Millennium Challenge Series #19: Managing Faschist Revolutionary Bandits on behalf of British hostages in Tehran and Asmara.

Re: Challenges of Managing Fascists Revolutionary Bandits the Asmara and Tehran Experience.


It is becoming evident that a group of terrorist organized under religious and political gangs is trying to disrupt peace by holding hostage civilian and military personnel.

The message is "Catch me if you can" or "let us see what you can do" type of rather childish but dangerous games. The first such incident happened about a month ago in the Ethiopian Danakil Desert to five British and Eight Ethiopians. After a series of diplomatic and military threats the British group was released whereas the Ethiopians are still in the hands of the Shabia Terrorists. The Ethiopian government faces stiff criticism from its citizens and the international communities for keeping quiet or for not articulating a campaign to get its citizens freedom.

At present, the British are facing a second series of kidnappings by what is termed a Revolutionary Squad only answerable to religious zealots and not even to the state apparatus. These are states within states and no one knows how they operate, except to realize they serve the interests of the religious revolutionaries, in effect some hybrid organization similar to some quasi Russian Communist Kremlin and former Islamic Emirate type of organization. They are believed to run a state within a state in Iran.

The British used military, economic and diplomatic threats to the Asmara Terrorists and ironically with the help of the Ethiopian Government the phantom Rebel the Shabia Terrorist claimed were the hostage takers released them in the hands of the Shabia Terrorists in Asmara. To date, Asmara is calamining it is not responsible it merely used its good terrorist office to get the British freedom. Why that same terrorist good office that has network with regional terrorists does not let the Ethiopians free is another question.

Now, the British are facing similar challenges in the Persian gulf and as they are meticulous diplomats and Military strategists, we are watching a very sophisticated
miltiary, intelligence and diplomatic dance to squeeze Iran to submit to the will of the international community. First, the UN Security Council put its highly publicised embargo and sanction, now Britian is making its more robust economic and military as well as intelligence sanction and will pursue it with the European Union, then it will follow it with the nearby Middle East and Asian partners. What will happen then, is the current pompous mullahs and revolutionary squad will begin to starve and then the assault starts.

It is hoped that the Iranian people willhave a better sense and get their neuvo-revolutionary turned bandits to curb their fantasy and release the British soon. They are already singing the song of we are releasing the women first and then may be the civilians and at last the military free. Let us hope that common sense will prevail both in Asmara and Tehran. Otherwise, the current scenario of Baghadad is not going to be fun both for the Iranians and the Shabia agents in Asmara.

Please read on the Parliamentary speech of the British Foreign Secretary, very similar to the one she gave during the Asmara Fiasco.

It is time, the Ethiopians take their cue and lesson from the British. It is time to act before it is too late.

with regards

Belai Habte-Jesus, MD, MPH
Global Strategic Enterprises, Inc &
Parners for Peace and Prosperity
www.SolomonicCrown.org, www.globalbelai4u.blogspot.com

UK PERSONNEL IN IRAN: COMMONS STATEMENT (28/03/07)


Event: Oral statement to the House of Commons


Location: House of Commons


Speech Date: 28/03/07


Speaker: Margaret Beckett



Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement about the current situation regarding the 15 British Service personnel, detained by Iranian forces on Friday of last week and that the Government is doing all it can to ensure that they are released immediately.

I should say at once, and I am sure I speak for the whole House, that our thoughts and prayers at this moment are with all our detained personnel in Iran, and their families.

Mr Speaker, I would like to begin by explaining the facts of what happened last Friday, and the actions we have taken since, and to share with the House some of the details about the location of the incident on which MOD briefed this morning.

At approximately 0630 GMT on 23 March 15 British naval personnel from HMS Cornwall, engaged in a routine boarding operation of a merchant vessel in Iraqi territorial waters in support of Security Council Resolution 1723 and of the Government of Iraq, were seized by Iranian naval vessels.

HMS Cornwall was conducting routine maritime security operations as part of a Multi National Force coalition task force and operating under a United Nations Mandate at the request of the Iraqi government.

The task force's mission was to protect Iraqi oil terminals and prevent smuggling.

The boarding party had completed a successful inspection of a merchant ship 1.7 nautical miles inside Iraqi waters when they and their two boats were surrounded by six Iranian vessels and escorted into Iranian territorial waters.

I immediately consulted with the Prime Minister and Secretary State for Defence and asked my Permanent Under Secretary to summon the Iranian Ambassador to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

We set out our three demands to the Ambassador: information on the whereabouts of our people; consular access to them; and to be told the arrangements for their immediate release. COBR met that afternoon as it has done every day since.

On 24 March my colleague the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Lord Triesman, held a further meeting with the Ambassador to repeat our demands. He has had several such meetings since that date.

At that first meeting the Iranian Ambassador gave us, on behalf of his government, the co-ordinates of the site where that government claimed our personnel had been detained. They were NOT of course where we believed the incident took place but we took delivery of them as the statement of events of the government of Iran. On examination these co-ordinates, supplied by Iran, are themselves in Iraqi waters.

On Sunday 25 March I spoke to Manouchehr Mottaki, the Iranian Foreign Minister, as I did again yesterday. In my first conversation I pointed out that not only did the co-ordinates for the incident as relayed by HMS Cornwall show that the incident took place 1.7 nautical miles inside Iraqi waters, but also that the grid co-ordinates for those incidents that the Iranian authorities had provided our Embassy on Friday 23 March and Lord Triesman on Saturday 24 March showed also that the incident had taken place in Iraqi waters. I suggested to the Iranian Foreign Minister that it appeared that the whole affair might have been a misunderstanding which could be resolved by immediate release.

In Iran, our Ambassador, Geoffrey Adams, has met on a daily basis with senior Iranian officials to press for immediate answers to our questions. He has left the Iranian authorities in no doubt that there is no justification for the Iranians to have taken the British Navy personnel into custody, and provided the grid co-ordinates of the incident which clearly showed that our personnel were in Iraqi waters and made clear that we expected their immediate and safe return. I should tell the House that we have no doubt either about the facts or about the legitimacy of our requirements.

When our Ambassador and my colleague Lord Triesman followed up with the Iranian authorities on Monday 25 March, we were provided with new, and I quote "corrected" grid co-ordinates by the Iranian side which now showed the incident as having taken place in Iranian waters. As I made clear to Foreign Minister Mottaki when I spoke to him yesterday, we find it impossible to believe, given the seriousness of the incident, that the Iranians could have made such a mistake with the original co-ordinates, which after all they gave us over several days.

There has inevitably been much international interest in the situation, particularly given our personnel's role in a Multi-National Force operating under a UN mandate. I have spoken to a number of international partners, including US Secretary of State Rice, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud. We have also been keeping other key international partners informed, and I am pleased to be able to tell the House that many of them have chosen to lobby the Iranians or make statements of support. I am particularly grateful to my colleague, Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi Foreign Minister, who has confirmed publicly that the incident took place in Iraqi waters, calling for the personnel, who are acting in Iraq's interests, to be released.

Mr Speaker, the Iranians have assured us that all our personnel are being treated well. We will hold them to that commitment and continue to press for immediate release. They have also assured us that there is no linkage between this issue and other issues, bilateral, regional or international, which I of course welcome.

But I regret to say that the Iranian authorities have so far failed to meet any of our demands or responded to our desire to resolve this issue quickly and quietly, through behind the scenes diplomacy.

That is why we have today chosen to respond to parliamentary and public demand for more information about the original incident and to get into the public record both our and the Iranian accounts, to demonstrate the clarity of our position and the force of the Prime Minister's words on Sunday 25 March when he said, and I quote "there is no doubt at all that these people were taken from a boat in Iraqi waters. It is simply not true that they went into Iranian territorial waters, and I hope the Iranian government understands how fundamental an issue this is for us. We have certainly sent the message back to them very clearly indeed. They should not be under any doubt at all about how seriously we regard this act, which is unjustified and wrong."

The House may also be aware that, even if, and I stress that they were not, even if the Iranian government believed, our vessels had been in Iranian waters, under international law, warships have sovereign immunity in the territorial sea of other states. The very most Iran would have been entitled to do, if they considered that our boats were breaching the rules on innocent passage, would have been to require the ship to leave their territorial waters immediately.

Mr Speaker, we will continue to pursue vigorously our diplomatic efforts with the Iranians to press for the immediate release of our personnel and equipment. As members of the House will appreciate on sensitive issues like these, as with the recent Ethiopian case getting the balance right between private, but robust, diplomacy and meeting the House's and public's justified demand for reliable information is a difficult judgement. I am very grateful for the support we have been given over the last few days by the foreign affairs spokesmen of the other parties, and from yourself Mr Speaker as well as others in the House, and hope that this will continue.

But, as the Prime Minister, indicated yesterday we are now in a new phase of diplomatic activity. That is why MOD have today released details of the incident and why I have concluded that we need to focus all our bilateral efforts during this phase to resolution of this issue. We will, therefore be imposing a freeze on all other official bilateral business with Iran until this situation is resolved. We will keep other aspects of our policy towards Iran under close review and will continue to proceed carefully. But no one should be in any doubt about the seriousness with which we regard these events.




Captured UK personnel in Iran - more Ministerial statements


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