ISRAEL, IRAN and the BALKANS Part 1

ISRAEL’S SECURITY CONCERNS IN THE BALKANS 

 Executive Summary:

• Time for the BALKANS?
• The Balkans: an attractive target, thus ISRAEL is increasing its countermeasures
• EUROPEAN UNION reluctance to declare Hezbollah a terrorist organization
• The Burgas bombing and the “political issue” of Hezbollah in EUROPE
• Renewed, but not rethought, interest in terrorism in the BALKAN
• In ARGENTINA, IRAN actively converted individuals to Shia Islam and carried out activities against ISRAELI and Jewish targets
• Hezbollah and IRANIAN growth in AFRICA and in LATIN AMERICA
• Hezbollah going global on terror attacks challenges counter intelligence
   

ISRAEL is confronted with a complexity of issues in the greater MIDDLE EAST. These include: chronic political disagreements at home; the SYRIAN conflict next door, with its possibility to affect LEBANON; volatile unrest in EGYPT; the precarious condition of CYPRUS and the effect of this on possible future joint energy projects; an intensified threat from IRAN and Hezbollah, and strategizing how to handle TURKISH diplomatic moves following the (US-brokered) rapprochement. These moves may include an emotive emphasis on the Palestinian issue, which would increase existing anti-ISRAELI prejudices in the larger Muslim world.

TIME FOR THE BALKANS?

Given these distractions, nurturing the strategic relationships ISRAEL has forged in the BALKANS since the TURKISH alliance deteriorated in 2010 would not seem a high priority for the new coalition. However, we do expect that ISRAEL will continue to work with BALKAN governments to monitor security vulnerabilities and threats (as it does elsewhere in the world), and possibly on a higher level than in the past. This will be due to both local developments and security issues on a more global level.

Sarajevo

Even before the May 2010 Gaza Flotilla, ISRAEL had enjoyed good relations with BALKAN countries in diplomatic, economic and security cooperation. In some cases, these friendly ties went back to the early 1990s. However, in the aftermath of the Flotilla incident, the TURKISH - ISRAELI falling out was so high-profile that many foreign media simply interpreted ISRAEL’S expanding diplomatic relations in the BALKANS as implicative of reactive diplomacy, an after-effect of the suspended alliance with TURKEY.

Yet while ISRAELI officials did certainly have to acknowledge a unique new situation unfolding then, it is also clear that ISRAEL’S growing regional presence had already been in development over many years, independent of any temporary problems with TURKEY.

Nevertheless analysts will still want to follow how the revived ISRAEL-TURKEY relationship plays out, and also how both states’ approaches to the BALKANS on the bilateral and regional levels will be affected by it.

The following analytical survey draws upon interviews with numerous sources interviewed in recent weeks, including diplomats, high-level intelligence and military officials of regional states, informed journalists and other experts, as well as general field knowledge and secondary sources. It discusses current security issues for ISRAEL in the BALKANS and its relations with regional countries, in the larger context of the IRANIAN threat and the emerging rapprochement with TURKEY.

RENEWED, BUT NOT RETHOUGHT, INTEREST IN TERRORISM IN THE BALKANS

The 18 July 2012 Burgas terrorist attack that killed five ISRAELI tourists and one BULGARIAN national was unfortunate proof that terrorist attacks can indeed occur in the BALKANS. This possibility had previously been considered doubtful by experts who view the BALKANS as specifically a safe haven/logistics base for extremists- and as something altogether impossible by partisan supporters of local Muslim populations.

However, since the spectacle of an armed Islamist standoff at the US Embassy in Sarajevo on 28 October 2011, US security officials have started to take greater interest, though this has not resulted in overt policy changes.

Since then, however, we have encountered greater interest in the topic from local and international security officials seeking insight, while media supported by the US government have started to frame terrorism as a regional security concern- striking, considering that they have historically tended to just ignore the subject altogether.

Yet while the Burgas attack and the Sarajevo embassy showdown did bring regional terrorism concerns back into the public spotlight, media assessment of these events failed to change the conventional wisdom. The prevailing media and political discourse that has shaped public opinion on terrorism in the BALKANS has largely failed to discuss the issue, even hypothetically. This is because it tends to discount the possibility of terrorist attacks (usually, for partisan reasons), arguing for example that IRAN cannot have influence over Sunni populations, that Muslims in the BALKANS are somehow ‘different’ than those in conflict regions, that ethnic affiliation is more important than the religious one, and so on.

Comment by Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring: When Muslims are trying to gain influence in a country, it is common practice for Sunni and Shiites not to confront each other. Such is the case in BOSNIA, where Islamist NGOs from both fractions (Sunni and Shiite) work often hand in hand in order to reach their objectives. Once these goals are reached however, the two fractions start to confront each other.

What these presuppositions ignore is that (as in Burgas) it takes very few people to execute a successful terrorist attack, and that the influence needed to execute such an attack is, as opposed to generational, long-term sectarian influence acquisition, an easily obtainable commodity that merely requires financial or in-kind incentives. They also ignore that the prevailing conditions on the ground make the region a ‘soft target’ for terrorists or insurgents.

The following sections we will showcase breaking developments and provide brief threat assessments and vulnerabilities by country, to get a better understanding of how the ISRAELI security assessment may develop in years ahead concerning the region.

THE BURGAS BOMBING AND THE “POLITICAL ISSUE” OF HEZBOLLAH IN EUROPE

While the Burgas bombing targeted ISRAELI tourists and as such was a concern first and foremost for ISRAEL, the event has since become a ‘EUROPEAN issue’ for international leaders. For example, CANADIAN Foreign Minister John Baird referenced the attack on March 4, 2013 in an interview with the Jerusalem Post, stating that “when terrorist incidents can happen right inside the EUROPEAN Union by Hezbollah, that compels civilized people everywhere to act.” Baird said this while calling on the EU to declare the LEBANESE group a terrorist entity.

More pressure for EU leaders to do this is expected to come now after the trial in Cyprus of a professed Hezbollah member believed to have been planning a near-simultaneous attack on ISRAELI tourists there when he was arrested last July, two weeks before the Burgas bombing. The conclusion of the trial on 28 March resulted in a guilty verdict and four-year sentence for Hossem Taleb Yaacoub. This SWEDISH-LEBANESE citizen, who had also used FRANCE and the NETHERLANDS as a base for his activities, had been tasked by a handler known to him only as ‘Ayman’ with conducting surveillance on ISRAELI tourist targets in CYPRUS.

Benjamin Weinthal, the Jerusalem Post’s Berlin correspondent and a research fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, notes that this successful prosecution of a Hezbollah member – the first in an EU country – may put new pressure on the bloc to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist entity. The case takes on more weight too since the internationally-researched official BULGARIAN report stated that Hezbollah was indeed behind the Burgas bombing.

EU RELUCTANCE TO DECLARE HEZBOLLAH A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION 

“Until now, GERMANY has said there is not enough legal evidence to blacklist Hezbollah,” says Weinthal. “GERMANY and FRANCE particularly are also concerned that their diplomatic relations with LEBANON would be damaged by such an action.” Currently, HOLLAND has designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization in full, while BRITAIN considers its military wing to be a terrorist entity.

The diplomatic ramifications of the BULGARIA terrorist attack provide insight into the intricacies of ISRAELI-BALKAN relations. The lack of EU consensus regarding Hezbollah put member state BULGARIA in a difficult diplomatic position, and it has said that it will “not initiate” the technical process required for the designation, emphasizing the need for EU unity on the subject. However, when it concluded the case in early February, the BULGARIAN government did announce that Hezbollah had been responsible- as ISRAEL had suspected from the beginning.

Many, including from the US side, had not expected BULGARIA to take such a robust stand. There was reported pressure on authorities not to do so, and when they did, the domestic political opposition argued that the government had put the country at greater risk from Hezbollah and IRAN. (Both have denied any involvement). 

THE BALKANS: AN ATTRACTIVE TARGET, THUS ISRAEL IS INCREASING ITS COUNTERMEASURES

The BALKANS has long had its share of dangerous groups: from organized crime rackets, extremist right-wingers, leftists and anarchists, volatile nationalistic protesters and varieties of sometimes violent Islamic causes. While the ISRAELIS are of course concerned by the occasional manifestations of neo-Nazism, they are currently focusing on Hezbollah (and behind it, IRAN) as the main potential threat to their own interests. ISRAELI diplomats, tourists and local Jewish populations are all regarded as potential targets. In contrast to the case with BALKAN Sunni extremists, however, relatively little research has been published on Hezbollah in the BALKANS today.

Nevertheless with its porous borders, rampant corruption, underdeveloped regions and relatively lax security, the BALKANS can be compared to other parts of the world in which Hezbollah and IRAN are already known to be expanding their operations. And, as ISRAEL continues to increase its diplomatic, commercial and tourism presence in the region, more potential targets are coming into existence as well. The civilian nature of most of these targets makes them very difficult, if not impossible to secure. Even a cursory infrastructure analysis exposes numerous ways in which a dedicated and professional adversary could exploit security vulnerabilities and inflict damage.

HEZBOLLAH GOING GLOBAL ON TERROR ATTACKS CHALLENGES COUNTER INTELLIGENCE 

Dr. Ely Karmon, senior research scholar at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya, ISRAEL recently talked about the tactics and strategy of Hezbollah and IRAN, and subsequent trouble spots in the region, in the context of greater global trends. Worldwide, he points to a spike in Hezbollah plots in the past year. In 2012, “Hezbollah was responsible for 20 plots- all foiled except for the one in Burgas,” he notes. A map illustrating these plots provided by Haaretz indicates that they were all planned for places as far apart as GEORGIA, KENYA, TURKEY, CYPRUS, INDIA, SINGAPORE and THAILAND. This kind of global reach requires extended logistical and intelligence networks, and of course plenty of funds and supporters.

HEZBOLLAH AND IRANIAN GROWTH IN AFRICA AND IN LATIN AMERICA 

Hezbollah presence in LATAM

IRANIAN activities in the developing world indicate patterns that might be applicable to the BALKAN theater. Dr. Karmon’s vital analyses of Hezbollah and IRANIAN growth in AFRICA and in LATIN AMERICA detail the pattern of how IRAN has gained a foothold in numerous countries there, using them for sectarian purposes, terrorism logistics, and trade in illicit goods (as well as legitimate commerce and infrastructure projects). The general conclusion is that IRANIAN diplomatic expansion today is part of a strategy to “balance the pressure of the international community on its nuclear project and prepare the ground for subversive and terrorist responses in case of crippling sanctions or a military strike at its nuclear facilities.” A key part of this strategy includes developing economic and political influence among Muslim states and others hostile to US and Western interests.

Dr Karmon states that “there is a clear pattern. IRAN begins [in small countries] with diplomatic relations, investment promises and cultural relations. But all IRANIAN diplomatic and cultural activities carried out are under the control of their intelligence services.”

IN ARGENTINA, IRAN ACTIVELY CONVERTED INDIVIDUALS TO SHIA ISLAM AND CARRIED OUT ACTIVITIES AGAINST ISRAELI AND JEWISH TARGETS

“For IRAN, the BALKANS are a good platform for two reasons,” he adds. “First, countries like BOSNIA have already been penetrated for a long time. Second, the local security and law enforcement are not sufficiently prepared for an adversary like IRAN.” He points out that the plotters in Burgas and CYPRUS were traveling with passports from WESTERN EUROPEAN countries, making it much more difficult for local countries to detect anything suspicious.

Further, even though the BALKAN Muslim populations are primarily Sunni, this is not necessarily an impediment to IRAN. Dr. Karmon points out several cases, such as in ARGENTINA, where “IRAN actively converted individuals to Shia Islam and has carried out activities against ISRAELI and Jewish targets.” In parts of AFRICA, IRAN has also worked on converting Sunni Muslims to their own sect. Dr. Karmon also points out numerous cases of Hezbollah plots in which Sunni Muslims in places like SOUTHEAST ASIA and NORTH AFRICA were radicalized and took part in plots. If it happened there it could happen in the BALKANS, we can conclude. “They adapt their operations to the situation on the ground,” Dr. Karmon affirms.

 Adapted by Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring from original article written by Chris Deliso