Robert Levinson, ex-FBI agent hald by terrorists

Discussion in 'Middle East' started by waltky, Jan 9, 2013.

  1. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    Ex-FBI agent held by terrorists connected to Iran...
    :omg:
    US sees Iran behind hostage photos of ex-FBI agent
    January 9, 2013 WASHINGTON -- Two years after a hostage video and photographs of retired FBI agent Robert Levinson raised the possibility that the missing American was being held by terrorists, U.S. officials now see the government of Iran behind the images, intelligence officials told The Associated Press.
     
  2. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    Iran to help with missing ex-FBI agent Levinson...
    :confusion:
    Iran says it will help learn fate of ex-FBI agent
    Mar 11,`13 -- Iran's foreign minister says his country is ready to help learn the fate of a retired FBI agent who went missing six years ago.
     
  3. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    Don't forget about Robert Levinson in the Iran nuclear negotiations...
    :confusion:
    U.S. urges Iran to help free missing retired FBI agent
    November 26th, 2013 ~ With a breakthrough interim nuclear deal and relations between the United States and Iran improving, the White House on Tuesday "respectfully" asked the Iranian government to help return Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent who went missing in Iran more than six years ago.
     
  4. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    Iran remains silent about former FBI agent Robert Levinson...
    :confusion:
    Two Americans in Iran not returning home
    Jan. 17, 2016 - Iran said businessman Siamak Namazi would not be returned and was silent on the status of former FBI agent Robert Levinson.
     
  5. HBendor

    HBendor New Member

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    Op-Ed: Robert Levinson, US citizen, left behind in Iran

    The prisoner exchange pointedly did not include a Jewish American, whose complicated and patriotic story can be read in the link embedded in the article.


    Published: Monday, January 18, 2016 4:38 AM


    Prof. Phyllis Chesler
    The writer, a Shillman-Ginsburg Fellow at the Middle East Forum and recipient...
    ► More from this writer
    Is Robert Levinson, one of two American captives left behind in Iran and the only Jew--our new Jonathan Pollard?

    Has he already been tortured to death? Or, like other infidel captives in Islamist hands, is he the still living plaything of monster sadists?

    If he is dead, why has Iran not at least returned his body for burial? Can Iran actually have "lost" one of it's prize captives?

    Levinson has been described as a former FBI agent and as a CIA agent. Is this true? If so, why has America cut him loose? Has his own government suggested that Levinson was on a "rogue" mission to Iran? Can we, the people, really believe a word our President and Secretary of State tell us about the negotiations with Iran?

    Of course we can't. They have done nothing but lie to us about it in the pages of The New York Pravda.

    Today, the lead story at the New York Times is titled "Iran Meets Terms of Nuclear Deal, Ending Sanctions." It has a photo of one of the four Americans of Iranian descent who were released as part of a "secret" and parallel negotiation. The photo is of Jason Rezaian.

    There is also a pull quote about another article about these four Americans. They are a Washington Post reporter, a former Marine, a Christian pastor, and a student. Negotiations to release a fifth American, Siamak Namazi, who worked for a UAE based oil company and who was only recently seized, are still underway.

    I am glad these captives are now free. Their freedom is being used to conceal a host of shameful and embarrassing details about lifting the sanctions, an agreement that cannot be enforced, recent Iranian weapons testing, Iran's recent arrest of American sailors in international waters--and much, much else.

    The Paper of Record has four separate articles lauding this shameful non-deal deal. It describes it in large, bold lettering as a "landmark accord." In one of the four articles, we see the photos of two more freed Americans, those of Amir Hekmati and Saeed Abedini. The prisoner swap is presented as a normal, expected, part of negotiations. The headline reads: "With Nuclear Terms Met, Iran Sanctions are Lifted and Captives Swapped."

    Secretary of State Kerry is "energized" by it all.

    Toward the end of this fourth article, there is a brief paragraph which refers to a sixth American of Jewish descent who has been left behind: Robert A. Levinson.

    He is described as a "retired FBI agent who went missing near Iran's Kish Island nearly nine years ago. The Iranians reported "no progress on longstanding efforts to find out more information" about Levinson. One unnamed American official is quoted as saying that Levinson "is not going to appear as part of this deal" but fear not; our trustworthy allies in Iran have "committed to 'continue to seek information on his whereabouts.'"

    None of the four stories list the names of the fourteen Iranian prisoners whom America released as part of this swap or how many there were or what their crimes were.

    We are shown no photo of Robert A. Levinson.
     
  6. Game

    Game New Member

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    I recall that until several years ago it was said that Bob Levinson was a retired FBI agent and was now a private investigator looking in to cigarettes being smuggled in to Iran. Recently on CNN it was said that Levinson was a retired FBI agent contracted by the CIA. Now, does contracted by the CIA mean he was a spy or was it like something else? :confusion:
     
  7. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    Why wasn't he part of the prisoner exchange?...
    :confusion:
    Levinson's family 'desperate for answers' from White House
    19 Jan.`16 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The family of former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who went missing in Iran eight years ago, said on Tuesday it was "desperate for answers" on his whereabouts and expressed frustration at the information it had received from the Obama administration.
     
  8. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    Granny says Obama needs to tell `em we gonna drop the A-bomb on Tehran if dey don't cough him up...
    :grandma:
    U.S. officials believe former FBI agent Robert Levinson no longer in Iran
    Jan. 19, 2016 -- A White House spokesman says U.S. officials believe missing former FBI agent Robert Levinson is no longer in Iran.
     
  9. Thunderbolt

    Thunderbolt Active Member

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    Robert Levinson is Jewish.
    Not surprising that Obama betrayed him.
     
  10. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    Granny says, "Dat's right - What about Bob??...
    :confusion:
    American Jews Ask, #WhatAboutBob?
    January 20, 2016 | WASHINGTON — As Americans celebrate the safe release of five prisoners from Iran, some members of the U.S. Jewish community are expressing outrage that Robert Levinson, who disappeared in Iran nine years ago, was left behind. Some have gone so far as to suggest that the Obama administration sacrificed Levinson in order to reach a nuclear agreement with Iran.
     
  11. HBendor

    HBendor New Member

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    Here's what we know about what might have happened to the longest-held hostage in US history
    Business Insider
    ARMIN ROSEN
    Jan 21st 2016 11:59AM
    X

    On January 16, the US secured the release of five American citizens who were, in the words of President Barack Obama, "unjustly detained" in Iran.

    Their freedom came at a steep price: The US pardoned or dropped charges against seven Iranian citizens accused of violating US sanctions against the country, effectively swapping criminals for hostages.

    The US dropped all charges against 14 additional regime-linked figures, including the CEO of Mahan Air, a state-owned airline accused of ferrying arms and fighters to the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. An Iranian general has also claimed that the US made a $1.7 billion direct payment to the Iranian government on debts stemming from the 1979 break in diplomatic relations as a condition for the prisoners' freedom.

    Even this wasn't enough to secure the release of two other Americans still held in Iran: Siamak Namazi, an oil executive and longtime proponent of closer relations between the US and Iran who was arrested in Tehran in October, and Robert Levinson, a security consultant, former FBI agent, and CIA contractor who disappeared on the island of Kish, in the Persian Gulf, on March 9, 2007.

    In 2013, Levinson became the longest-held hostage in American history, passing Associated Press correspondent Terry Anderson, who was held by Lebanese Hezbollah during the 1980s.

    Levinson's situation is thorny — for both countries. Levinson — a longtime veteran of the FBI's money laundering division and specialist on Russian organized crime — was doing work for the agency that fell outside the scope of the analytics division that had him under contract, as a 2013 New York Times report uncovered. The CIA's Illicit Finance Group was using Levinson for freelance source recruitment and information gathering.

    The Times reported that Levinson informed his CIA bosses that he intended on going to Kish. At the time, Levinson was in Dubai investigating cigarette smuggling in the Persian Gulf region on behalf of a private client. And although CIA investigators never firmly established that Levinson was traveling on agency business, the episode cost three CIA officials their jobs, according to the Times.

    The failure to free Levinson under the January 16 deal owes in part to the Iranian government's claims that he isn't in their custody. That might technically be true. But the best public explanation of what happened to him suggests the Iranian government was responsible for his capture.
    Screen Shot 2016 01 20 at 5.55.42 PMAPIn December of 2013, shortly after the Associated Press and The New York Times published the details of Levinson's CIA affiliation, Time Magazine published an interview with Dawud Salahuddin, the person Levinson planned on meeting in Kish. Salahuddin was born in New York and converted to Islam as a young adult. He fled the US in 1980 after assassinating Ali Akbar Tabatabaei, an Iranian dissident and a former diplomat under the deposed Shah on Iran, in Potomac, Maryland.

    Salahuddin is an almost unique figure in the Middle East: A fluent English speaker who has killed on behalf of the Iranian regime and has a deep knowledge of Iran's government and society — as well as a certain exhaustion towards a country where he's been stuck for the past 36 years. A former employee of Iran's state-owned Press TV, he is both well-connected and somewhat free to speak and travel within Iran. (Salahuddin also had one of the leading roles in "Kandahar," Mohsen Makhmalbaf's acclaimed 2001 film about a woman's search for her sister in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan).

    Levinson must have realized that Salahuddin made an ideal intelligence source. But due to Salahuddin's high profile, American citizenship and links to the regime, he was an asset who ran the risk of attracting the wrong kind of attention. And as The New York Times report noted, Levinson had no experience working in Iran and little knowledge of the country.

    RezaianAP

    According to the Times, Levinson was put in touch with Salahuddin through Ira Silverman, a retired NBC News producer who knew Levinson during his FBI days, and had profiled Salahuddin for The New Yorker in 2002.

    Salahuddin told Time he agreed to meet Levinson after speaking with him on the phone three times. They met at Kish's Maryam Hotel, "where Levinson had booked them into the same room — a fatal error, Salahuddin came to realize." According to Time, "The presence of two Americans drew the attention of the Interior Ministry, whose officials routinely check hotel registrations. Both men were detained by ministry officials; Salahuddin spent the night in jail, and never saw Levinson again."

    In the Time interview, Salahuddin denied he knew Levinson was attempting to recruit him as a CIA source. He also pushed back against the insinuation that Iranian intelligence services had used him as bait for Levinson.

    "The notion that it was some kind of brilliant move on the part of Iranian intelligence is bull---t," Salahuddin told Time. "It was dumb luck. I've been around these guys long enough to know when they're on to something and when they get lucky. And those guys were lucky." In context, Salahuddin's "those guys" refers to security officials connected to Iran's Interior Ministry.

    See photos from the case:
    1 of 8 PHOTOS
    An FBI poster showing a composite image of retired FBI agent Robert Levinson, right, of how he would look like now after five years in captivity, and an image, center, taken from the video, released by his kidnappers, and a picture before he was kidnapped, left, displayed during a news conference in Washington, on March 6, 2012. The FBI announced a reward of up to $1,000,000 for information leading to the safe location, recovery and return of Levinson, who disappeared from Kish Island, Iran, five years ago on March 9, 2007. For years the U.S. has publicly described him as a private citizen who was traveling on private business. However, an Associated Press investigation reveals that Levinson was working for the CIA. There has been no hint of Levinson's whereabouts since his family received proof-of-life photos and a video in late 2010 and early 2011. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

    READ MORE
    Salahuddin has plenty of reason not to be entirely truthful about his meeting with Levinson. As Salahuddin told Time, "over the years I have lost a lot of respect for the Iranian system ... It relies on blunt force. Iranians are afraid of their government. The basis of their rule is not love and respect for their rulers, it's fear." He met with Levinson's family in Iran in 2007 and might have been looking for a way out of the country — an objective that would become a lot more complicated if it ever turned out he knowingly lured a US intelligence contractor into a state-sponsored kidnapping.

    Regardless of his motives, Salahuddin told Time that he was kept in Interior Ministry custody the night he met Levinson. It's reasonable to assume the Iranian state held Levinson as well, at least at the outset of his captivity.

    What exactly happened to Levinson after that? As late as 2012, then-Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made what experts interpreted as a "tacit admission" that Levinson was in Iranian state custody. The fact that the Iranian government claims it can no longer account for Levinson's whereabouts suggests that he's either considered too important of a prisoner to release even as a gesture of cooperating or goodwill, or that he was transferred at some point to a paramilitary group with ties to the Iranian regime.

    The latter possibility seems the more likely of the two. Shortly after the swap, high-ranking US Middle East diplomat Brett McGurk told PBS that the US suspects Levinson is no longer being held in Iran.

    Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei departs after casting his ballot in the parliamentary election in Tehran March 2, 2012. REUTERS/Caren FirouzAP

    Levinson's disappearance highlights an uncomfortable reality about the nature of the Iranian regime.

    The Iranian government is highly factionalized, consisting of a national security and intelligence elite that often acts independently of the country's political leadership.

    The relationship between the regime's various centers of power is never entirely clear, and this uncertainty gives the regime's most dangerous elements an alarming degree of freedom. It's not obvious how much control Iran's current president, Hassan Rouhani, has over Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran's elite special forces unit, the Qods Force. However, it's clear Suleimani has broad ability to aid and coordinate Shiite militia groups throughout Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria.

    Iran's boosting of militants and terrorist groups is enabled partly through the regime's compartmentalization. Iran doesn't just have external proxy groups that act as an extension of the regime's policy, or at least the preferred policies of certain regime elements. There are also government-supported paramilitaries acting within the country as well — entities like the Basij militia.

    The dangers of the regime's closeness to militia groups was on display when Iran-linked militants in Baghdad kidnapped three American contractors earlier this month.

    America's recent nuclear deal with Iran might have built unprecedented degrees of trust and confidence between the countries, reframing and de-escalating their relationship for decades to come. But as Levinson's ordeal and the kidnapping in Baghdad each demonstrate, the thaw hasn't changed the composition of the Iranian regime, or dissuaded it from stopping some of its most provocative behavior.
     
  12. Margot2

    Margot2 Banned

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    Let the keep Levinson.. What sort of man of retirement age goes to Kish Island over cigarette smuggling???
     
  13. HBendor

    HBendor New Member

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    Your thinking is akin H. Clinton's because the four that sacrificed their lives in Benghazi on her watch do not make a difference in her life. So Is Levinson in yours apparently...
     
  14. Margot2

    Margot2 Banned

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    Obama didn't betray Levinson.. What sort of damned fool concerns himself with cigarette smuggling in Iran.. and what is FBI business in Iran?
     

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