The Israeli point man on Iran affairs, Uri Lubrani, has been forced into early retirement amid incessant power struggles between Mossad and the Israeli Defense Ministry.
Senior defense officials told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak decided to shut down Lubrani’s office after coming under excruciating pressure from the notorious Mossad spy agency.
According to the senior officials, who were speaking on condition of anonymity, Mossad spymasters had grown weary of Lubrani’s interference in intelligence affairs and had demanded his dismissal.
The dismissal, which is likely to end the operations of Israeli Radio’s Farsi service, has been met with an angry response in Tel Aviv.
“At a time when Israel is working to stop Iran’s nuclear program it is unfortunate that Lubrani is being forced out,”said an Israeli political heavyweight on condition of anonymity.
“He is one of the country’s foremost experts on Iran and is one of the only people who warned about what was happening in Iran before the nuclear program picked up steam,”he added.
With a career that spans half a century, Lubrani headed the Israeli Mission to Iran before the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979.
One of the Israeli Defense Ministry’s most senior advisors, Lubrani spearheaded a torrent of conspiracies in Iran. He has vocally and actively pursued a regime change in Iran, calling for investment in Iranian terrorist groups such as the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO).
MKO is a Marxist-Islamist guerilla army which was founded in Iran in the 1960s. They were exiled some twenty years later for performing numerous acts of terrorism in the country.
Lubrani’s lay-off comes as Israeli spymasters and Defense Ministry officials are currently mired in a political tug-of-war for power.