US News

Israel captures Iranian spy

Israeli security officials on Sunday announced that they’ve nabbed an Iranian spy posing as a Belgian businessman to set up an espionage network inside the Jewish state.

Iran-born Ali Mansouri, who obtained Belgian citizenship by marriage, was detained Sept. 11 as he attempted to leave Israel through Ben Gurion International Airport.

He was carrying photographs of various sites in Israel, including the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, said Israeli security officials.

Iran’s Quds Force, an elite unite of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard that specializes in black ops, recruited Mansouri and promised to pay him $1 million to spy, according to Israel.

He entered Israel using a Belgian passport with the alias Alex Mans. He was heading back to Tehran to be debriefed by his handlers, the officials said.

The alleged broken spy plot gives Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu something to crow about in a speech this week at the United Nations General Assembly.

Netanyahu was expected to call for continued tough sanctions against Iran until it ends its nuclear program.

“I will tell the truth in the face of the sweet talk and the onslaught of smiles. One must talk facts, and one must tell the truth,” Netanyahu said as he boarded a plane for New York.

He was referring to last week’s conciliatory speech at the UN by new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

The spy scandal comes as relations between the United States and Iran have experienced a rare thaw, as Rouhani has offered to enter talks about Iran’s nuclear program.

President Obama had a 15-minute telephone call with Rouhani last week, breaking a 30-year silence between leaders of the two countries.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif called the talks with the United States a “first step” but also claimed his country had a “right” to continue its uranium-enrichment program.

“Our right to enrich is non-negotiable,” Zarif said on ABC’s “This Week.”

“We are willing to engage in negotiations,” he said. “Of course the United States also needs to do certain things very rapidly. One is to dismantle its illegal sanctions against Iran that are targeting ordinary Iranians.”

Zarif also insisted that language describing the Holocaust as a “myth” on the Web site of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei was a “bad translation.”