March 12, 2007	Monday	Safar 22, 1428

WASHINGTON, March 11: An Iranian general, who defected to the West, may be in possession of information that could be useful in possible military action against Iran’s nuclear installations, media reports said on Sunday.

General Ali Reza Asgari is being interrogated by intelligence officers at a Nato base in Germany after slipping out of Iran via Damascus and Istanbul.

The Washington Post quoted a senior US official as saying that Gen Asgari was cooperating with his interrogators “of his own free will.” The official did not divulge Mr Asgari's whereabouts or specify who is questioning him but made clear that the information he is offering is fully available to US intelligence.

Gen Asgari is a former deputy defence minister who also has commanded Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Reports in the US and international media claimed that Gen Asgari was well acquainted with Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, as well as Tehran's preparations for deal with possible US military strikes on its nuclear sites.

The IRGC is responsible for both Iran's nuclear weapons programme and its relations with external militia groups, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon. The IRGC forces reportedly develop security plans for Iran’s nuclear installations and also guard them.Media reports said that the 63-year old general had been spying on Iran since 2003 when he was recruited on an overseas business trip.

Some reports claimed that Gen Asgari carried maps and other sensitive intelligence documents out of Tehran.

The reports suggested that Iran is now changing the security arrangement for its nuclear facilities for fear that the US and Israel now possess information that threatened those sites.

Gen Asgari is also believed to have brought documents that detail the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ involvement with Hezbollah and other militia groups in the Middle East.

Gen Asgari is also believed to be providing information on Hezbollah attacks on US and French bases in Lebanon in the 1980s. Western intelligence officials claim that the general played a key role in founding Hezbollah.

London’s Sunday Times newspaper quoted an Israeli intelligence official as saying that Gen Asgari "was probably working for Mossad but believed he was working for a European intelligence agency".

Such slight of hand has been used by Mossad in the past. Spokesmen in Jerusalem have denied Israel's involvement in the matter.

Mossad's brief includes running agents in Muslim countries hostile to Israel.

In 1965, it persuaded an Iraqi pilot to fly his then-new MIG 21 to Israel for a handsome fee. It was a highly placed Egyptian agent working for Mossad who provided Israel with a tip-off of a pending Egyptian-Syrian attack hours before the outbreak of the 1973 Yom Kippur War.