SECRET NETWORK HELPED DEFECTOR By NILES LATHEM

March 9, 2007 -- WASHINGTON - A well-organized Iranian dissident group helped arrange the defection of Iran's former deputy defense minister in Turkey last month, and experts say more defectors are on the way as opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad increases within Iran. The dissident group, which was not named for security reasons, helped in the planning of Gen. Ali Reza Asghari's Feb. 7 disappearance at a hotel in Istanbul days after his wife and other family members left Iran for a purported vacation, sources said. The group is currently negotiating with Western intelligence agencies from a hideout somewhere in Europe for a permanent place of exile, sources said. The United States and Israel, fingered by Iran's police chief as Asghari's kidnappers, have issued carefully worded denials that their governments were involved. Tehran regards Asghari's defection as a disaster. "This is just the tip of the iceberg," said Walid Phares, an expert in Iranian-backed Shiite terrorism. "Opposition to Ahmadinejad is growing inside Iran."