Iran’s silent terror tactics in Latin America
The landing of Venezuelan-Iranian planes in three countries
in the region ignited arms in the region and exposed the lack of regional
counter-intelligence coordination.
The Islamic Republic of Iran, the theocratic regime whose
bestiality was again on display after the assassination of Mahsa Amini at the
hands of the Moral Brigades, is known for its export of terror through IRGC
troops and the elite Al Quds Forces, responsible for the bombings of the
Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 and AMIA in 1994.
Latin America is the laboratory of transnational terrorism
The relationship between Iran and Venezuela is the
operational base of transnational terrorism in Latin America, as they share
certain characteristics that would even cover the nuclear relationship through
uranium. This region, in addition to being subject to political vulnerability
and economic deterioration, continues to maintain high levels of anti-Semitism
that increase every time the tension between Israel and Hamas escalates.
Both countries share international sanctions: the Iranian
regime is sanctioned for its nuclear weapons programme, while Venezuela is
sanctioned for repression, crimes against humanity and human rights violations.
The relationship between the two began in 2005 amidst the
authoritarian advances of Chavismo and the consolidation of Iran as a nuclear
power that Israel and the United States had to confront. The Caribbean country
was a host country for former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and later
became the nexus for Argentina to sign the Memorandum of Understanding with
Iran in 2013.
Iran’s extra-regional links reach a Latin America with decimated
economies and institutions, fragile democracies and unsustainable political
parties. Transnational terrorism, like organised criminal groups, finds its way
into increasingly poor societies, with fractured social fabrics and groups of
people highly vulnerable to the words of extremist clerics.
The Iranian-owned Mahan Air is an airline sanctioned by the
US State Department (under OFAC sanctions) for using commercial fronts to
supply weapons to war zones (Syria and Yemen) or to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Thanks to the sanctions, more than a few countries have prevented these
aircraft from landing in order to avoid being targeted by sanctions against the
funding of transnational terrorism.
Thanks to the OSINT investigation, it is possible to affirm
that Iran, through the airline Fars Air Qeshm, has transported Afghan members
of the IRGC’s Fatemiyoun brigades on a Tehran-Damascus flight.
The Venezuelan response is the objective of the air alliance
between Venezuela and Iran the long-range strategic transport, avoiding
international sanctions?
In Buenos Aires, Argentina, the landing of an Iranian plane
with a Venezuelan and Persian crew sparked a political and media debate in a
country that has suffered first-hand from Islamist terrorism in 1992 and 1994.
The web that the plane uncovered was not only the
malfunctioning of Argentina’s intelligence services, but also a suspicion that
Venezuela may be imitating Iran’s evasive manoeuvres: creating commercial
covers to evade sanctions and deepen its political and even military alliances.
It is for this reason that Nicolás Maduro’s regime in 2020 created a
state-owned company, in the form of a joint stock company, called Empresa de
Transporte Aerocargo del Sur, S.A. (Emtrasur).
The first particularity of Emtrasur is that, unlike any
other national airline of another country, it operates from the El Libertador
Air Base and in its adjacent hangar is the hangar of Empresa Aeronáutica
Nacional S.A., which is where, among other things, the drones that Iran exports
as military technology to Venezuela are assembled. This, a priori, allows us to
address the first question: is the objective of the air alliance between
Venezuela and Iran the long-range strategic transport, avoiding international
sanctions?
It must be remembered that as of September, the Iranian
regime started to equip Russian troops with the same kamikaze drone technology
that they use on civilians in Ukraine, even attacking Jews in the holy city of
Uman on the last Rosh Hashanah.
In second place, the links between the recently created
Emtrasur and Mahan Air formally began in 2021 when, through an operating lease,
both countries reached an agreement to incorporate a Boeing 747 that had been
operated by the Iranians since 2007, but which would take until February 2022
to land in Venezuela and become the aircraft with registration number YV3531.
Since the scandal with Argentina began in June and up to
now, the alleged purchase of the aircraft has been denied and the operation is
supposed to be under an operating lease in which Venezuela rents the aircraft
and the crew, which is effectively Iranian. To add to suspicions, Emtrasur does
not have an official website, nor does it have a telephone number or social
media accounts like any other airline in the world.
The third highlight is the routes the aircraft flew between
February and June when it visited 32 different destinations in Russia, Belarus,
Serbia, Pakistan, Paraguay and Argentina. The repeated connections between
Tehran and Moscow show that trade routes mimic the Ayatollahs’ political
alliances.
Aircraft routes and connections what were the crew members
doing in Ciudad del Este, one of the most notorious hotspots of terrorism and
organised crime in the Triple Frontier between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay?
On 14 May 2022, EMTRASUR’s BOEING 747 YV3531 3B3M landed in
Ciudad del Este, one of the cities identified as a hotspot for Islamic
terrorism and organised crime because it belongs to the Triple Frontier, with a
crew of 7 Iranians and 11 Venezuelans.
After taking over a $755,000 shipment from a cigar company
linked to Grupo Cartes, a former president of Paraguay accused of corruption,
the aircraft took off for Aruba on 16 May.
The questions that arise here are twofold: first, does the
reduced profit margin justify such a long journey and the costs involved in
moving a Boeing 747? And secondly, and perhaps most shockingly, what were the
crew members doing in Ciudad del Este, one of the most notorious hotspots of
terrorism and organised crime in the Triple Frontier between Brazil, Argentina
and Paraguay?
To speak of terrorism in Latin America is also to speak of
drug trafficking, which is why it is prudent to conceptualise a grey zone where
transnational terrorist groups (such as Hezbollah, which is located in the
aforementioned TBA) and organised crime groups coexist. The Paraguayan
government maintains that the 19 crew members were escorted in Ciudad del Este
by Santoro Vasallo, who is a member of the organisation led by Uruguayan
Sebastián Marset, who is accused of commanding drug trafficking in the waterway
and of masterminding the murder of Paraguayan prosecutor Marcelo Pecci in
Colombia on 10 May.
If the Paraguayan government’s hypothesis is confirmed,
there would be a connection between the Venezuelan and Iranian crew members who
were travelling on aircraft YV3531. Santoro Vasallo would have been in charge
of the transfer and the booking of accommodation at the Dazzler Hotel in the
Paraguayan city.
The landing that ended up escalating the scandal politically
and in the media was in Argentina from 6 to 8 June, when the plane left
Querétaro, Mexico, with a cargo of auto parts that was supposed to land at the
Ministro Pistarini airport in Ezeiza, Buenos Aires, but finally had to land in
the province of Córdoba due to bad weather.
Once landed in the Argentinean capital, the aircraft was
unable to refuel due to OFAC sanctions, so it remained at the airport for 48
hours and took off on 8 June for Montevideo without considering that it would
be denied permission to land on Uruguayan soil and that it would have to return
to Buenos Aires, where it would finally be detained.
By then, the Argentine government was facing a very
sensitive international issue with serious implications: despite the fact that
the country maintains Interpol alerts against five Iranian citizens accused of
the AMIA bombing, an aircraft with a Persian crew landed in the country and
about which Paraguay had warned Argentina that the aircraft belonged to Mahan
Air and that it is indicated for its links to terrorism.
The aircraft and crew remained in Buenos Aires for 48 hours
without any of the additional security measures that would be required to deal
with such a situation. The refusal to refuel corresponded to the fact that oil
companies, including Argentina’s state-owned oil company YPF, could also be
sanctioned by the United States.
Some journalistic sources point to an incident that has not
yet been clarified: the oil companies YPF, SHELL and AXION have allegedly
claimed that the Ministry of Security of the Nation requested that they supply
fuel to the aircraft regardless of being subject to OFAC sanctions. Although
the Ministry of Security denies this version, it is worth mentioning that the
current Minister of Security of the nation is Aníbal Fernández, who was also an
official in the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner at the time of the
murder of Prosecutor Alberto Nisman hours before filing his accusation of
cover-up and treason against Fernández de Kirchner.
The return of the aircraft to Buenos Aires after being
denied by Uruguay prompted the Argentine National Directorate of Migration to
order the retention of the crew’s documents and the intervention of the Airport
Security Police. It is not clear why the Argentine government acted 48 hours
later, having been alerted by Paraguay and other foreign intelligence agencies.
On 11 June, the first crew list was leaked, consisting of 11
Venezuelans and 7 Iranians, and a second list in which the information did not
match: five Iranian names did not appear on the second list and three Iranian
names only appear on the second list. However, in both lists there was one name
that was repeated and that also appeared on the list that had come down in
Paraguay: Gholamreza Abbas Ghasemi.
The Quds Forces managed to land in Buenos Airesif they
bother, let us know and we’ll kill them all (…) we’ll do a genocide
The name of Gholamreza Abbas Ghasemi then coincided with
that of a member of the IRGC and an administrator of Fars Air Qeshm, the other
Persian airline accused of transporting munitions and armaments, something
incredibly denied by the security minister, Anibal Fernandez, who said that the
Ghasemi who was in Buenos Aires was a namesake.
Finally, the evidence corroborated that Ghasemi was not only
part of the Quds but that emtrasur flight YV3531 was hiding something as yet
unresolved: after weeks of suspicions, suspicions and with an unusual deadline
imposed on the judge in the case to resolve the judicial situation of the crew
and the aircraft within 10 days, the investigations on Ghasemi’s mobile phone
yielded photographs linked to IRGC, Quds, images of soldiers, missiles,
weapons, war tanks and a sign saying “death to Israel”. In addition, the
experts found a terrifying message saying: “if they bother, let us know and
we’ll kill them all (…) we’ll do a genocide” that came from another pilot who
had made the trip to Paraguay. In addition, the judicial file mentions a person
by the name of Naghi as the person responsible for carrying out the threat.
Despite the threat of killing everyone and committing
genocide, the Argentine justice system surprisingly allowed the crew members of
the plane to leave the country, who are already in Venezuela. The judicial case
continues since the judge considers that the evidence does not allow for a
declaration of lack of merit, but it is not credible that the investigation
will be successful, considering that Iran has never handed over those accused of
blowing up the AMIA, has circumvented Interpol’s red circulars and, as if that
were not enough, neither the Persian country nor Venezuela has an extradition
agreement with Argentina.
The pilot Ghasemi left the country with a photo of him
making a V-finger, a very typical symbolism in Argentina that identifies the
phrase “until victory always” and which is appropriated by Kirchnerist groups
and followers of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
Chile: the Conviasa route
how much luggage were the crew and passengers on board the
YV3533 aircraft that landed in Chile? And also what did this luggage contain?
Aircraft linked to the Venezuela-Iran alliance also landed
in Chile, a neighbouring country governed by Gabriel Boric, an openly
anti-Semitic president who rejected the credentials of Israel’s ambassador and
has spoken out publicly in favour of Palestinian militancy.
On 6 April, Chile and Venezuela signed a memorandum of
understanding to broaden the air commercial spectrum and on 22 June at 2.30
p.m. an Airbus A340 aircraft landed from Caracas, operated by Conviasa (another
Venezuelan airline sanctioned by the US Treasury Department) with the
registration number YV3533.
The case of Chile is perhaps more serious: firstly because
it signed a memorandum of understanding with a sanctioned company and later
allowed the landing of an aircraft whose company was flagged and investigated
in Argentina and Paraguay for activities linked to terrorism.
According to official sources, the plane stayed only a few
hours on Chilean soil and the purpose of the flight is unknown, as is the
identity of the crew and passengers… could the same mistake have been made in
three different countries?
It is also very striking that the same aircraft YV3533 had
made several flights to Tehran, including the group that transported Nicolás
Maduro and his entourage, as well as other routes to Havana, Caracas and
Moscow. Up to the first days of October, five flights could be counted that
covered the Santiago de Chile-Caracas route.
What remains to be known in Chile is the following: how much
luggage were the crew and passengers on board the YV3533 aircraft that landed
in Chile? And also what did this luggage contain?
Iran’s intrusive policy in Latin America has become a very
complex plot that connects the political interests of the Islamic theocracy and
has entered Latin America, which is an adverse territory for counter-terrorism.
Many questions remain unanswered on a sensitive issue with many implications.
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