The Saudi Cables and Iran: Part 3

Just three days after the website WikiLeaks published tens of thousands of Saudi foreign ministry confidential and secret correspondence on June 20, the Saudi government implicitly confirmed the authenticity of some of the leaked documents.

Saudi Foreign Ministry spokesman Osama bin Ahmad Naqli linked the leaked documents to the cyberattack on the ministry’s internal network on May 21, confirming media speculation that the two incidents were connected. In an effort at damage control, he said that hackers — which WikiLeaks says belonged to a group “calling itself the Yemeni Cyber Army” — had been unable to gain access to a large portion of classified documents.

When it released the cables on June 20, WikiLeaks announced that it had in its possession “more than half a million cables and other documents from the Saudi Foreign Ministry that contain secret communications from various Saudi embassies around the world.” It promised to publish all of them in the coming weeks.

On Wednesday, June 24, Iran’s Fars News Agency claimed it had access to the documents even before WikiLeaks did. This has not been confirmed by an external source.

In this, the third of our reviews, IranWire looks at what the leaked cables reveal about Iran’s contingency plans for a post-Assad Syria, its knowledge of US safeguards against Iran after its departure from Iraq, and Qods Commander Ghasem Suleimani’s rousing address to Hezbollah officials in Beirut. 

 

US Missiles in Qatar to Guard Against Iran

Ahead of US troops pulling out of Iraq, Iraqi officials informed Iran that the United States had positioned missiles in Qatar — missiles that could potentially be used against Iran. According to a cable dated February 14, 2012, the Saudi embassy in Tehran reported on a visit to the Iranian capital by General Babaker Zebari, Iraq’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

 

 

“The Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, accompanied by Babaker Zebari, visited the American military base in Qatar at the invitation of the commander of American forces in Iraq,” the document said. “The Iraqi foreign minister was told that the base had underground launch pads for missiles, which could be targeted against Iran.”

According to the document, the Iraqi delegation believed that the purpose of this visit had been to send a message to Iran. The cable added that Iranian officials responded with a lack of enthusiasm upon receiving the information, and insisted that they had previously been aware of the launch pads.

 

Iran Prepares for a Post-Assad Syria

Another document revealed that Foreign Minister Saud bin Faisal wrote to the Saudi royal court’s chief of staff with regard to Iran’s attempts to carve out a new axis of power in the region, with Iraq and Egypt playing key roles.

 

 

“The Saudi ambassador to Islamabad has learned from his own sources,” the letter stated, “that the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, on advice from Iran and without opposition from the United States,” intended to propose to Egypt that it form a “strategic relationship” with Iraq. The proposal, the letter said, was presented at the Arab summit in Baghdad. 

The letter also reports that al-Maliki offered Egypt a $70 billion agreement on investments and trade relations with Iraq. The Saudi ambassador to Pakistan was quoted in the letter as having said, “This way, Iran intends to strengthen the standing of Nuri al-Maliki in Iraq and create an new axis with Egypt and Iraq so that, should the regime of Bashar al-Assad fall, it can profit by it.”

 

Iraqi Party Leader Looking for Saudi Support

A document issued by the Saudi Foreign Ministry’s Bureau of Arab Countries, viewed by Foreign Minister Saud bin Faisal, referred to the efforts of Ammar al-Hakim, leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, to establish closer relations with Saudi Arabia. “In his visit to Bahrain on November 8, 2009 and his meeting with Bahrain’s king, Ammar al-Hakim expressed his desire to establish a line of communication with Saudi Arabia,” said the document.

 

 

It cited the Saudi General Intelligence Directorate’s recommendation that Saudi refuse al-Hakim’s overtures because he is known to have sectarian views and to have close ties to Iran. It also pointed out that Saudi Arabia’s support would help al-Hakim’s campaign in the 2010 parliamentary election, helping him secure a defeat over his more moderate rivals.

“Ammar al-Hakim and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq believe in the separation of Kurdistan from Iraq,” the document stated.  “Previously, in a meeting with the Saudi ambassador to London, he had requested to establish communication with Saudi Arabia. It is recommended, however, that contacts with him remain at the ordinary level.”

Ammar al-Hakim is the son of Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim, the previous leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, who fled Iraq when Saddam Hussein executed close to 70 of his relatives. He studied in Iran, returning to Iraq after the US invasion and the downfall of Hussein. His coalition is one of the biggest parties in the Iraqi parliament.

 

Qods Force Commander Ghasem Suleimani in Beirut

Ghasem Suleimani, the commander of Iran’s expeditionary Qods Force, told members of Hezbollah’s Jihad Council to prepare to dominate Lebanon, according to an undated letter. In the letter, Foreign Minister Saud bin Faisal informed the Saudi prime minister that the influential commander addressed the council at a meeting in Beirut.

 

 

“Hezbollah has direct control of Beirut and the army will control the border with Syria through Christian officers close to Michel Aoun [a former Lebanese Army Commander and a Christian ally of Hezbollah],” Suleimani told the group, according to the leaked cable. “Tripoli will witness actions from the Palestinian Popular Front, Hezbollah and the Alawites. When this plan succeeds, the government of Najib Mikati will fall.”

Najib Mikati became prime minister of Lebanon in January 2011, and was approved by parliament. In March 22, 2013 he resigned from office — meaning the undated letter must have been sent between January 2011 and March 2013.

The letter also said that the foreign minister had been informed that, prior to his visit to Beirut, Suleimani had been in Damascus “to review tasks at hand for Iran, Syria and their allies in Yemen and in the [Persian] Gulf countries.”

 

Iran’s $3 Billion Annual Assistance to Syria and Hezbollah

In a letter dated June 5, 2012, Saud bin Faisal expressed his concerns about how sanctions against Iran have affected Hezbollah and Syria. Writing to the Saudi prime minister, he said Hezbollah may soon threaten Saudi interests in the region. “Information received indicates that political and economic pressures on Iran are starting to affect Hezbollah and the one billion dollar annual assistance that they receive from Iran might be reduced.”

 

 

“The same goes for Syria, which annually receives $2 billion from Iran,” wrote the Saudi foreign minister. “The estrangement of Hamas from Hezbollah, current regional developments and the emergence of Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists in Arab countries pose a danger to Hezbollah.”

 

Secret Iranian Military Cells in Persian Gulf Countries

In a letter marked “Top Secret,” the Saudi foreign ministry told Saudi embassies in Abu Dhabi and Bahrain that it believed Iran was forming military cells to sabotage Persian Gulf Arab countries.

The letter said: “The foreign ministry has received information that Khalil Javad, an Iraqi national and the husband of Bouthaina Shaaban, the political and media adviser to [the Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad, met with the opposition in certain [Persian] Gulf countries to organize the Shia opposition.” The strategy meeting, the letter said, was aimed at helping to provide these opposition groups with “military training in camps run by Ahmed Jibril, the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, in Damascus and Lattakia [Syria] and use them to form secret cells to create tensions in Gulf counties.”

 

 

The document then listed the names of those who participated in the meeting: “The meeting was coordinated by Samir Jumaa, [Syrian] presidential advisor, Mohammad Sadeghi, deputy Iranian ambassador and the chief of Iran’s Intelligence Ministry station in Damascus, and Mojtaba Hosseini, Ayatollah Khamenei’s representative in Syria.”

The letter asked ambassadors to convey the information “verbally in accordance with its confidentiality” to relevant authorities in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

 

Military Training for Members of the Lebanese Unification Movement

A letter signed by the Saudi intelligence chief Muqrin bin Abdulaziz informed the prime minister, the crown prince and the foreign minister of Iran and Syria’s joint efforts to arm and train members of the Lebanese Unification Movement (or Arab Tawhid Party).

“The Director General has learned that Wiam Wahhab, the former Lebanese cabinet minister and the head of Tawhid Party, has recently received a shipment of arms and explosives from Ahmed Jibril’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command and has hidden them in the Lebanese village of Jahlieh,” the letter said. “Members of this party have been recently trained by Iranian and Syrian experts.”

 

 

Muqrin bin Abdulaziz concluded that “arming Syrian allies might be a scheme for creating disorder in Lebanon to pressure the international community, or to prepare for the next phase of developments in Syria.”

 

Iran’s Efforts to Woo Native Americans in Canada

Another letter, from the intelligence chief Muqrin bin Abdulaziz to the Saudi foreign Ministry, discussed Iran’s effort to establish relations with native Americans in Canada.

“Iran is trying to find footholds in some countries, including Canada,” said the letter. “With this goal, it contacts certain groups in these countries to use them as levers.”

 

 

“Iran has proposed to Canadian Indians that in exchange for technology for producing alternate energy by garbage incineration, it will help them in the fields of oil, gas and investments,” read the document. “Iran wants to use native Americans as a lever to pressure the Canadian government, which has participated in oil sanctions against Iran.”

 

Related articles:

The Saudi Cables and Iran: Part 1

The Saudi Cables and Iran: Part 2

 

Originally published on June 26, 2015.

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