Wednesday, October 13, 2021
Haredi cult tries to go to Iran, sparks fears it may be used as bargaining chip
Israel and the US are working to prevent members of an extremist ultra-Orthodox sect from moving to Iran, amid fears they could be used as a bargaining chip by Tehran, it was reported Tuesday.
Members of the Lev Tahor group, which is anti-Zionist, applied for political asylum in Iran in 2018. Documents presented at a US federal court in 2019 showed that leaders of the fringe Hasidic cult requested asylum from Iran and swore allegiance to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
According to the Ynet news site, concerns were building that hundreds of members of the group, mainly based in Guatemala, could be trying to move to Iran after dozens of families were spotted at the airport in Guatemala, apparently on their way to the Kurdistan-Iran border.
The report said that relatives of the Israeli cult members had contacted the Foreign Ministry and Justice Ministry and asked them to urgently contact their Guatemalan counterparts to prevent the families from leaving. Relatives of American members were making similar requests to the US State Department.
"Reaching the Iran-Kurdistan border could cause a mega-political and security event," the relatives reportedly said.
"The Shalit deal will look like child's play next to this," they said, referring to the 2011 prisoner deal with Hamas in which Israel released 1,027 Palestinian terror convicts in exchange for soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been held captive since 2006.
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