Deadly attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists are being carried out by an Iranian dissident group that is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service, U.S. officials tell NBC News, confirming charges leveled by Iran’s leaders.

The group, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, has long been designated as a terrorist group by the United States, accused of killing American servicemen and contractors in the 1970s and supporting the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran before breaking with the Iranian mullahs in 1980.

The attacks, which have killed five Iranian nuclear scientists since 2007 and may have destroyed a missile research and development site, have been carried out in dramatic fashion, with motorcycle-borne assailants often attaching small magnetic bombs to the exterior of the victims’ cars.

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Obama administration is aware of the assassination campaign but has no direct involvement.

The Iranians have no doubt who is responsible – Israel and the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, known by various acronyms, including MEK, MKO and PMI.

“The relation is very intricate and close,” said Mohammad Javad Larijani, a senior aide to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, speaking of the MEK and Israel. “They (Israelis) are paying … the Mujahedin. Some of their (MEK) agents … (are) providing Israel with information. And they recruit and also manage logistical support.”

Moreover, he said, the Mossad, the Israeli secret service, is training MEK members in Israel on the use of motorcycles and small bombs. In one case, he said, Mossad agents built a replica of the home of an Iranian nuclear scientist so that the assassins could familiarize themselves with the layout prior to the attack.

Much of what the Iranian government knows of the attacks and the links between Israel and MEK comes from interrogation of an assassin who failed to carry out an attack in late 2010 and the materials found on him, Larijani said. (Click here to see a video report of the interrogation shown on Iranian televsion.)

The U.S.-educated Larijani, whose two younger brothers run the legislative and judicial branches of the Iranian government, said the Israelis’ rationale is simple. “Israel does not have direct access to our society. Mujahedin, being Iranian and being part of Iranian society, they have … a good number of … places to get into the touch with people. So I think they are working hand-to-hand very close. And we do have very concrete documents.”

Two senior U.S. officials confirmed for NBC News the MEK’s role in the assassinations, with one senior official saying, “All your inclinations are correct.” A third official would not confirm or deny the relationship, saying only, “It hasn’t been clearly confirmed yet.” All the officials denied any U.S. involvement in the assassinations.

As it has in the past, Israel’s Foreign Ministry declined comment. Said a spokesman, “As long as we can’t see all the evidence being claimed by NBC, the Foreign Ministry won’t react to every gossip and report being published worldwide.”

For its part, the MEK pointed to a statement calling the allegations “absolutely false.”

The sophistication of the attacks supports the Iranian claims that an experienced intelligence service is involved, experts say.

In the most recent attack, on Jan. 11, 2012, Mostafa Ahamdi Roshan died in a blast in Tehran moments after two assailants on a motorcycle placed a small magnetic bomb on his vehicle. Roshan was a deputy director at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility and was reportedly involved in procurement for the nuclear program, which Iran insists is not a weapons program.

Previous attacks include the assassination of Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, killed by a bomb outside his Tehran home in January 2010, and an explosion in November of that year that took the life of Majid Shahriari and wounded Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, who is now the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization.

In the case of Roshan, the bomb appears to have been a shaped charge that directed all the explosive power inside the vehicle, killing him and his bodyguard driver but leaving nearby traffic unaffected.

Although Roshan was directly involved in the nuclear program, working at the huge centrifuge facility between Tehran and Qom, Iran’s religious center, at least one other scientist who was killed wasn’t linked to the Iranian nuclear program, according to Larijani.

Speaking of bombing victim Ali-Mohammadi, whom he described as a friend, Larijani told NBC News, “In fact this guy who was assassinated was not involved in the nitty-gritty of the situation. He was a scientist, a physicist, working on the theoretically parts of nuclear energy, which you can teach it in every university. You can find it in every text.”

“This is an Israeli plot. A dirty plot,” Larijani added angrily. He also claimed the assassinations are not having an effect on the program and have only made scientists more resolute in carrying out their mission.

Not so, said Ronen Bergman, an Israeli commentator and author of “Israel’s Secret War with Iran” and an upcoming book tentatively titled, “Mossad and the Art of Assassination.”

Bergman said the attacks have three purposes, the most obvious being the removal of high-ranking scientists and their knowledge. The others: forcing Iran to increase security for its scientists and facilities and to spur “white defections.”

He explained the latter this way: “Scientists leaving the project, afraid that they are going to be next on the assassination list, and say, ‘We don’t want this. Indeed, we get good money, we are promoted, we are honored by everybody, but we might get killed. It isn’t worth it. Maybe we should go back to teach … in a university.’”

There are unconfirmed reports in the Israeli press and elsewhere that Israel and the MEK were involved in a Nov. 12 explosion that destroyed the Iranian missile research and development site at Bin Kaneh, 30 miles outside Tehran. Among those killed was Maj. Gen. Hassan Moghaddam, director of missile development for the Revolutionary Guard, and a dozen other researchers. So important was Moghaddam that Ayatollah Khamenei attended his funeral.

Unlike the assassinations, Iran claims the missile site explosion was an accident; the MEK, meanwhile, trumpeted it but denied any involvement.

Indeed, there may be other covert operations carried out either by Israel acting alone or in concert with others, according to Bergman.

“Two labs caught fire,” said Bergman, enumerating the attacks. “Scientists got blown up or disappeared. A missile base and the R&D base of the Revolutionary Guard exploded some time ago, with the director of the R&D division of the Revolutionary Guard being killed along with … his soldiers.”

Bergman added, “So, a long series of … something that was termed by an Israeli (Cabinet) minister … as ‘mysterious mishaps’ happening and rehappening to the project. Then the Iranians claim, ‘This is Israeli Mossad trying to sabotage our attempts to be a nuclear superpower.’”

Dr. Uzi Rabi, director of the Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University, said the supposed accidents could all be part of “psychological warfare” conducted against Iran. “It seems logical. It makes sense,” he said of possible MEK involvement, “and it’s been done before.”

Rabi, who regularly briefs Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, on Iran also said the ultimate goal of the range of covert operations being carried out by Israel is “to damage the politics of survivability … to send a message that could strike fear into the rulers of Iran.”

For the United States, the alleged role of the MEK is particularly troublesome. In 1997, the State Department designated it a terrorist group, justifying it with an unclassified 40-page summary of the organization’s activities going back more than 25 years. The paper, sent to Congress in 1998, was written by Wendy Sherman, now undersecretary of state for political affairs and then an aide to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

The report, which was obtained by NBC News, was unsparing in its assessment. “The Mujahedin (MEK) collaborated with Ayatollah Khomeini to overthrow the former shah of Iran,” it said. “As part of that struggle, they assassinated at least six American citizens, supported the takeover of the U.S. embassy, and opposed the release of the American hostages.” In each case, the paper noted, “Bombs were the Mujahedin’s weapon of choice, which they frequently employed against American targets.”

“In the post-revolutionary political chaos, however, the Mujahedin lost political power to Iran’s Islamic clergy. They then applied their dedication to armed struggle and the use of propaganda against the new Iranian government, launching a violent and polemical cycle of attack and reprisal.”

U.S. officials have said publicly that the information contained in the report was limited to unclassified material, but that it also drew on classified material in making its determination to add the MEK to the U.S. list of terrorist organizations.

The MEK and its sister organizations have since the beginning been run by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, a husband-wife team who have maintained tight control despite assassination threats and internal dissent. Massoud Rajavi, 63, founded the MEK, but since the U.S. invasion of Iraq has taken a backseat to his wife.

The State Department report describes the Rajavis as “fundamentally undemocratic” and “not a viable alternative to the current government of Iran.”

One reason for that is the MEK’s close relationship with Saddam Hussein, as demonstrated by this 1986 video showing the late Iraqi dictator meeting with Massoud Rajavi. Saddam recruited the MEK in much the same way the Israelis allegedly have, using them to fight Iranian forces during the Iran-Iraq War, a role they took on proudly. So proudly, they invited NBC News to one of their military camps outside Baghdad in 1993.

“The National Liberation Army (MLA), the military wing of the Mujahedin, conducted raids into Iran during the latter years of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War,” according to the State Department report. The NLA’s last major offensive reportedly was conducted against Iraqi Kurds in 1991, when it joined Saddam Hussein’s brutal repression of the Kurdish rebellion. In addition to occasional acts of sabotage, the Mujahedin are responsible for violent attacks in Iran that victimize civilians.”

“Internally, the Mujahedin run their organization autocratically, suppressing dissent and eschewing tolerance of differing viewpoints,” it said. “Rajavi, who heads the Mojahedin’s political and military wings, has fostered a cult of personality around himself.”

The U.S. suspicion of the MEK doesn’t end there. Law enforcement officials have told NBC News that in 1994, the MEK made a pact with terrorist Ramzi Yousef a year after he masterminded the first attack on the World Trade Center in New York City. According to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Yousef built an 11-pound bomb that MEK agents placed inside one of Shia Islam’s greatest shrines in Mashad, Iran, on June 20, 1994. At least 26 people, mostly women and children, were killed and 200 wounded in the attack.

That connection between Yousef, nephew of 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, and the MEK was first reported in a book, “The New Jackals,” by Simon Reeve. NBC News confirmed that Yousef told U.S. law enforcement that he had worked with the MEK on the bombing.

In recent years, the MEK has said it has renounced violence, but Iranian officials say that is not true, that killings of Iranians continue. Still, through some deft lobbying, the group has been able to get the United Kingdom and the European Union to remove it from their lists of terrorist groups.

The alleged involvement of the MEK in the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists provides the U.S. with a cloak of deniability regarding the clandestine killings. Because the U.S. has designated the MEK as a terrorist organization, neither military nor intelligence units of the U.S. government, can work with them. “We cannot deal with them, “ said one senior U.S. official. “We would not deal with them because of the designation.”

Iranian officials initially accused the Israelis and MEK of being behind the attacks, but they have since added the CIA to the list. Three days after the Jan. 11, 2012, bombing in Tehran that killed Roshan, the state news agency IRNA reported that Iran’s Foreign Ministry had sent a diplomatic letter to the U.S. claiming to have “evidence and reliable information” that the CIA provided “guidance, support and planning” to assassins directly involved in the attack.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton immediately denied any connection to the killings. “I want to categorically deny any United States involvement in any kind of act of violence inside Iran,” Clinton told reporters on the day of the attack.

But at least two GOP presidential candidates have no problem with the targeting of nuclear scientists. In a November debate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich endorsed “taking out their scientists,” and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum called it, ”a wonderful thing.”

The MEK’s opposition to the Iranian government also has recently earned it both plaudits and support from an odd mix of political bedfellows.

A group of former Cabinet-level officials have joined together to support the MEK’s removal from the official U.S. Foreign Terrorist Organization list, even taking out a full-page ad last year in the New York Times calling for the removal of the MEK from the U.S. terrorist list. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton; former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former FBI Director Louis Freeh and former Rep. Patrick Kennedy were among those whose signatures were on the ad.

“There’s an extraordinary group of bipartisan or even apolitical leaders, military leaders, diplomats, the United States … the United Kingdom, the European Union, even a U.S. District Court in Washington, said that this group that was put on the foreign terrorist organization watch list in 1997 doesn’t deserve to be there,” Ridge said in November on “The Andrea Mitchell Show” on MSNBC TV.

U.S. politicians also have been pushing the U.S. government to protect the 3,400 MEK members and their families at Camp Ashraf in Iraq, about 35 miles north of Baghdad. With the departure of U.S. troops, the MEK feared that Iraqi forces, with encouragement from Iran, would attack the camp, leading to a bloodbath. At the last minute, however, agreement was brokered with the United Nations that would permit the MEK members’ departure for resettlement in unspecified democratic countries. As of this week, there’s been little movement on the planned resettlement.

The Iranians see what’s happening as terrorism and hypocrisy by the United States. They have forwarded documents and other evidence to the United Nations – and directly to the United States, they say.

“I think this is very cynical plan. This is unacceptable,” said Larijani. “This is a bad trend in the world. Unprecedented. We should kill scientists … to block a scientific program? I mean this is disaster!”

Daniel Byman, a professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and also a senior fellow with the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, said that if the accounts of the Israeli-MEK assassinations are accurate, the operation borders on terrorism.

“In theory, states cannot be terrorist, but if they hire locals to do assassinations, that would be state sponsorship,” said Byman, author of the recent book, “A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism.” “You could argue that they took action not to terrorize the public, the purpose of terrorism, but only the nuclear community. An argument could also be made that degrading the program means that you don’t have to take military action and thus, this is a lower level of violence and that really these are military targets, where normally terrorist targets are civilians.”

But ultimately, Byman said, there is a “spectrum of responsibility” and that Israel is ultimately responsible.

Ronen Bergman, while not speaking on behalf of the Israeli government, suggests that there is a justification, citing an oft-repeated but disputed quote in which Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s said that Israel should be wiped off the face of the earth.

“Meir Degan, the chief of Mossad, when he was in office, hung a photograph behind him, behind the chair of the chief of Mossad,” notes the Israeli commentator. “And in that photograph you see — an ultra-orthodox Jew — long beard, standing on his knees with his– hands up in the air, and two Gestapo soldiers standing — beside him with guns pointed at him. One of — one of them is smiling.

“And Degan used to say to his people and the people coming to visit him from CIA, NSA, et cetera, ‘Look at this guy in the picture. This is my grandfather just seconds before he was killed by the SS,’” Bergman said. “’… We are here to prevent this from happening again.’”

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TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — A hard-line Iranian newspaper called Thursday for retaliation against Israel, a day after the mysterious killing of a nuclear scientist in Tehran with a magnetic bomb attached to his car. Iran’s top leader blamed Israel and the U.S.

Provocative hints from Israel reinforced the perception that the killing was part of an organized and clandestine campaign to set back Iran’s nuclear ambitions, which the U.S. and its allies suspect are aimed at producing weapons. Iran says the program is for peaceful purposes only.

Iran’s nuclear confrontation with the West had already been escalating in the weeks before the killing, with the U.S. tightening sanctions against Tehran, and Iranian officials warning that they would shut a waterway vital to global oil shipping in response.

The Wednesday assassination of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan — at least the fourth targeted hit against a member of Iran’s nuclear brain trust in two years — has heightened tensions even further.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blamed both Israel and the U.S. In a message read on Iranian state TV, he said the killing was carried out “with design or coordination of the CIA and the Mossad,” Israel’s spy agency. He pledged that Iran would punish those responsible.

A column in the Kayhan newspaper by chief editor Hossein Shariatmadari asked why Iran did not avenge Roshan, a chemistry expert and a director of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, by striking Israel.

“Israeli military chief Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz in his recent remarks spoke about damaging Iran’s nuclear program,” he wrote. “Assassinations of Israeli military and officials are easily possible.”

The day before the attack, Gantz was quoted as telling a parliamentary panel that 2012 would be a “critical year” for Iran — in part because of “things that happen to it unnaturally.”

Tehran quickly blamed Israeli-linked agents backed by the U.S. and Britain. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton denied any U.S. role in the slaying, and the Obama administration condemned the attack. “I want to categorically deny any United States involvement in any kind of act of violence inside Iran,” she said.

Israeli officials, in contrast, have hinted at covert campaigns against Iran without directly admitting involvement.

A covert war between Iran and Israel would come on top of an overt confrontation pitting Tehran against the West, involving both legal and political maneuvering and military sabre-rattling.

Washington is currently involved in an international lobbying effort to win support for new sanctions, targeting Iran’s oil industry, which would bar financial institutions from the U.S. market if they do business with Iran’s central bank.

Iran has threatened to respond to sanctions by shutting the Strait of Hormuz, the passageway for about one-sixth of the world’s oil. Earlier this month Tehran concluded 10 days of naval exercises in the waters off of the strait, and says it plans to hold another set of sea drills in February.

In domestic politics, Ahmadinejad ousted an ally of one of his main moderate rivals, former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, from the chancellorship of the country’s largest university, a state-owned newspaper reported on Thursday.

Iran daily said Ahmadinejad associate Farhad Daneshjoo received five of nine votes cast by the board of trustees of the Islamic Azad University, which enrolls more than 1.7 million students in 400 branches nationwide.

Ahmadinejad is currently under attack from both moderates backed by Rafsanjani and by clerical hardliners, and the battle often plays out in determining who controls key governmental institutions.

Supporters of Ahmadinejad had at least for two years pushed to replace current chancellor Abdollah Jasbi because of his affiliation with Rafsanjani, a former pillar of the clerical establishment, whose power base came under attacks after he lent his support to opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi in 2009 presidential elections.

Earlier in January a court sentenced Rafsanjani’s daughter Faezeh Hashemi to six months in prison on charges of propagandizing against the ruling system.

In 2011 Rafsanjani lost his position as head of the Assembly of Experts, a clerical body which has the power to appoint the Supreme Leader of the country. He remains as the head of the Expediency Council, which is an advisory body to Khamenei, but his term will end in late February.

Contests such as the Islamic Azad university vote are seen as bellwethers of whether or not the moderates’ clerical allies like Rafsanjani will remain in influential positions, or will be slowly squeezed out.

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TEHRAN, Jan 11 (Reuters) - An Iranian nuclear scientist was blown up in his car by a motorbike hitman on Wednesday, prompting Tehran to blame Israeli and U.S. agents but insist the killing would not derail a nuclear programme that has raised fears of war and threatened world oil supplies.

The fifth daylight attack on technical experts in two years, the killer’s magnetic bomb delivered a targeted blast to the door of 32-year-old Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan’s silver sedan as he drove down a busy street close to Tehran University during the morning rush hour. The chemical engineer’s passenger also died, Iranian media said, while a passer-by was slightly hurt.

Israel, whose military chief had warned Iran only on Tuesday to expect more mysterious mishaps, declined to comment. While many analysts saw Israeli or Western involvement as eminently plausible, the role of local or other Middle Eastern hands in a deadly shadow war of bluff and sabotage could not be ruled out.

The killing, which left debris hanging in trees and body parts on the road, came in a week of heightened tension:

Iran has started an underground uranium enrichment plant and sentenced an American to death for spying; Washington and Europe have stepped up efforts to cripple Iran’s oil exports for its refusal to halt work that the West says betrays an ambition to build nuclear weapons, not the power plants Iran claims.

Iran has threatened to choke the West’s supply of Gulf oil, drawing a U.S. warning that its navy was ready to open fire to prevent any blockade of the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

However, analysts saw the latest assassination, which would have taken some preparation, as part of a longer-running, cover effort to thwart Iran’s nuclear development programme that has also included suspected computer viruses and mystery explosions.

While fears of war have forced up oil prices, the region has seen periods of sabre-rattling and limited bloodshed before without reaching all-out conflict. However, a willingness in Israel, which sees an imminent Iranian atom bomb as a threat to its existence, to attack Iranian nuclear sites, with or without U.S. backing, has heightened the sense that a crisis is coming.

“HEINOUS ACT”

Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, which has failed to persuade the West that its quest for nuclear power has no hidden military goal, said the killing of Ahmadi-Roshan would not deter it: “We will continue our path without any doubt … Our path is irreversible,” it said in a statement carried on television.

“The heinous acts of America and the criminal Zionist regime will not disrupt our glorious path … The more you kill us, the more our nation will awake.”

First Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi, quoted by IRNA news agency, said: “Iran’s enemies should know they cannot prevent Iran’s progress by carrying out such terrorist acts.”

Preparing for its first national election since a disputed presidential vote in 2009 brought street protests against 30 years of clerical rule, Iran’s leaders are struggling to contain internal tensions. Defiance of Israel and Western powers plays well with many voters in the nation of 76 million.

Israel, whose Mossad intelligence agency has a history of covert killings abroad, declined comment on Wednesday’s bombing.

On Tuesday, armed forces chief Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz was quoted as telling members of parliament: “For Iran, 2012 is a critical year in combining the continuation of its nuclearisation, internal changes in the Iranian leadership, continuing and growing pressure from the international community and things which take place in an unnatural manner.”

There was no immediate reaction to the early morning attack from the United States. Its ally Britain, whose Tehran embassy was ransacked in November, called suggestions of London’s involvement “baseless” and condemned the killing of civilians.

MOTORCYCLE HITMAN

The attack nonetheless, bore some of the hallmarks of the work of sophisticated intelligence agencies capable of circumventing Iran’s own extensive security apparatus and also showing some apparent care to limit the harm to passers-by.

While witnesses spoke of a frighteningly loud explosion at 8:20 a.m. (0450 GMT) and parts of the Peugeot 405 sedan ended up in the branches of the trees lining Gol Nabi Street, much of the car was left intact. The containment of the blast to the vehicle suggested a charge designed both to be sure of killing the occupants but also to limit serious injury to those targeted.

Witnesses said a motorcycle, from which the rear pillion passenger reached out to stick the device to the side of the car, made off into the heavy commuter traffic.

Though the scientist killed — the fourth in five such attacks since January 2010 — was only 32, Iranian media described him as having a senior role at the uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, near Tehran. The semi-official news agency Mehr said Ahmadi-Roshan had recently met officials of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

IAEA officials could not confirm that, however.

Analysts say that killing individual scientists — especially those whose lack of personal protection suggests a relatively junior role — is unlikely to have much direct impact on Iran’s nuclear programme, which Western governments allege is seeking to enrich enough uranium highly enough to let it build weapons.

COVERT WAR

Sabotage — like mysterious reported explosions at military facilities or the Stuxnet computer virus widely suspected to have been deployed by Israel and the United States to disrupt nuclear facilities in 2010 — may have had more direct effects.

However, assassinations may be intended to discourage Iranians with nuclear expertise from working on the programme.

Bruno Tertrais from France’s Strategic Research Foundation said: “It certainly has a psychological effect on scientists working on the nuclear programme.”

He cautioned, however, against assuming that Israel the United States or both were the instigators of the latest attack.

Trita Parsi, a U.S.-based expert on Iran, said the killing might, along with the heightened rhetoric of recent weeks, be part of a pattern ahead of a possible resumption of diplomatic negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme; some parties may want to improve their bargaining position, some may even see violence as a way of thwarting negotiations altogether, Parsi said.

Last month, Iran signalled a willingness to return to a negotiating process which stalled a year ago, though Western officials say a new round of talks is far from certain yet.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast was quoted by ISNA news agency as calling on the IAEA and other world bodies to condemn the latest killing: “If international bodies, in particular the IAEA, do not adopt a clear stance against this kind of assassination … then they are supporting this act with their silence and should be held accountable.”

The IAEA, which inspects Iranian nuclear sites including Natanz, declined to comment on the assassination, which comes ahead of an expected visit by a senior team of the Vienna-based agency to Tehran to discuss its growing concerns about suspected weapons-relevant activities in the Islamic Republic.

An IAEA official said on Monday that the team was expected in Iran “quite soon”.

SANCTIONS CAMPAIGN

Iran’s decision to carry out enrichment work deep underground at Fordow, near the holy city of Qom, could make it harder for U.S. or Israeli forces to carry out veiled threats to use force against Iranian nuclear facilities. The move to Fordow could narrow a time window for diplomacy to avert any attack.

The announcement on Monday that enrichment — a necessary step to make uranium into nuclear weapons — had begun at Fordow has given added impetus to Western efforts to impose an oil export embargo intended to pressure Tehran to negotiate a halt.

Oil prices have firmed. Brent crude is up more than 5 percent so far this year to above $113 a barrel.

The European Union on Tuesday brought forward to Jan. 23 a ministerial meeting that is likely to confirm an embargo on oil purchases. Big importers of Iranian oil are moving to secure alternative supplies away from OPEC’s second biggest exporter.

Almost exactly two years ago, on Jan. 12, 2010, physics lecturer Masoud Ali Mohammadi was killed by a remote-controlled bomb attached to a motorcycle in Tehran. In November of that year, two daylight bomb attacks on the same day in Tehran killed one nuclear scientist and wounded another. A physics lecturer was shot dead in an attack in Tehran in July last year.

Despite public infighting within the Iranian establishment, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a clear statement on Monday that Iran had no intention of changing its nuclear course because of tightened foreign sanctions.

New U.S. sanctions have started to bite. The rial currency has lost 20 percent of its value against the dollar in the past week and Iran has threatened to shut the exit from the Gulf at the Strait of Hormuz, through which 35 percent of the world’s seaborne traded oil passes.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, visiting Beijing, appealed for Chinese cooperation on nuclear non-proliferation, though Chinese officials made clear that they still opposed the U.S. sanctions and would go on buying Iranian oil.

Russia, too, came out against the U.S.-led oil embargo.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Iran’s move to enrich uranium near the city of Qom was “especially troubling”.

“This step once again demonstrates the Iranian regime’s blatant disregard for its responsibilities and that the country’s growing isolation is self-inflicted,” she said.

Stepping up pressure on Tehran, U.S. President Barack Obama approved a law on New Year’s Eve that will sanction financial institutions dealing with Iran’s central bank, a move that makes it difficult for consumers to pay for Iranian oil.

Geithner is in Asia this week to drum up support for Washington’s efforts to stem the oil revenues flowing to Tehran.

After Beijing, Geithner may have an easier task in U.S. ally Japan, the next stop of his tour on Thursday, where a government source has said Tokyo will consider cutting back its Iranian oil purchases to secure a waiver from new U.S. sanctions.

Japan has already asked OPEC producers Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to supply it with more oil. South Korea is also considering alternative supplies.

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Nabil Elaraby, Secretary General of Arab League, asks Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal to deliver message to Syria to “work with integrity, transparency and credibility to halt the violence.”

The head of the Arab League said on Friday he had asked the Damascus-based leader of the Palestinian movement Hamas to ask the Syrian government to work to halt violence in the country.

Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby was speaking alongside Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal after a meeting in Cairo.”I gave him a message today to the Syrian authorities that it is necessary to work with integrity, transparency and credibility to halt the violence that is happening in Syria,” he said.

Earlier Friday, a suicide bomber in Syria’s capital Damascus killed 25 people and wounded 46 others, local news station Addounia said.

The bomber blew himself up at a traffic light, according to state television. Footage broadcast by Syria Television also showed the shattered blood splattered windows of what appeared to be a police bus.

At least 44 people were killed last month by what the Syrian authorities said were two suicide bombings against security buildings in the Syrian capital.

Syria has been racked for 10 months by an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad in which the United Nations says more than 5,000 people have been killed. The government says armed “terrorists” have killed 2,000 members of the security forces.

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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The Security Council took its first official step Wednesday to consider the Palestinians’ request for U.N. membership.

Lebanese Ambassador Nawaf Salam, who holds this month’s rotating council presidency, announced that he was forwarding the Palestinians’ request to the committee on new admissions, which includes all 15 member states on the council.

The step is required by council rules of procedure.

The committee will meet to consider the request for membership on Friday.

Palestinian U.N. envoy Riyad Mansour thanked the council for quickly and unanimously agreeing to act on the Palestinian application.

“We hope this process not to take too long before we see positive action,” he told reporters.

The process could take weeks before it comes to a final vote in the council, where the United States has vowed to veto the measure should it receive the necessary nine of 15 council votes in favor of membership for Palestine.

Mansour did not address U.S. opposition, but said instead: “As you see, the process is moving forward step by step and we hope that the Security council will shoulder its responsibility and approve our application.”

Israel joins the United States in opposing the Palestinians unilateral declaration of statehood and bid for U.N. membership and its ambassador to the world body restated that position Wednesday.

“I would like to emphasize that a viable Palestinian state will not be achieved by imposing things from the outside, only through direct negotiations.” Ambassador Ron Prosor told reporters: “That’s the only way we are going to move forward to a substantial peace by both sides,”

The United States along with its partners in the Quartet of Mideast peacemakers — the U.N., the European Union and Russia — have called for the Israelis and Palestinians to return to negotiations and reach agreement by the end of next year. Success in the talks and a final agreement in long-stalled talks would erase any opposition to Palestinian membership.

But the Palestinians have indicated the Quartet’s latest plan for negotiations was not sufficient because it does not specify two preconditions: Israel acceptance of borders that existed before the 1967 War and that Israel to stop building Jewish settlements in the lands the Palestinians claim for their state.

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Istanbul (CNN) — Turkey’s prime minister said the country would follow aid ships to Gaza, in an effort to stop incidents like last year’s raid by Israeli commandos that killed eight Turks and one Turkish-American.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Al Jazeera television network Thursday that “Turkish warships are primarily responsible to protect our ships that carry humanitarian aid to Gaza. From now on, we will not allow these ships to be subjected to attacks from Israel similar to what happened with the Freedom Flotilla … Israel will be answered appropriately.”

The tough talk from Erdogan comes during an escalation of tensions between Israel and Turkey.

On Wednesday, Israeli officials said Turkey had expelled three Israeli diplomats from the Israeli Embassy in Ankara.

A day earlier, Erdogan compared Ankara’s once-close ally in the Middle East to a “spoiled boy” and announced additional sanctions would soon be imposed, according to the semi-official Anatolian agency.

The Israeli government has not yet commented publicly on the remarks made by Erdogan to Al Jazeera.

But Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported Friday that Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman was drawing up a series of tough measures against Turkey in response to its moves.

Israeli government officials told CNN that lots of ideas on a possible Israeli response were being discussed but that nothing definite had been decided on.

Speaking Wednesday at a naval academy event, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took a conciliatory tone, saying the recent increase in tensions with Turkey “was not our choice then, and it is not our choice now.”

But, he added, Israel had the right to defend its coast and to prevent smugglers and flotillas reaching the Gaza Strip.

Turkey declared last week it was downgrading relations with Israel, suspending all military agreements between the two countries and giving senior Israeli diplomats less than a week to leave Turkish territory.

Erdogan’s government is incensed that Israel refuses to apologize or pay compensation for the eight Turks and one Turkish-American killed in May last year.

The humanitarian workers and activists were shot dead by Israeli commandos in a botched raid on an aid convoy that was trying to break Israel’s sea blockade of Gaza. The blockade was imposed, according to the Israeli military, to prevent the smuggling of weapons to the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave.

A United Nations investigation into the violent maritime event released a week ago found that the Israeli blockade of Gaza was a “legitimate security measure” in compliance with international law, but it said that Israel had used “excessive and unreasonable” force in the takeover of the ship.

Israel insists that its soldiers acted in self-defense after being assaulted by the Turkish activists.

Turkey and Israel have been negotiating for months in an attempt to improve their faltering relationship, but those efforts have failed. The release of the U.N. report was delayed while those negotiations continued.

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JERUSALEM (AP) — Rising tensions with some of its closest and most important allies have left Israel increasingly isolated ahead of a momentous vote on Palestinian independence at the United Nations.

Troubles with Turkey, Egypt and even the U.S. are adding to Israel’s headaches ahead of the vote, which is shaping up to be a global expression of discontent against the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Palestinians plan to ask the United Nations this month to recognize their independence in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem — areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war — probably by embracing them as a “nonmember observer state.” The measure is expected to pass overwhelmingly in the U.N. General Assembly.

The assembly’s decisions are not legally binding, so the vote will be largely symbolic. But the Palestinians hope the measure will increase the already considerable pressure on Israel to withdraw from occupied territories, and add leverage should peace talks resume. The Palestinians refuse to negotiate while Israel continues to expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

Ghassan Khatib, a spokesman for the Palestinian government in the West Bank, said Israeli isolation is playing right into Palestinian hands. “We are seeing that result in increased support for us in the United Nations,” he said.

On Wednesday, China announced it would support the Palestinian bid. And a French Mideast envoy, Valerie Hoffenberg, said she had been fired after publicly arguing against the Palestinian initiative. France has not publicly said how it will vote, but her comments signaled that the government favors the Palestinians.

The vote is seen by many not only as a message of sympathy with the Palestinians, but also a barometer of discontent with Israel’s settlement policies. Some 500,000 Israelis now live in territories claimed by the Palestinians.

“There’s no question that had Israel been seen as a country doing its utmost to promote peace, no such vote would be taking place,” said Yossi Beilin, Israel’s former deputy foreign minister.

Beilin cited Netanyahu’s refusal to extend a freeze on new settlement construction a year ago as the “mother of all sins” that put him at odds with the international community. The decision, made over the very public objections of President Barack Obama, caused a brief round of peace talks to collapse.

Since then, relations with Obama have been further strained. In May, Netanyahu paid a tense visit to Washington, where he objected before cameras to Obama’s call that the 1967 boundaries be the basis of a future agreement with the Palestinians. American officials privately express deep frustration with Netanyahu.

Even so, Washington has been trying to pressure the Palestinians to give up the U.N. bid, saying peace can only be achieved through negotiations.

Closer to home, Israel has watched Egypt, perhaps its most critical regional ally, cool relations since the ouster of longtime President Hosni Mubarak in February. Mubarak was seen by many of his people as too sympathetic to Israel, negotiating an unpopular deal to supply it with natural gas, for example.

Israel-Egypt relations took a hit last month when five Egyptian police were killed during a firefight between Israeli forces and fleeing militants. Egypt was outraged, and mass demonstrations against Israel erupted in Cairo. Israel later apologized. But there have been calls in Egypt to cancel the 30-year-old peace agreement with Israel — which is an absolutely critical element of Israel’s regional strategy.

Another key regional ally, Turkey, has greatly curbed diplomatic and trade ties with Israel following Israel’s deadly raid on a protest flotilla that tried to breach the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip last year. Nine Turks, one of them an American citizen, were killed in clashes with Israeli naval commandos.

Israeli officials have tried to play down the tensions, saying that Israel has long faced hostility on the diplomatic stage. They also say that Israel has enjoyed some key victories recently, such as last week’s U.N. report on the flotilla incident that defended its blockade of Gaza. Yet one official acknowledged the “new challenges” are a source of concern. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing sensitive internal discussions.

Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the U.N. who is close to Netanyahu, said it is “a mistake to judge Israel’s international standing by recent events.”

He said Turkey’s animosity toward Israel is part of a broader shift by the country’s Islamist government that “is troubling not just for the Jewish state but for many of Turkey’s neighbors.”

And any anti-Israel resolution at the U.N. passes automatically, thanks to the dominance by developing nations that are sympathetic to the Palestinians, he said. “It’s conventional wisdom that if there was a resolution whose first clause was anti-Israel and whose second clause was that the earth was flat, it would pass,” Gold said.

Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni, however, accused Netanyahu of weakening the nation’s interests. “Israel’s isolation is affecting its security and its economy,” she told a conference Wednesday.

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ISTANBUL—Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday that his country was suspending defense trade with Israel completely and that Turkish naval vessels would be seen in the Eastern Mediterranean more often, as Ankara ratcheted up pressure in a rising dispute with its former ally.

Speaking to reporters in Ankara after giving a speech at the Ankara Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Erdogan repeated plans announced Friday to downgrade diplomatic relations with the Jewish state and suspend military agreements, specifying that the suspension of would include trade in defense goods.

“Trade relations, military relations, defense industry—these we will suspend. These will be completely frozen and that process will be followed also by very different sanctions,” Mr. Erdogan said. Those measures still to come would be a “Plan C” to the “Plan B” already announced, he said.

So far, Turkey has announced no general trade sanctions against Israel. A spokesman for Mr. Erdogan said the prime minister had been referring in his remarks only to trade in defense goods, and not to trade in general. On Monday, Turkey’s economy minister had said there would be no broader trade sanctions “for now.”

Turkey and Israel did just under $3.5 billion worth of trade in 2010, according to official Turkish figures, and trade was up by a quarter in the first six months of this year.

Responding to a question asking whether reports that Turkey would begin patrolling waters off Israel and whether that risked conflict, Mr. Erdogan said that Turkey had a right to do so. “The eastern Mediterranean is not a foreign place to us … Of course our vessels will be seen from now on very often in these waters. We will see [them] very often,” he said.

He also confirmed that he would be traveling to Egypt soon, and that he “might” also visit Gaza, if that could be arranged.

Turkey has said it is acting over Israel’s continued refusal to apologize for the killing by Israeli commandoes of eight Turish citizens and one American of Turkish extraction on board the Mavi Marmara aid ship as it sought to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza strip last May.

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Turkey expelled Israel’s ambassador to Ankara on Friday and suspended all military agreements after details emerged of a United Nations report into last year’s deadly Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound Turkish ship.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Friday his government is reducing its diplomatic presence in Israel to the level of second secretary. The decision comes a day after The New York Times leaked the long-awaited U.N. report online.

According to the posted version, a U.N. panel concluded that Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip is legal, but that the Israeli government used “excessive and unreasonable” force in stopping the Turkish ship attempting to break the blockade.

The report criticized the loss of life resulting from the Israeli raid as “unacceptable.” It said Israel has not provided a “satisfactory explanation” for the killings of the nine Turks, most of whom it says were “shot multiple times, including in the back, or at close range.”

However, the panel also found that the Israeli commandos who boarded the Turkish ship used force to protect themselves in response to what it called “significant, organized and violent resistance” from some of the passengers.

Israeli officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity pending the report’s release, praised it for reportedly finding that Israel’s actions did not violate international law. But one Israeli official speaking to the French news agency said they also would voice “specific reservations” about the findings.

The ship, called the Mavi Marmara, was the largest of six vessels in a Gaza-bound flotilla carrying humanitarian aid for Palestinians. The panel said the flotilla organizers “acted recklessly” by trying to breach the Israeli blockade. It also accused Israel of “significant mistreatment” of flotilla passengers after Israeli forces commandeered the vessels Mediterranean waters off the Israeli coast.

The report’s lead authors are former New Zealand Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer and former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. The four-member panel also included representatives of the Israeli and Turkish governments.

A U.N. deputy spokesman said Thursday he expected the report to be officially released in the “next few days.” The world body had no immediate comment on the leak.

The report was completed in July but U.N. officials repeatedly have delayed its release to give Israel and Turkey an opportunity to resolve their dispute about the Mavi Marmara incident, which has severely strained relations between the one-time allies.

Turkey has long demanded an Israeli apology for the raid, compensation for the families of those who died, and a scrapping of the blockade. Israel refuses to apologize but has not ruled out expressing regret and offering compensation.

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President Barack Obama’s speech Thursday about the Middle East, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s impending visit and Special Envoy George Mitchell’s recent resignation, makes this a unique moment for Washington to set a new Mideast policy direction focused on one goal: a borders agreement.

Rather than view the U.N. General Assembly meeting in September as a threat to derail Middle East peace, Obama could use the opportunity to move both sides forward and promote a return to negotiations on the border before the U.N. vote.

Even as more than 140 nations at the U.N. stand ready to recognize a Palestinian state, Palestinian leaders still indicate the Palestine Liberation Organization’s preference of talking with Israel. But after a prolonged stalemate, each side is reluctant to break away from its deeply entrenched, public position.

While the momentum toward recognition is strong, Washington can capitalize on the historic opportunity offered by the Israelis and Palestinians current vulnerabilities by developing a plan for Israel to applaud Palestine’s recognition rather than be threatened by it.

The road to peace begins with clearly defined borders.

For the Jewish state, this agreement could stem the increasing isolation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. It would enable systematic negotiations to begin with settlers living in areas due to become part of Palestine, while construction in areas expected to remain part of Israel could continue. This also allows the Israelis to sustain the status quo on key issues like security.

The approach could also establish a context for greater Israeli-Palestinian economic cooperation, consistent with Netanyahu’s vision of an “economic peace first.”

However, the alternative – a U.N. vote in favor of a Palestinian state which the U.S. and Israel oppose – could unleash what Defense Minister Ehud Barak described as a “diplomatic tsunami,” engulfing Israel in de-legitimizing campaigns and international legal battles against Israel’s “occupation” of a newly sovereign nation.

“Palestine’s admission to the United Nations,” PA President Mahmoud Abbas wrote Tuesday in a New York Times op-ed article, “would pave the way for the internationalization of the conflict as a legal matter.”

An agreement on borders can be built on the prior negotiations. Talks between former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Abbas, as well as initiatives like the Clinton Parameters, outline the basic contours of a negotiated borders agreement. Earlier talks have also worked out the principles of a land swap and the size of withdrawal. While final-status issues like the compensation and settlement of Palestinian refugees and Jerusalem still require detailed negotiations, a border agreement could provide momentum for achieving arrangements on all issues.

For the Palestinians, a border agreement allows their considerable investments in state-building and diplomatic initiatives to gain international recognition, paying dividends to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian’s recognize that without Israel’s consent, the U.N. vote will do little to change the reality of life under occupation.

Without negotiations proving that a diplomatic solution can be found, the PA’s credibility could be undermined, and the threat of violence increased. Recent leaks of the Palestinian Papers illustrate the lack of readiness among the Palestinians to compromise on the big issues that require gradual introduction to finalize an agreement.

But, by recognizing external borders first, the Palestinian leadership can have time to prepare its people. This also offers an opportunity to deal with political realties — including the maturation of the Hamas-Fatah unity government and preparations for future elections.

Considering the current turmoil in the Arab world, working together to achieve any agreement could be viewed as a victory. It may remind the international community of the relevance of the current leadership in the Middle East. The governments of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt — all now confronting tremendous domestic pressure — will directly benefit if such a milestone can be achieved as a result of their support.

For the U.S., a border agreement and recognition of Palestinian statehood would enable Obama to fulfill the remarks he made at the U.N. last September, when he promised, “When we come back here next year, we can have an agreement that will lead to a new member of the United Nations — an independent, sovereign state of Palestine, living in peace with Israel.”

With a borders’ agreement, Obama could achieve this goal without raising expectations that a full agreement can be reached before the U.N. vote. It would also reverse the administration’s failures to make progress in the peace-process. Alternatively, a U.N. vote for statehood against U.S. wishes would enforce the view that U.S. influence in the region is waning.

By welcoming the state of Palestine, the Obama administration avoids clashing with European allies, the Arab League, international organizations and American Jewish domestic constituencies — all of whom may protest U.S. prevention, opposition or support for the creation of the state. The administration can also begin to restore its position as the “indispensible nation” and rebuild its international credibility — as Obama said he would. Obama can use the successful commando raid on Osama bin Laden in Pakistan as the political capital he needs to execute this plan.

Political analysts have long recommended a borders-first approach. But now with recognition of a Palestinian state looming, the U.S. and Israel must embrace it. Each understands that without the support of the other, any renewed initiative will not succeed.

Obama must take the lead, by proposing a borders-first approach and pledging to join in recognizing the State of Palestine, should the effort begin in good faith. Then, Netanyahu can follow the president and offer negotiations that lead to a Palestinian state — and a lasting two-state solution.

The question is not if a Palestinian state will exist, but if the U.S. can help Israel be the first to recognize it.

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