financial
institutions last December by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the
U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Meanwhile, at least 18
other Hezbollah-related cases have been brought in federal courts across the
United States since 2000.
Given the alleged plot against a foreign diplomat in Washington, Iran’s
increasingly bellicose rhetoric and its long history of sponsoring terror
attacks abroad, the NYPD must remain vigilant in attempting to detect and
disrupt any attack by Iran or its proxies. Anything less would be abdicating
our duty to protect New York City and its residents.
By Mitchell D. Silber
