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JERUSALEM - The disappearance of a former senior Iranian defence official in Turkey a month ago has raised speculation that he has either defected or been seized by the CIA or Mossad.
Retired general Alireza Asghari, who served as Iran's Deputy Defence Minister for eight years until 2005, went missing in Istanbul on February 7 after arriving from Damascus and checking into a hotel.
There was no official Iranian comment on the affair until this week when Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said that his Government had asked the Turkish Government for information on the missing man.
If Asghari has indeed gone over to the West, or been abducted, he could be a major source of information on Iran's nuclear programme and a host of other security matters.
Before serving as Deputy Defence Minister, he had been a general with the elite Revolutionary Guard.
Apart from strategic matters, Asghari is reportedly privy to information about two affairs, one of great interest to Israel and the other to the United States.
According to Israeli sources, he was commander of the IranianRevolutionary Guard contingentserving in Lebanon in the 1980s as liaisons with Hizbollah when a downed Israeli navigator, Ron Arad, was sold by the Lebanese militia commander holding him to the Revolutionary Guard.
Arad was never heard from again. Israeli officials have long contended that the key to Arad's fate lies in Iran.
An Israeli website dealing with intelligence matters, Debkafile, reported this week that the CIA is interested in Asghari because he was allegedly involved in the abduction two months ago of five American soldiers from a compound in Karbala, Iraq.
The five were executed.
Their seizure was reportedly ordered by Iran in order to obtain the release of Iranian Revolutionary Guard officers who had been taken prisoner in Iraq by the Americans.
According to the website, the American soldiers were seized by a commando team belonging to the Iranian Intelligence Ministry whose members, of various nationalities, had studied in the US and were able to penetrate the protected compound because they spoke AmericanEnglish.
An Iranian website linked to the Revolutionary Guards, Baztab, reported last week that a reservation for three days had been made for Asghari in Istanbul's luxurious Ceylan Hotel by two non-Turkish men who paid cash.
However, when Asghari arrived in Istanbul the next day he checked into the more modest Ghilan Hotel.
"Clearly the reservation at the Ceylan was made to mislead," a Turkish police officer was quoted as saying.
Baztab recently reported that Asghari was one of 20 people associated with the Revolutionary Guard whose names appeared on what it said was a CIA hit list.
Iran sent a delegation to Turkey last week to investigate the incident and has also reportedly asked Interpol to open an investigation.
The general's disappearance was first reported last week in the Saudi newspaper al-Watan.
In a meeting held by Turkish security officials with an Iranian delegation, said the paper, the possibility was raised that Mossad and the CIA were involved in the disappearance.
The paper quoted a Turkish official as saying that border control posts showed no record of Asghari leaving the country.
But, said the official, given his sensitive job and the important information he possesses regarding the Iranian nuclear programme, the possibility that he left Turkey using a fake passport and an alias was being examined.
