Yesterday (11/10/11) Israel and Hamas announced an Egyptian brokered deal that will see the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit exchanged for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners. Shalit will be released immediately and the Palestinian prisoners will be released in stages begining with 427 on the same day Shalit is released.
Also yesterday the United States announced that it has charged two Iranian men over an alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the US. What appears to have happened is a federal agent who was posing as an assassin for a Mexican drugs cartel approached Manassar Arbabsiar, a US/Iranian dual national and suggested to him a number of potential terrorist plots. Arbabsiar then contacted his cousin Gholan Shakuri who lives in Iran and Arbabsiar claims is a member of the Revolutionary Guard. Arbabsiar then went on to send the federal agent US$100,000 as a down payment on the plan to assassinate the Ambassador. Obviously Iran are not going to hand over Shakuri and Arbabsiar is going to plead guilty so don't expect to see and aspect of this allegation tested in court.
According to Israel Hamas is nothing more then an extension of the Iranian government and Arbabsiar was actually arrested on September 29th. So by timing the Arbabsiar announcement to co-incide with the announcement of the prisoner exchange the US was trying to claim the glory for the deal by making it look like they used Arbabsiar as leverage to pressure Iran into ordering Hamas to free Shalit. Of course they are also trying to undermine Hamas' credibility by enforcing the false claim that Hamas takes it's orders from Iran.
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