Iran Air 744 Secret Pipeline to US: Iran Air Iranian Agents Exclusive Flight

Iran Air 744 flies bi-monthly from Tehran to Caracas, with some stops in Damascus and Beirut, and has been doing so since February 2007. The flight is exclusively reserved for Iranian agents, Hezbollah, and Iran's Revolutionary Guard. A real concern is that Iran is "schooling" the Venezuelan military. U.S. intelligence believes the flight is a secret pipeline of weapons and spies coming to America, and perhaps uranium heading back to Iran on the Boeing 747SP.

Iran Air 744 

We are concerned about this flight, and how these agents might get into the U.S. from Caracas, Damascus and Beirut, or how staging sites may be established for attacks against us from Venezuela. Apparently we've watched this, and worried about it for 3-1/2 years.

Current and former U.S. intelligence official fear the flight is a shadowy way to move people and weapons to locations in Latin America that can be used as staging points for retaliatory attacks against the U.S. or its interests in the event Iranian nuclear sites are struck by U.S. or Israeli military forces.

"My understanding is that this flight not only goes from Caracas to Damascus to Tehran perhaps twice a month, but it also occasionally makes stops in Lebanon as well, and the passengers on that flight are not processed through normal Venezuelan immigrations or customs. They are processed separately when they come into the country," says Peter Brookes, senior fellow for National Security Affairs at the Heritage Foundation.

The 16-hour flight typically leaves Tehran and stops at Damascus International Airport (DAM), which is Syria's busiest. In 2009, almost 4.5 million passengers used the airport.

After a 90-minute layover, the flight continues the remaining 14 hours to Venezuela's Caracas Maiquetía International Airport (CCS). Upon arrival, the plane is met by special Venezuelan forces and sequestered from other arrivals.

"It says that something secretive or clandestine is going on that they don't want the international community to know about," says Brookes, a former deputy assistant defense secretary for Asian and Pacific Affairs and CIA employee.

"The fact that there is a flight is of course of interest, but the fact that not anybody can gain access to this flight or buy a ticket for that flight is of particular curiosity and should be of concern to the United States."

In addition to speculation about who is aboard, there are significant concerns that the Boeing 747SP airplane might be transporting uranium to Tehran on the return flight. The U.S. government has enacted strong sanctions against Iran because of its nuclear program and there are worries the flight might provide an opportunity to skirt the embargo against materials that might be used for the program.

The major concern is the direct flight from Tehran to Caracas. The "special" passengers of Iran Air 744 "may not even need visas." 

Hamas Suffers and Hizbollah Remains Quiet.

Cross posted by Findalis of Monkey in the Middle For all its ranting and raving, Hizbollah has kept very quiet these last weeks.

Thousands of supporters of the militant Hezbollah group swarmed Beirut's southern suburbs Friday, demanding Israel lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip. The Hezbollah's supporters, including black-clad Shiite women with their children, waved flags and carried banners denouncing the Gaza blockade as they marched in the neighborhoods devastated by Israeli airstrikes in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. Chants of "Death to America" and "Israel is the enemy of Muslims" rang out from the crowd. The protests were in response to a call by Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah to people across the Arab and Muslim world to help end the siege and support the Palestinians in Gaza. Full Story

Yet there hasn't been a repeat of the 2006 War between Israel and Hizbollah. It isn't due to the UN and their fake Resolution 1701. The resolution that Hizbollah has repeatedly violated with UN support and help. It isn't because they now recognize Israel's right to exist. And it isn't because they have no real fighters left. The real reason that Hizbollah, a group aligned with and funded by Iran, is not attacking Israel is that they might be too overstretched and cannot wage the same war with Israel that they did in 2006.

The Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia has taken root in South America, fostering a well-financed force of Islamist radicals boiling with hatred for the United States and ready to die to prove it, according to militia members, U.S. officials and police agencies across the continent. From its Western base in a remote region divided by the borders of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina known as the Tri-border, or the Triple Frontier, Hezbollah has mined the frustrations of many Muslims among about 25,000 Arab residents whose families immigrated mainly from Lebanon in two waves, after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and after the 1985 Lebanese civil war. An investigation by Telemundo and NBC News has uncovered details of an extensive smuggling network run by Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim group founded in Lebanon in 1982 that the United States has labeled an international terrorist organization. The operation funnels large sums of money to militia leaders in the Middle East and finances training camps, propaganda operations and bomb attacks in South America, according to U.S. and South American officials. U.S. officials fear that poorly patrolled borders and rampant corruption in the Tri-border region could make it easy for Hezbollah terrorists to infiltrate the southern U.S. border. From the largely lawless region, it is easy for potential terrorists, without detection, to book passage to the United States through Brazil and then Mexico simply by posing as tourists. They are men like Mustafa Khalil Meri, a young Arab Muslim whom Telemundo interviewed in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay’s second-largest city and the center of the Tri-border region. There is nothing particularly distinctive about him, but beneath the everyday T-shirt he wears beats the heart of a devoted Hezbollah militiaman. “If he attacks Iran, in two minutes Bush is dead,” Meri said. “We are Muslims. I am Hezbollah. We are Muslims, and we will defend our countries at any time they are attacked.” Full Story

Iran and through its proxy, Hizbollah, has made it no secret that they have been aiding rebels, Muslims and drug lords in South and Central America in an attempt to disrupt American interests. Take the tractor plant Iran built and has manned in Venezuela. Iran is pursuing increased political and economic cooperation with Venezuela and Sudan as part of a series of calculated foreign policy moves that looks certain to exacerbate an already tense stand-off with the Bush administration. Faced by growing pressure from the US, Britain and other European countries over its nuclear activities, Tehran is anxious to win international support for its position. High-level meetings have been held in recent weeks with Russia, China and numerous Arab and Muslim states. "We have intensified our diplomatic activity to explain the situation to other countries," Hamid-Reza Asefi, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, told the Guardian. But Iranian cooperation and investment in Venezuela, which is led by George Bush's tormentor-in-chief, President Hugo Chávez, and new business ventures with Sudan, where the US has said genocide is taking place, may be viewed as a bridge too far in Washington. It regards all three countries as "rogue" states. "Our relationship with Venezuela has improved a lot," Mr Asefi said. "We have good cooperation in construction, oil and gas, and in infrastructure projects. Our people are busy there making houses, roads, dams and in transport." There were about 100 Iranians working in Venezuela, Mr Asefi said, providing "know-how and knowledge". Both countries are significant oil producers and members of Opec. Iranian officials have estimated that actual and planned investment in Venezuela could ultimately total $9bn (£5bn). Mohsen Shaterzadeh, deputy industries and mines minister, said this week that the two countries had finalised an agreement to build a giant car plant in Venezuela. Iran will have a 51% stake in the project. Tractors are another of Iran's strengths. Mohsen Khadem Arab-Baghi, who heads the Iran Tractor Manufacturing Company, said the company is expected to make up to 30,000 tractors by March 2007. Though its products are exported to 30 countries, "our greatest target market is Venezuela, which accounts for $85m of our tractor exports," he said. Full Story Iran is not known for its tractors, on the other hand, one of my South American sources who has lived in that area said about it:

I never could figure out why a huge Iranian tractor factory was in the least agricultural state of Venezuela, but very close to the jungle with it's uranium deposits. They brought in hundreds of Iranians and their families to work there. We were the only non Venezuelans in the town besides the Iranians.

Hundreds not just 100 of Iranian workers in an area with very little agricultural production, near the jungle and more importantly, near uranium deposits. Any guesses on what they really were doing there? Hizbollah lost between 10,000 and 20,000 fighters in 2006, they are spread through out Europe, Asia, South and Central America, Mexico, Canada and the US. There are hundreds of "sleeper cells" in Europe, Canada and the US alone. And is it any wonder to all why Hizbollah is watching what is happening in Gaza to Hamas, and wondering if it can survive an onslaught from Israel again.