Hezbollah’s London Bomb-Making Plot, the Iran Nuclear Deal and Bruce Ohr

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News Analysis

Terrorists linked to Iranian-backed Hezbollah were stockpiling bomb-making ingredients, including three tons of ammonium nitrate, in London in 2015 in what was described as a “secret British bomb factory,” the Daily Telegraph reported on June 10, 2019. The 2015 case was kept “hidden from the public” until now.

The discovery of the explosive cache back in 2015, and the subsequent decision to keep that information from the public, occurred during a period of intense public debate over the nuclear deal between the Obama administration and Iran.

The Iran Nuclear Deal

On July 14, 2015, the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany reached an agreement with Iran broadly known as the Iran Nuclear deal. The agreement, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, lifted economic sanctions and allowed Iran to access an estimated $120 billion in reserves held in banks abroad.

Obama hailed the deal, claiming that, “Every pathway to a nuclear weapon is cut off.” He also said he welcomed close inspection of the deal, saying “I welcome scrutiny of the details of this agreement.” But at the same time, he warned Congress that he would veto any legislation that tried to prevent the deal’s implementation.

Although July 14, 2015,  is generally viewed as the deal’s effective date, the agreement would not actually be finalized until Jan. 21, 2016, when Obama signed Executive Order 13716 into effect.

It was during this intervening period that Obama and his administration worked to sell the deal to members of Congress and U.S. allies in the Middle East and Europe.

Notably, Obama never submitted the Iran nuclear deal to Congress because he knew it had no chance of passing. The Iranian parliament also never approved the actual deal nor did the Iranian president ever sign it.

The Obama State Department acknowledged that the deal was not legally binding in a letter sent to then-Rep. Mike Pompeo of the House Intelligence Committee. “The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is not a treaty or an executive agreement, and is not a signed document,” wrote Julia Frifield, the State Department assistant secretary for legislative affairs, in the Nov. 19 letter.

“The success of the JCPOA will depend not on whether it is legally binding or signed, but rather on the extensive verification measures we have put in place, as well as Iran’s understanding that we have the capacity to re-impose—and ramp up—our sanctions if Iran does not meet its commitments,” Frifield wrote to Pompeo.

2015 London Bomb-Making Plot

The political shakiness of the Iran nuclear deal combined with ongoing scrutiny of its various flaws makes today’s news of the fall 2015 discovery of a huge cache of ammonium nitrate—a common ingredient in homemade bombs—particularly noteworthy.

“Terrorists linked to Iran were caught stockpiling tons of explosive materials on the outskirts of London in a secret British bomb factory,” The Daily Telegraph reported. “Radicals linked to Hizbollah (also Hezbollah), the Lebanese militant group, stashed thousands of disposable ice packs containing ammonium nitrate—a common ingredient in homemade bombs.

“The plot was uncovered by MI5 and the Met Police just months after the UK signed up to the Iran nuclear deal.”

According to the Telegraph, the plot, which was uncovered in “the autumn of 2015,” involved over three tons of ammonium nitrate. By way of comparison, the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 that killed 168 people involved two tons of ANFO—a combination of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil. The Telegraph reported that, “A well-placed source described the plot as ‘proper organized terrorism,’ while another said enough explosive materials were stored to do ‘a lot of damage.’”

The discovery was considered so serious that both “David Cameron and Theresa May, then the prime minister and home secretary, were personally briefed on what had been found.” more here