Israel's Shin Bet security service on Sunday announced the arrest on
September 11 of an Iranian "spy" carrying photographs of the US embassy
in Tel Aviv.
News of the arrest was released just hours after Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu left for Washington and New York, determined to
expose what he described as "sweet talk" by Israel's arch-foe Iran.
The suspect, holding a Belgian passport, was sent to Israel by Iran's
elite Republican Guards and arrested at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion
international airport, Shin Bet charged in a statement.
The domestic intelligence service identified him as Ali Mansouri, 58,
and said he had enrolled in a "special operations unit of the
Revolutionary Guards responsible for numerous terrorist attacks around
the world."
He had been using the fake identity Alex Mans after being recruited
last year, the agency said, naming his four alleged handlers as senior
Iranian officials.
The Shin Bet said that under questioning, the suspect had said he had
been promised $1 million to use his position as a businessman to set up
companies in Israel on behalf of the Iranian intelligence services to
"harm Israeli and Western interests."
He had previously visited Israel in July 2012 and last January. An
Iranian national, the suspect had in 2006 married a Belgian woman whom
he had since divorced.
On the diplomatic front, Netanyahu has been dismissive in his
response to the drive by Iran's new President Hassan Rouhani to mend
fences with the international community, which culminated in a historic
15-minute telephone conversation with US President Barack Obama on
Friday.
Israel, the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear-armed power,
remains adamant that Iran is bent on developing a nuclear weapons
capability, something it regards as a threat to its existence.
Israeli leaders have repeatedly vowed to take military action rather
than see Iran develop a bomb and have called on its US ally to take
tougher action against Tehran, saying they see no real change of policy
under Rouhani.
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