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| Arabia |
| US missions in UAE recruit Iranian spies: book |
| 2009-09-24 |
| [Al Arabiya Latest] Iranians living in the United Arab Emirates who apply for a visa to the United States are often targeted by the CIA as potential spies for Washington, a report published on Tuesday said. Every Iranian applicant is grilled for information on the Islamic Republic and those with the most valuable information are recruited by the CIA as informants, the U.K.'s Telegraph quoted a newly released book. "The visa windows at the U.S. Consulate and Embassy are lucrative intelligence collection points," reads Dubai: The Story of the World's Fastest City by Jim Krane, who cites unnamed diplomats as his source. "So lucrative, in fact, that the Central Intelligence Agency stepped in to save the Dubai consulate from closure," Krane, a former AP correspondent, writes, referring to the State Department attempt to shut down the consulate to cut spending. The UAE, which lies just across the Arabian Gulf from the Islamic Republic, is home to some 400,000 Iranians and thousands more stream in to apply for visas as the U.S. has had no official mission in Tehran since the closure of its embassy following the 1979 Islamic revolution. Farsi-speaking specialists in the consulate, installed by the CIA, are tasked with spotting Iranians with "interesting backgrounds," who are then asked to return several times before either being granted a visa or recruited as informants. Krane added people of interest include those that live in Iran or Dubai and said the Iranian community in the emirate was made up of anti-government exiles, pro-government officials and businessmen seeking an easier environment then the sanction-hit republic, the paper reported. |
| Posted by:Fred |