U.S. intelligence agencies recently monitored a secret meeting between Egypt’s intelligence chief and a senior Iranian spy that is raising new fears the Muslim Brotherhood government in Cairo could begin covertly supporting global terrorism.
According to U.S. officials, the head of the Egyptian General Intelligence Service, Maj. Gen. Murad Muwafi, met in early August with a senior official of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).
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Iran’s MOIS and the paramilitary Islamic shock troops known as the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) are considered the lynchpin of the Islamic regime in Tehran.
The MOIS has conducted aggressive intelligence operations, including assassinations, and is known to support terrorist groups in the Middle East, including al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Hamas. It is also backing the regime in Syria of Bashar al-Assad.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury said in a Feb. 16 statement that the MOIS is “Iran’s primary intelligence organization.”
David S. Cohen, then-Treasury under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in the February statement that “we are designating the MOIS for its support to terrorist groups, including al Qaeda, al Qaeda in Iraq, Hezbollah and HAMAS, again exposing the extent of Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism as a matter of Iranian state policy.”
The MOIS also was sanctioned for “abusing the basic human rights of Iranian citizens and exporting its vicious practices to support the Syrian regime’s abhorrent crackdown on its own population,” he said.
For Hezbollah, the MOIS has provided money, material, and technological support, and also took part in multiple projects with Hezbollah in conducting computer attacks.
The Iranian spy agency also funds and supports the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, and “has facilitated the movement of al Qaeda operatives in Iran and provided them with documents, identification cards, and passports.”
“MOIS also provided money and weapons to al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), a terrorist group,” the Treasury Department said.
In Syria, the MOIS was linked to IRGC Qods Force support of “the Syrian regime’s violent repression of dissent in Syria,” the statement said.
“MOIS, like the IRGC-QF, and the Iranian [Law Enforcement Forces] LEF, has provided financial, material, or technological support to the Syrian [General Intelligence Directorate], whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to [Executive Order] 13572,” Treasury Department stated. “MOIS has provided substantial technical assistance to the Syrian GID for the purpose of assisting the Syrian regime in its violent crackdown on protesters.”
The service was not the main source of the plot uncovered last year by Iran’s government, through the IRGC Qods force, to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States. But U.S. officials said it is very likely that the MOIS was involved in, or at the very least informed about, the plot.
According to U.S. officials, “dozens” of pro-terrorist Islamist preachers have been released from prison, including former members of the terrorist group Egyptian Islamic Jihad.
For example, an Egyptian military court set free six imprisoned members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), including Mohammed al-Zawahiri, brother of current al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. Mohammed al-Zawahiri had been sentenced to death for conspiracy to commit terrorist attacks.
Earlier, EIJ leader Sheikh Murjan Mustaff Salem, also known as Abd al-Hakim Hassan, was released.
Ahmad Ashush was also released from prison. Ashush fought in Afghanistan and was close to Osama bin Laden and al-Zawahiri.
Many of the radical Islamists have formed a new group called “the Salafi jihadist trend,” also known as Ansar al-Shariah in Egypt, which seeks to set up an Islamist state ruled by Shariah law.
The Salafists have criticized less radical Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood for taking part in the democratic process. The radicals want to use force to create a hardline Islamic regime without secular groups.
The radicals are active in the Sinai region of Egypt.
In February, the Treasury Department identified the MOIS as a key facilitator of terrorism and supporter of human rights abuses in Iran and Syria.
