TEHRAN/WASHISNGTON: Saudi Arabia vowed on Wednesday that Iran would "pay the price" for an alleged plot to kill its ambassador in Washington and US officials said there could be a push for a new round of UN sanctions.
Tehran angrily rejected the charges laid out by a number of top US officials on Tuesday as "amateurish", but a threat nevertheless to peace and stability in the Gulf, a region critical to global oil supplies with a number of US military bases.
"The burden of proof is overwhelming… and clearly shows official Iranian responsibility for this. Somebody in Iran will have to pay the price," senior Saudi prince Turki Al-Faisal, a former ambassador to Washington, said in London.
US Vice President Joe Biden echoed those hawkish sentiments, telling US network ABC Iran would be held accountable. He said Washington was working for a new round of international sanctions against Iran,
warning that "nothing has been taken off the table".
US authorities said on Tuesday they had broken up a plot by two men linked to Iran’s security agencies to assassinate Saudi Ambassador Adel Al-Jubeir. One was arrested last month while the other was believed to be in Iran.
The motive for the alleged plot was not clear. Iran has in the past assassinated its own dissidents abroad, but an attempt to kill an ambassador would be a highly unusual departure.
Iran and Saudi Arabia are bitter regional and to some extent sectarian rivals, but they maintain diplomatic ties and even signed a security agreement in 2001. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Riyadh in 2007.
The United States has led a global effort to isolate Iran and pile on United Nations sanctions in recent years over Tehran’s nuclear energy program which Washington and its regional allies including Israel and Saudi Arabia fear is a front for developing nuclear weapons. Iran denies nuclear arms ambitions.
Those allies fear Washington could take its eye off the ball on Iran. US diplomatic cables from Riyadh leaked by Wikileaks over the past year — in which Jubeir features prominently — show Riyadh repeatedly pushing the United States to take a tougher stand, including the possible use of military force.
Tensions rose between Riyadh and Tehran when Saudi Arabia sent troops to help Bahrain put down pro-democracy protests let by the island state’s Shia majority that both governments accused Iran, a non-Arab Shia state, of fomenting.
This month Riyadh accused some among its Shia Muslim minority of conspiring with a foreign power — a reference to Iran — to cause instability, following street clashes in the Eastern Province.
But Iranian analyst Saaed Leylaz said it was hard to see why Iran would risk involving itself in such a plot.
"Killing the Saudi envoy in America has no benefit for Iran," he said.
"The consequences of this plot are dangerous … It could cause military confrontation in 2012 between Iran and America."
Action at UN
A Western diplomat in Riyadh said the charges would likely be discussed at the UN Security Council.
"The US and Saudi Arabia and other allies are discussing the possibility of taking this to the Security Council because this is an assault on a foreign diplomat in the U.S," he said.
US President Barack Obama, who seeks reelection next year, called the alleged conspiracy a "flagrant violation of US and international law".
The United States said Tehran must be held to account and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she hoped countries hesitant to enforce existing sanctions on Iran would now "go the extra mile."
But also seeking recourse in the world body, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations voiced outrage and complained of US "warmongering" in a letter to Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. "The US allegation is, obviously, a politically motivated move and a showcase of its long-standing animosity towards the Iranian nation," Mohammad Khazaee wrote.
Ali Larijani, Iran’s parliament speaker, said the "fabricated allegations" aimed to divert attention from Arab uprisings Iran says were inspired by its own Islamic revolution that toppled the US-backed Shah — though Islam has not been the overt driving force for unrest across the Arab world.
"America wants to divert attention from problems it faces in the Middle East, but the Americans cannot stop the wave of Islamic awakening by using such excuses," Larijani said, calling the a "childish, amateur game".
"These claims are vulgar," he said in an open session of parliament. "We believe that our neighbors in the region are very well aware that America is using this story to ruin our relationship with Saudi Arabia."
The State Department issued a three-month worldwide travel alert for American citizens, warning of the potential for anti-US action, including within the United States.
"The US government assesses that this Iranian-backed plan to assassinate the Saudi ambassador may indicate a more aggressive focus by the Iranian government on terrorist activity against diplomats from certain countries, to include possible attacks in the United States," it said in a statement.
At a news conference, FBI Director Robert Mueller said a convoluted plot involving monitored international calls, Mexican drug money and an attempt to blow up the ambassador in a Washington restaurant smacked of a Hollywood movie.
Attorney-General Eric Holder tied it to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), guardian of Iran’s 1979 revolution, and the Quds Force, its covert, operational arm.
"I think one has to be concerned about the chilling nature of what the Iranian government attempted to do here," he said.
Quds force connection
The primary evidence linking Iran to the alleged conspiracy is that the arrested suspect is said to have told US law enforcement agents that he had been recruited and directed by men he understood were senior Quds Force officials.
The Quds Force has not previously been known to focus on targets in the United States.
A plot against targets inside the US "would be a first for the Quds Force," said Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA and National Security Council analyst who now heads the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
"I do want to hear more about what evidence (US authorities) have and why they believe" that the Quds Force was involved, Pollack said.
US officials said there had also been initial discussions about other plots, including attacking the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington, but no charges for those were brought.
There are no formal diplomatic ties between the Islamic republic and Washington, which accuses Tehran of backing terrorism and pursuing nuclear arms, charges Iran denies.
Iran already faces tough US economic and political sanctions and Washington slapped further sanctions on five Iranians, including four senior members of Quds.
US says ambassador never in danger
US officials identified the two alleged plotters as Gholam Shakuri, said to be a member of the Quds Force, and Manssor Arbabsiar, who was arrested on Sept. 29 when he arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport from Mexico.
Arbabsiar, 56, a naturalized US citizen with an Iranian passport, initially cooperated with authorities after being arrested. He made calls to Shakuri after being arrested and acted as if the plot was still a go, court documents said.
Arbabsiar appeared briefly in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday where he was ordered detained and assigned a public.
