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The National Security News Service has confirmed that Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent and private investigator, is being detained in Tehran after being arrested on March 8 by Iranian intelligence agents on the Island of Kish. NSNS sources say that Levinson, 59, is in good condition and being held by the Iranian government.

The Iranians hope to trade Levinson for a former defense minister they believe the CIA kidnapped in Turkey earlier this year, according to CIA sources. The CIA denies any involvement in the disappearance of the former defense minister, Ali Reza Asgari, who was a general in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The Iranians claim they have evidence of the abduction by US intelligence.

Why Levinson, who is now based in Florida as a private investigator, went to Iran at a time when the United States and Iran are kidnapping each other’s citizens is a mystery.

What is known is that the only person Levinson met with on Kish Island is an infamous American who became an Islamic terrorist and carried out an assassination for the Iranian government in 1980.

Levinson had been introduced to the exiled American, David Belfield, who has been living in Iran since carrying out a murder of the Shah of Iran’s former spokesman in Bethesda, Maryland. Belfield, now known as Dawud Salahuddin, confessed to NSNS’s Joe Trento in 1995 (for ABC’s “20-20”) that he killed former Iranian spokesman Ali Akbar Tabatabai after being recruited by Iranian intelligence to carry out a Fatwa issued by the Supreme Iranian Revolutionary Council.

Belfield, who also goes by the name of Hassan Abdurahman, came in contact with Levinson through former NBC investigative producer Ira Silverman. Silverman is known to have extensive law enforcement and intelligence connections and has not commented to the media about his role in the case. Why he brought the confessed murderer and the retired FBI agent together has Iranian and American authorities baffled.

Silverman urged Salahuddin to meet with Levinson even though the fugitive American warned that with the US surge in Iraq taking place tensions were too high for such a meeting. “I urged Levinson to hold off the meeting for a while but he could not be convinced to put it off,” Salahuddin said. “I felt as if he was asking for trouble but . . . he insisted on coming ahead. We agreed to a one day intensive meeting. We shared a hotel room on Kish. He flew over from Dubai, which is just across the Gulf.”

Salahuddin added, “Local law enforcement was tipped off that I was an American with an Iranian passport and that is how I think the Iranian national authorities became aware of my meeting with Levinson. After six hours of meeting I was arrested because of what they viewed as a passport discrepancy. I left Levinson in the hotel. I was released the next day but he was arrested. I later learned he was taken to Tehran.”

Silverman’s role in the case and his reluctance to talk to reporters covering the Levinson disappearance has some in the intelligence community concerned that this was an amateurish attempt to recruit Salahuddin into US intelligence.

There may be a hint in a profile Silverman contributed to the New Yorker on Saladhuddin. In a 2002 article, Silverman wrote that Belfield’s capture “would be a triumph for law enforcement.” He then wrote that “from an intelligence perspective” Belfield might be “more useful in place” because of his access to the Iranian establishment. Trento told Silverman there had been other attempts to recruit Salahuddin by US intelligence. “I think such attempts are foolhardy,” Trento said. “He murdered for Islam, and one cannot loose sight of that.” Trento said he “was approached by US intelligence after 9.11 because they wanted to find Salahuddin. I laughed because he had just appeared in the film The Road To Kandahar. I told the agents that all they had to do to find him was buy a movie ticket to find out what he was up to.”

When the late legendary former Washington Detective Carl Shoffler reached out to Joe Trento in April 1995 to travel and meet with Belfield after developing a relationship with Belfield by phone, Trento also cultivated the fugitive. Trento soon learned that Shoffler had something besides journalism in mind by having Trento develop a connection with the terrorist. After arranging to meet Belfield in Moscow in the early summer of 1995 Trento discovered that the FBI was planning to use him to lure Belfield to Moscow where he would be arrested. After that Trento did not inform Shoffler or his friend Silverman of when or where he would meet Belfield. Coincidentally, Trento was supposed to meet Belfield with an ABC crew on Kish Island in October 1995. After spending the night at the Dubai Sheraton, Trento, reporter Tom Jarrel, producer Don Thrasher and the film crew were detained inside the Dubai airport and not permitted on the Kish Air flight (run by Iran). Trento would later learn that the ABC local fixer tipped off the Iranian authorities at the request of the CIA. Trento would learn that Salahuddin was being targeted for recruitment in part because he had warned of a possible Islamic attack during a vist by President Clinton to Bosnia.

In the Fall of 2005, Trento arranged a secret meeting in Istanbul at the Hyatt Hotel with the fugitive. Trentoe then called in the ABC crew, in order to prevent Shoffler from learning the meeting location again. The resulting “20-20” broadcast ran with Belfield’s confession and received considerable international attention.

Last October Trento and his wife Susan authored a book on international airline security which revealed the contents of the No-Fly List. Strangely, Belfield nor any alias he uses appear on the list. “This may be an indication that US intelligence thinks it’s important for Belfield to be able to fly, and it may be another indicator they have plans for him,” Trento said. The Trentos also reported in the book Unsafe At Any Altitude that cigarette smuggling was at the heart of a cover story the CIA used to lure a TWA Beirut hijacker to justice. According to Belfield, Levinson said he was representing American British Tobacco and wanted help in cracking a cigarette smuggling ring. “There seems to be a lot of coincidence,” Trento said.

Salahuddin said he agreed to find out whom Levinson needed to meet with in Iran and to help make arrangements. But Salahuddin was a strange choice as an intermediary since he does not have a close relationship with the very conservative current President of Iran. Salahuddin confirmed that Levinson had used his influence to prevent the former President of Iran from being fingerprinted during his visit to the United States last year. “Levinson did that as a favor and I was trying to return the favor” Salahuddin said.

“Levinson was a target of opportunity” Salahuddin said. “Local police were tipped off that two Americans were meeting at the hotel and that I was using an Iranian passport. Once they had that information I was arrested. When Tehran figured out it was me meeting with Levinson they realized they had somebody important.” Salahuddin said the incident comes out of the feeling in Tehran that the US is out to get Iran.

Salahuddin said that he talked to Levinson’s family in Florida recently in a conference call arranged by Ira Silverman. “They were besides themselves when I spoke to them,” Salahuddin said. “I have since learned from my own sources that Mr. Levinson is safe but in Iranian custody,” The fugitive said that Silverman insisted on not giving him the number to reach the family.

According to the Financial Times, Levinson spent his long career in and out of the FBI focused on counter-narcotics and Russian organized crime. The newspaper said that the “British American Tobacco told the FT it had employed Mr. Levinson through Bishop International security consultancy to take on cigarette smuggling/counterfeiting work in South America.”