Guest post from “Analyst 404″
Early reports of Hezbollah involvement in a thwarted plot to attack Jewish and Israeli targets in Azerbaijan appear to have been over stated. Three men, described as a Hezbollah cell, were detained by the Azeri authorities on 19 January 2012. The men were allegedly planning attacks on two local rabbis, the Israeli Ambassador in Baku and visiting Israeli VIPs. Weapons, including explosive devices were reportedly recovered although only a SVD Dragunov sniper rifle (with sound moderator) and three pistols (also with moderators) along with ammunition were shown on Aeri TV. Two of the men have been identified as Azerbaijani members of a local crime gang whilst the third, 60-year-old Balaqardash Dadashov, has been variously described as an Azeri Iranian or as an Azerbaijani living in Iran. Whatever his nationality Dadashov is being linked to Iranian intelligence and not to Hezbollah. He is reported to have recruited the other two men, supplied them with intelligence on the potential targets and to have received the weapons from Iranian sources. He also promised his two fellow plotters $150,000 if they carried out the attacks.
In this scenario the plotters appear linked directly back to Iranian intelligence with no apparent connections to Hezbollah. The tactical aspects of the plot also do not support a typical Hezbollah operation. Hezbollah are usually associated with large suicide VBIEDs (although it is many years since their last such attack). This plot, as suggested by the moderators, appears to have intended surgical assassinations which are not tactics generally attributed to Hezbollah. The assassination with which they most linked is that of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri and even for that they used a suicide VBIED. Although Hezbollah is a versatile group, and more than capable of changing its tactics to suit, the lack of any known Lebanese connection in this latest Azbaijan plot puts their involvement in doubt. This is even more surprising considering Hezbollah has previous history in the country. In 2009 two Lebanese members of Hezbollah and four Azerbaijanis were arrested and charged with plotting to blow up the Israeli and other embassies in Baku along with a Russian operated radar station. This is much more what would be expected of a Hezbollah operation although interestingly pistols with silencers were recovered and the arrested Azerbaijanis reportedly were engaged in range of other criminal activity.
Although Hezbollah’s links to crime networks are well documented they are mainly for narcotics and other contraband trafficking that are used to raise funds for the group. They also co-opt criminals in to support operations such as in earlier Azerbaijan plot although these were closely supervised by experienced Lebanese members of Hezbollah’s External Security Organisation. If such operatives were involved in the recent plot it would be expected that they would be the cut out between the Azeri mercenaries and Iranian intelligence and not another criminal. Dadashov has been sought by the Azeri police since 1995 for a variety of crimes including kidnap for ransom so perhaps not the ideal choice to run an operation inside Azerbaijan.
There are similarities between this plot and the foiled plan to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the US which came to light in September 2011. This also involved the operational use of criminals (in this case Mexican drug cartel members) and was initially linked to Hezbollah but later these links found to be somewhat tenuous (although the investigation is still ongoing). As with Azerbaijan there does seem to be a direct link to Iran but in this case it is to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
If both these premises are correct then two high profile Iranian sponsored operations (very high profile when you consider a planned terrorist attack on US soil) that did not involve Hezbollah, Iranian’s principal proxy terrorist group. Previously Iran has used Hezbollah for just this sort of operation most notably in attacks against the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 and a Jewish centre in the same city in 1994. And with tensions rising over its nuclear program it would be expected that Iran would want to use its proxy all the more to avoid direct links to the kind of operation which could be a tipping point into major conflict.
So why is Hezbollah not being used by Iran in these recent operations? One possibility is that Hezbollah is not as reliant on Iran as it was before. It has a significant political presence in Lebanon that coexists comfortably alongside its ‘legitimate’ resistance power base. Involvement in Iran’s international terrorist adventures and adding to the perception that it is still Iran’s creature will not be in the group’s interest at this point. That is not to say that the relationship between Iran and Hezbollah is breaking down but only that Hezbollah is less easily manipulated than it was in the past.
Two other points of interest:
The new threat being discussed by intelligence pundits is ‘blended terrorist attacks’ (combining cyber and physical attack to increase the total effect beyond the sum of the component parts). On 16 January 2012 three days before the arrests of Dadashov & Co several Azerbaijani government websites were hacked and defaced with messages accusing the government of “serving the Jews”. Although these cyber attacks may be completely unconnected to the assassination plot and certainly do not appear to be blended it is still an interesting concurrence.
There is also an Azerbaijan link to the arrest of an alleged Hezbollah operative in Thailand on 12 January 2012 and the recovery of over 4 tonnes of explosive precursors. Atris Hussein operated an export company in Bangkok of which his main business was sending electric fans to Azerbaijan. The explosives precursors were found along with a large number of cardboard boxes which are used for the fan shipments. So there was possibly a Hezbollah plot for Azerbaijan. If there was it does not necessarily mean it was linked to Dadashov, in the Byzantine world of Iranian intelligence the different agencies are more competitors than collaborators. And Hezbollah does not need Iranian sponsorship in order to attack Israel as it has its own reasons (vengeance for the late Imad Mugniyeh being just one) to do so.
Today’s attempted attacks in Delhi and Georgia make this post from Analyst 404 even more pertinent. Both attacks somewhat crude and perhaps less technically professional than either Iran or Hezbollah would normally be expected to mount.