ARABS-ISRAEL - March 25 - US & Israel Allege PA-Iran Alliance.

A report in The IHT says: "American and Israeli intelligence officials have concluded that Yasser Arafat has forged a new alliance with Iran that involves Iranian shipments of heavy weapons and millions of dollars to Palestinian groups that are waging guerrilla war against Israel". US and Israeli officials say the partnership was arranged in a clandestine meeting in Moscow in May 2001 between two top aides to Arafat and Iranian government officials. The meeting took place while Arafat was visiting Russian Pres. Putin. Israeli officials say they are alarmed by Arafat's alliance with Iran because they feel it gives the PA a powerful and well-armed patron in the increasingly violent conflict with Israel. US officials echo that concern and say they are also worried by intelligence reports that Tehran is harbouring members of Al Qaida, including one leader who recently tried to mount an attack against Israel from his sanctuary in Iran. Questions about Iran's relationship with the PA came into public view in Jan. 2002 when Israel seized a ship carrying 50 tonnes of Iranian-supplied arms.

PA and Iranian officials deny their co-operation, but US and Israeli officials say they now see the shipment as part of a broader relationship, which began with several smaller attempts by Iranian-backed groups in Lebanon to supply arms and was cemented in the Moscow meeting. Israeli and US officials say they believe Arafat personally approved the dealings with Iran. US officials say Israeli intelligence reports about the Moscow meeting were at the heart of secret briefings that Israel provided to Washington after the arms shipment was intercepted. "There's plenty of evidence to show that it wasn't a rogue operation", a senior State Department official said of the Karine A ship seized by Israel on Jan. 3 (see Rec. 1, Vol. 56). PA officials dismissed the charges of any Iranian involvement in their struggle against Israel and denied that Arafat knew of the arms shipment. They said the allegations were an attempt by Israel to discredit the PA and to justify Israel's military operations in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. PA Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said: "This is a factory of lies. Israel is like any colonial power. When they get in trouble, they try to blame outsiders. There has not been a single Iranian here since the 14th century".

Tehran also denied any involvement with the PA or the arms shipments, with Iranian Defence Minister Ali Shamkhani saying in an interview with IRNA: "The Islamic Republic of Iran has had no military relations with Arafat, and no steps have been taken by any Iranian organisation for the shipment of arms to the mentioned lands". (For several years, US counter-terrorism experts believed that Tehran's terrorist apparatus had fallen dormant. Hizbollah and other groups backed by Iran had not attacked US targets since the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia killed 19 US servicemen in 1996. Iranian leaders had apparently decided that state sponsorship of anti-US terrorism was too risky at a time when the country was trying to build closer economic ties with Europe). But CIA officials said they believed that the onset of the Palestinian uprising in Sept. 2000 had renewed the enthusiasm among Iran's traditionalists for terrorism. CIA Director George Tenet recently told Congress that Iranian political reformers were losing momentum in the long-running battle for power with the traditionalist theologians who control the Iranian intelligence and security agencies that support extremist groups.