[This is the headline over a report published this morning on the website of the Telegraph newspaper. It reads as follows:]
Robert Baer, who worked on the original investigation, says there was never any doubt that Iran, not Libya, ordered the attack on Pan Am Flight 103
A former CIA agent who analysed intelligence for the Lockerbie investigation has claimed that “to a man” the CIA believes Iran was responsible for the terrorist attack.
Robert Baer said the CIA worked on the assumption that Iran had ordered the attack as revenge for the downing of an Iranian civilian flight in July 1988 by a US Navy warship.
He also claimed a Syrian-based terrorist group called the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC) built the bomb and put it on board Pan Am Flight 103.
Mr Baer told Al Jazeera his views were “not controversial” in intelligence circles, where Iran’s involvement was accepted. He claims that Libya was made a convenient scapegoat for Lockerbie because it was a pariah state.
He also said the CIA had “grade A” intelligence that two PFLP-GC members suspected of involvement in Lockerbie, Mohammed Abu Talb and Hafez Dalkamoni, were named on an honour roll in Iran for a “great service” they had performed for the country.
Supporters of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Libyan who was the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, believe that the US and Britain agreed not to blame the PFLP-GC because its links to Syria would have put the west’s relationship with Syria at risk.
Syria was a key strategic Middle Eastern power regarded by Britain and the US as a counterbalance to Saddam Hussein’s unstable and unpredictable regime in neighbouring Iraq.
The Washington Post claimed in 1990 that the Lockerbie investigation suddenly switched from Iran and Syria to Libya following a phone call in March 1989 between George H W Bush and Margaret Thatcher, in which Bush advised her to keep Lockerbie “low key” to avoid prejudicing negotiations with Iranian and Syrian-backed groups holding Western hostages in Lebanon.
In 1990, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, the policy paid dividends when Syria sent 20,000 soldiers to join the US-led coalition that defeated the Iraqi army.
Robert Baer, who worked on the original investigation, says there was never any doubt that Iran, not Libya, ordered the attack on Pan Am Flight 103
A former CIA agent who analysed intelligence for the Lockerbie investigation has claimed that “to a man” the CIA believes Iran was responsible for the terrorist attack.
Robert Baer said the CIA worked on the assumption that Iran had ordered the attack as revenge for the downing of an Iranian civilian flight in July 1988 by a US Navy warship.
He also claimed a Syrian-based terrorist group called the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC) built the bomb and put it on board Pan Am Flight 103.
Mr Baer told Al Jazeera his views were “not controversial” in intelligence circles, where Iran’s involvement was accepted. He claims that Libya was made a convenient scapegoat for Lockerbie because it was a pariah state.
He also said the CIA had “grade A” intelligence that two PFLP-GC members suspected of involvement in Lockerbie, Mohammed Abu Talb and Hafez Dalkamoni, were named on an honour roll in Iran for a “great service” they had performed for the country.
Supporters of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Libyan who was the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, believe that the US and Britain agreed not to blame the PFLP-GC because its links to Syria would have put the west’s relationship with Syria at risk.
Syria was a key strategic Middle Eastern power regarded by Britain and the US as a counterbalance to Saddam Hussein’s unstable and unpredictable regime in neighbouring Iraq.
The Washington Post claimed in 1990 that the Lockerbie investigation suddenly switched from Iran and Syria to Libya following a phone call in March 1989 between George H W Bush and Margaret Thatcher, in which Bush advised her to keep Lockerbie “low key” to avoid prejudicing negotiations with Iranian and Syrian-backed groups holding Western hostages in Lebanon.
In 1990, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, the policy paid dividends when Syria sent 20,000 soldiers to join the US-led coalition that defeated the Iraqi army.
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