Habib Chaab is an exiled Iranian opposition figure. He opposes the Iranian regime for more than 14 years since he left to Europe. Chaab left to Turkey in 09 October 2020. And soon after he arrived in Istanbul, he got disappeared. Two days later, Iran’s state media reported that he had been arrested and said he had confessed to his involvement in a deadly attack on military parade two years ago in Iran while state media authorities shared no detail how he had been taken into custody.
Following these news, the Turkish Intelligence Service (known as MIT) started to unravel the mystery. The Turkish officials described an elaborate scheme in which Chaab was trapped by a woman whom Chaab came to meet with named ”Saberin”, drugged and kidnapped. Then he was brought to a Turkish city, Van, by a drug trafficker named “Naji Sharifi Zindasahti”. Chaab was then given to human traffickers and then he was smuggled across the border the next day. After that event, Saberin returned back to Iran.
After that 11 Turkish citizens are arrested on charges including using weapons to capture individual of their liberty through deceit. Zindashti is still missing, believed to be in Iran.
Chaab was believed to be the leader of ASMLA’s leader (Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz) living in Sweden. The group has been advocating for independence of Iran’s ethnic Arab minority, most of whom live in the oil-rich southwest of the country but have long complained of discrimination and neglect.The group’s political leaders operate from exile in Europe, while a military arm stages attacks inside Iran.
Iran has been alleging that ASMLA’s leaders have been receiving funds from Saudi Arabia to destabilize Iran. While the southwest region of Iran is home to more than 80 percent of the country’s oil reserves, poverty is rife, and long-standing grievances with the state have also helped seed unrest. ASMLA-linked militants have been blamed for attacks in Iran, including on banks, oil pipelines and government offices. In 2018, Iran accused the group of planning a deadly assault by gunmen on a military parade in the southwestern city of Ahvaz. ASMLA lacks widespread support among ethnic Arabs in Iran, experts say. But Tehran clearly still sees a threat. In 2017, a gunman who Dutch officials say was linked to the Iranian government shot and killed an ASMLA leader, Ahmad Mola Nissi, near his home in The Hague.
The allegations contain echoes of the fatal plot by Saudi Arabia against journalist Jamal Khashoggi, whose disappearance in Istanbul two years ago was one of a string of foreign intelligence operations staged in Turkey, an international travel hub and a magnet for regional dissidents. The latest incident threatens to strain the relationship between two countries which also cooperate on trade and energy matters.
It is obvious that Iran Intelligence Service is likely to behind the kidnapping event. However this recent event exposes a fact that Turkey is losing its credibility before the international community in recent years. More importantly, Turkish Intelligence Service is losing its credibility in international community. An Intelligent Agent cannot and would not all time get informed from the intension of foreign intelligent operatives in their countries. Therefore, kidnapping a person is not strange event once considered. It can be done via different assets in any country. However once a person is smuggled and sent to a neighboring country by crossing your border without being detected, it exposes severe weakness in its counter intelligent measures. Not only as an Intelligent Service but also as national security force.
Including the Khashoggi incident, these two incident expose that Turkish Intelligent Services need to reform its capabilities and reassure confidence in international community. Unless these incidents continue, Turkey will likely to lose credibility which would transform to economic activities promptly.
