Iranian general 'defects to US'

Washington: A former Iranian deputy defence minister who once commanded the Revolutionary Guards has left his country and is cooperating with Western intelligence agencies, providing information on Hezbollah and Iran's ties to the organisation, according to a senior US official.

Ali Reza Asgari disappeared last month during a visit to Turkey. Iranian officials suggested that he may have been kidnapped by Israel or the United States.

The US official said Asgari is cooperating of his own free will. He did not divulge Asgari's whereabouts or specify who is questioning him but made clear that the information Asgari is offering is fully available to US intelligence.

Asgari's background suggests that he would have deep knowledge of Iran's national security infrastructure, conventional weapons arsenal and ties to Hezbollah in south Lebanon.

Iranian officials said he was not involved in the country's nuclear programme, and the senior US official said Asgari is not being questioned about it.

Former officers with Israel's Mossad spy agency said that Asgari had been instrumental in the founding of Hezbollah in the 1980s, around the time of the bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut.

Iran's official news agency, IRNA, quoted the country's top police chief, Brigadier General Esmail Ahmadi Moqaddam, as saying that Asgari was probably kidnapped by agents working for Western intelligence agencies. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Asgari was in the United States.

Another US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, denied that report and suggested that Asgari's disappearance was voluntary and orchestrated by the Israelis. A spokesman for President George W. Bush's National Security Council did not return calls.

The Israeli government denied any connection to Asgari. "To my knowledge, Israel is not involved in any way in this disappearance," said Mark Regev, the spokesman for Israel's foreign ministry.

An Iranian official, who agreed to discuss Asgari on the condition of anonymity, said that Iranian intelligence is unsure of Asgari's whereabouts but that he may have been offered money, probably by Israel, to leave the country.

The Iranian official said Asgari was thought to be in Europe. "He has been out of the loop for four or five years now," the official said.

The man who helped form Hezbollah

- Ali Reza Asgari, who served in the Iranian government until early 2005 under the then President Mohammad Khatami, disappeared in Istanbul shortly after he arrived there on February 7, according to Israeli and Turkish media.

- Asgari is reported to have spent much of the 1980s and 1990s overseeing Iran's efforts to support, finance, arm and train Hezbollah.

- According to Israeli officials, Asgari had also been responsible for the founding of Hezbollah in the 1980s.