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1 FOR A WHILE, the two Hezbollah operatives sat in their car, scoping out the Israeli embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan. Concentrating on their stakeout, the operatives were unaware that police were watching them watch the building. When the operatives finally realized they were under surveillance, they pulled into traffic, but not quite quickly enough, and were caught fleeing the scene. Police inspected their car, where they found explosives, binoculars, cameras, pistols with silencers, and pictures from earlier surveillance runs. Police arrested the two Lebanese men, later identified as Ali Karaki and Ali Najem Aladine, raided several safe houses, and arrested four local militants recruited by Karaki and Aladine to work for them.1 Working closely with Iranian intelligence agents and local operatives—some Islamist extremists, others criminals—the Hezbollah operatives had methodically planned a series of spectacular terrorist operations for spring 2008. The planned attacks reportedly included multiple and simultaneous car bombings around the Israeli and US embassies, kidnapping the Israeli ambassador, and blowing up a radar tower.2 None of this was to take place in Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based, or in Israel, the primary target of Hezbollah’s ire, but some 900 miles away, in the remote capital of Azerbaijan, just north of Iran. Hezbollah operatives had been caught plotting in Azerbaijan before. In fall 2001 six suspects reportedly tied to Hezbollah were arrested near the Iranian border.3 Over the next few years Azerbaijani authorities exposed several cells tied to Iran that were said to be plotting attacks against Israeli or other Western targets there. In 2006 fifteen Azeris were accused of plotting attacks against Israeli and Western targets, reportedly after receiving training and direction from Iran. As a result of the increased surveillance tied to that case, police uncovered the 2008 plot when local militants were found to be in contact with Karaki, described as a “veteran of Hezbollah’s external operations unit,” and Aladine, a “lower ranking explosives expert.” Using Iranian passports and staying in luxury hotels, the two traveled among Azerbaijan, Iran, and Lebanon in early 2008. Together they recruited a network of local operatives, several of whom eluded arrest—along with some other Lebanese and Iranian suspects—by driving south across the border into Iran.4 1 The Party of God Is Born 2 Chapter 1 The investigation determined that the men received orders from Hezbollah’s international terrorist wing, alternatively known as the Islamic Jihad Organization (IJO) or the External Security Organization (ESO). Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) provided the explosives and other support, including facilitating the foreign cell members’ entry into Azerbaijan on Iranian passports.5 In their plots focused on the Israeli and US embassies, the suspects intended to park as many as four cars filled with explosives near the sites and detonate them simultaneously. The location of the Israeli embassy in the Hyatt Tower, a complex that also housed the Thai and Japanese embassies, apparently did not dissuade the plotters from going forward. Once arrested, Karaki and Aladine were detained for more than a year before they were charged in June 2009 with treason, revealing secret information abroad, espionage, preparing acts of terrorism, drug trafficking, and arms smuggling.6 During the trial Ali Karaki, identified as the cell leader, admitted that he had served as Hezbollah’s representative in Iran since 2003, earning $900 a month. In Iran, Karaki also worked with tour groups that gathered near Tehran’s al-Nabi mosque, where he was approached by someone from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and ultimately put on its payroll as well. Among his responsibilities, Karaki admitted, were collecting information on the Jewish Cultural Center in Baku and investigating Iranians (presumably Iranian Jews) suspected of “help[ing] Israel.”7 Karaki and Aladine were reportedly tasked with the operation by Hezbollah officials in Lebanon before traveling to Iran, where IRGC agents helped them cross the border into Azerbaijan in 2007. During their multiple visits to Baku in 2007 and early 2008, they first recruited local operatives and then conducted surveillance of potential targets. One such target was the Qabala radar station, which is leased by the Azeris to Russia and manned by Russian personnel—a seemingly odd target for Hezbollah or Iran.8 But Hezbollah and Iran had a reason to keep their eye on the radar station. To begin with, it is likely that the original operational concept had been limited to surveillance alone, just in case either party ever needed to carry...

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