Iran Now Says Nuclear Scientist Was Operating As Double Agent
By WILLIAM YONG and ROBERT F. WORTH
NYT
TEHRAN — Iran fired a new salvo on Wednesday in what is becoming a bizarre propaganda war over the supposed defection and later return of an Iranian nuclear scientist, with Iran’s semiofficial media suggesting that he was a covert operative who had provided “valuable information” about the Central Intelligence Agency’s inner workings.
American officials have said that the scientist, Shahram Amiri, was a C.I.A. informant for years in Iran, providing “significant” information about Iran’s nuclear program and voluntarily defecting to the United States in 2009. Mr. Amiri returned to Iran last week, saying he had been abducted and tortured by American authorities.
Iran now appears to be turning those claims around, casting Mr. Amiri — whose fate seemed uncertain after his return last week — as the double-agent hero of a plan to outwit American intelligence agencies and provide false nuclear information. His story is being made into a television movie by a company affiliated with Iran’s state network, said the semiofficial Fars news agency.
“This was an intelligence war between the C.I.A. and us, which was planned and managed by Iran,” said an unidentified “informed source” cited by Fars, which has close ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
(More here.)
NYT
TEHRAN — Iran fired a new salvo on Wednesday in what is becoming a bizarre propaganda war over the supposed defection and later return of an Iranian nuclear scientist, with Iran’s semiofficial media suggesting that he was a covert operative who had provided “valuable information” about the Central Intelligence Agency’s inner workings.
American officials have said that the scientist, Shahram Amiri, was a C.I.A. informant for years in Iran, providing “significant” information about Iran’s nuclear program and voluntarily defecting to the United States in 2009. Mr. Amiri returned to Iran last week, saying he had been abducted and tortured by American authorities.
Iran now appears to be turning those claims around, casting Mr. Amiri — whose fate seemed uncertain after his return last week — as the double-agent hero of a plan to outwit American intelligence agencies and provide false nuclear information. His story is being made into a television movie by a company affiliated with Iran’s state network, said the semiofficial Fars news agency.
“This was an intelligence war between the C.I.A. and us, which was planned and managed by Iran,” said an unidentified “informed source” cited by Fars, which has close ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
(More here.)
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