Iran Ordered Attack on Israel, Official Says

Kenneth R. Timmerman, NewsMax.com

MAATAT, Israel -- On the eve of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's much-awaited trip to Israel on Monday, a senior Israeli official said that Iran had coordinated the Hezbollah attacks on Israel on July 12 that sparked the current Israeli military action.

Iran's goal was to "deflect world attention from its nuclear bomb-building program," veteran government spokesman Avi Posner told NewsMax in an exclusive interview.

"Even the timing of this operation [against Israel] was coordinated with Iran," he added.

That coordination was extraordinary, and has gone largely unreported.

On July 11 – just the day before the Hezbollah kidnappings – the head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, flew suddenly to Damascus, after stonewalling European foreign ministers in Brussels over Iran's nuclear weapons program.

Larijani is a top personal adviser to Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and was accompanied to Damascus by the head of Iran's intelligence ministry, Hojatoleslam Gholam-Hussein Mohseni-Ejei.

Their departure from Brussels was reported by the official Iranian News Agency, IRNA. But their flight from Brussels to Damascus, on board a special military aircraft, was not.

"Before the G-8 summit in St. Petersburg, Iran wanted to deflect world attention from Iran's nuclear bomb-building activities," Posner said.

And they succeeded. Instead of focusing as planned on the Iranian nuclear program, the G-8 summit tackled a broad range of world problems, starting with the emerging Middle East crisis between Israel and Hezbollah.

While Posner did not allege that Iran orchestrated the kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers the day after Larijani's arrival in Damascus, an Israeli military official told NewsMax - in an exclusive interview at this military outpost overlooking the Lebanese border - that Hezbollah had been preparing the kidnappings for months.

All Hezbollah had been lacking was the political go-ahead to carry out the operation, he said.

Hezbollah fighters had attempted to cross the electronic fence along Israel's border to kidnap Israeli soldiers six months before their successful July 12 operation, but were intercepted by Israeli troops.

"They learned from their mistakes," the military official said. "This time, they knew to place their booby trap in a blind spot in our video surveillance coverage. They knew exactly when the Hummer was coming. They knew exactly how much time they needed to cut through the fence, kidnap our guys and get back through the fence into Lebanon."

Israel has built a fence along the entire 150 kilometer (96 mile) border with Lebanon, equipped with electronic sensors to detect intruders and video cameras. But it still takes Israeli troops up to 20 minutes to respond to intrusions, especially if they occur off-camera.

The entire operation on July 12 took an estimated five minutes, the military official said. A Hezbollah get-away vehicle was waiting on the other side of the fence for the commando that kidnapped the two Israeli soldiers.

Posner believes there is a "direct link" between Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

"Nasrallah is the puppet of Ahmadinejad," Posner told NewsMax.

"Together, they have created a very dangerous situation. They are building on our northern frontier a terrorist entity that threatens not only Israel, but the stability of all the Middle East."

Kenneth R. Timmerman
President, Middle East Data Project, Inc.
Author: Countdown to Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran
Contributing editor: Newsmax.com