Posted by
Gabrielle Cusumano on Wednesday, April 04, 2007 6:44:13 PM
[...]"Arab separatists, accused of being supported by foreign powers, the British in particular, have long claimed that the government is intentionally neglecting development of their native province. The Ahmadinejad disclosure is considered a proof of their allegations.
"Extremist Wahhabis and groups like al-Qaeda definitely play a role in unrest and terrorist attacks in Sunni-populated provinces," a political analyst in Tehran said, asking not to be quoted by name. "In spite of lack of solid evidence, it is quite possible that countries like the US are also keen on enflaming unrest in these areas to weaken the central government.
"Historic ethnic, religious and economic discrimination against the people of these regions also provide the fuel for the foreign flintstone." *
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Iran fires back at the West
By Kimia Sanati
TEHRAN - As a Shi'ite-majority country with several large ethnic groups such as the Kurds, Arabs and Balochs that follow the Sunni faith, Iran has for years been vulnerable to unrest, riots and terrorist attacks that officials routinely attribute to foreign powers.
"Iranian intelligence services have acquired information that shows the United States, Britain and Israel have been behind the unrest in various parts of Iran, including Khuzestan, Kordestan and West Azarbaijan, in the past few years," Mostafa Pour Mohammadi, Iran's intelligence minister, was quoted as saying by the Aftab
News Agency.
A car-bomb attack last month by the separatist Jundullah (also called Popular Iranian Resistance Movement) in the southeastern city of Zahedan, which killed 13 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, triggered clashes between security forces and guerrillas of the PJAK, a separatist Kurdish party, around the city of Khoy in northwestern Iran.
"In the past one and a half years and following air raids on PJAK bases in northern Iraq, clashes with the Iranian military have increased. The clashes used to occur at border points mostly, but the recent encounter was more intense and occurred inside Iranian soil," the Aftab News Agency quoted Abed Fattahi, representative of Oroumiyeh in Parliament, as saying.
A Revolutionary Guard helicopter crashed last Friday 17 kilometers inside the Iranian border, killing its two high-ranking commanders and seven other military staff. The guerrilla group that claimed responsibility has connections with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) that has bases in Turkey and northern Iraq. The same group blew up the Iran-Turkey gas pipeline last September.
Guard statements said technical problems forced the helicopter to make an emergency landing after which it exploded, but in a statement released after the crash, PJAK claimed to have downed the helicopter using SA-7 missiles. Both sides also claimed to have inflicted heavy casualties on the other.
"Enemies, particularly the US, Britain and the Zionist regime [Israel], seek to create insecurity along Iran's southeastern and northwestern borders through their mercenaries," Brigadier-General Rahim Safavi, chief Revolutionary Guard commander, was quoted by Fars news agency as saying. "But the Iranian armed forces are fully prepared to suppress any move by the anti-revolutionaries and alien-affiliated bandits and gangs with maximum power."
In spite of the public hanging of a Jundullah terrorist responsible for the Zahedan bombing only a few days after the incident, calm has not returned to the southeastern region. An attack on law-enforcement forces in Sistan and Balochistan on Tuesday by "armed bandits" left one dead and another wounded, a military commander told Mehr news agency. Four others were transferred back over the border to Pakistan, he said.
Ethnic conflict in Kordestan and in the Kurdish-populated cities of West Azarbaijan province in northwestern Iran date back to the days following the Islamic Revolution of 1978. In July 2005, pictures of the tortured body of a young Kurdish activist shot dead by government agents in Mahabad in northwestern Iran set off riots that quickly spread to other Kurdish cities in Kordestan and Oroumiyeh provinces. But these were quickly suppressed and more than a hundred Kurdish activists arrested.
"Kurds, many of them Sunnis, have been fighting for many years for their civil rights," a Kurdish journalist in Tehran said, asking not to be quoted by name. "Their ways are now becoming more civil-oriented rather than being a continuation of armed encounter with the central government as in the past. PJAK and Komele, both rather small leftist parties, still carry on with armed struggle, something that many other Kurdish rights activists now find irrelevant and useless.
"Freedom of expression and freedom to use our mother language in education are among the demands of the Kurdish people," he said. "There are several million Kurds in this country, but there is not one high-ranking Kurdish government official. It is next to impossible for a Kurd, especially a Sunni Kurd, to rise in rank to high positions.
"And elections are never free. There is a screening procedure, not only for Kurds or other minorities but for all citizens, that serves as a powerful tool to bar the opposition from entering elected bodies like the Parliament or city and village councils."
Shi'ite Azeris, Iran's largest ethnic minority, have their own issues too. Last May, a cartoon allegedly insulting to Azeri speakers that appeared in the official government gazette sparked demonstrations and riots in Tabriz, East Azarbaijan province, that quickly spread to other cities and towns and left several dead.
Khuzestan in southwestern Iran is another problem zone. Home to 2 million Arabs, the province has a huge share of Iran's oilfields. Badly damaged by the war between Iran and Iraq (1980-88), the province is one of the less developed regions of the country, and there have been several incidents of popular riots as well as terrorist bombings by Arab separatist groups in the past two years. The attacks, on oil pipelines and in urban areas, have brought about death and destruction, particularly in Ahwaz, the provincial capital.
"A total of 40 people were jailed in connection with bombings and 22 were sentenced to death," said Emadeddin Baghi, founder of Iran's first death-penalty abolition society. "Some of these men had no role in any of the actual bombing operations but had possessed bombs. One was a minor at the time of his arrest and another man had been in jail two months before the alleged bombing took place," said Baghi, chairman of the Society for Defending Prisoners' Rights.
Of the 22 Arabs sentenced to death for involvement in the Khuzestan bombings, 12 have been hanged, three of them on the day of the bombing in Zahedan.
"Even according to Iranian laws, those who possessed bombs but never used them couldn't be executed," Baghi said. "The men had no access to legal counseling, so we found volunteer lawyers to represent them. The lawyers themselves were then charged with acting against national security and prosecuted. They were acquitted later, but the atmosphere of trepidation took its toll and the lawyers lost their initial impetus. Our lobbying failed, too. We couldn't stop the executions."
On one of his famous nationwide tours, President Mahmud Ahmadinejad disclosed a secret highly guarded until then. There existed a Supreme National Security Council decree in effect for many years, Ahmadinejad told his audience, not to make any major government investments in western and southwestern Khuzestan. The decree had now been annulled, he said.
*Arab separatists, accused of being supported by foreign powers, the British in particular, have long claimed that the government is intentionally neglecting development of their native province. The Ahmadinejad disclosure is considered a proof of their allegations.
"Extremist Wahhabis and groups like al-Qaeda definitely play a role in unrest and terrorist attacks in Sunni-populated provinces," a political analyst in Tehran said, asking not to be quoted by name. "In spite of lack of solid evidence, it is quite possible that countries like the US are also keen on enflaming unrest in these areas to weaken the central government.
"Historic ethnic, religious and economic discrimination against the people of these regions also provide the fuel for the foreign flintstone." *
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From Times Online
March 4, 2007
Gunfire over the Pakistan border rattles Iranian leaders
Ghulam Hasnain in Kulao and Dean Nelson
THE crack of machinegun fire and ribbons of smoke over Kulao, a dusty Pakistan town close to the Iranian border, last week indicated that Wahid Baksh, a rebel commander known as Iran’s most wanted man, had a real war on his hands.
Eight armoured trucks carrying members of Pakistan’s elite AntiTerrorist Force sealed off roads and opened fire on Baksh’s heavily guarded compound moments before he was due to be interviewed by The Sunday Times.
Troops carrying rocket launchers and machineguns fought with Baksh’s guards, captured five of his men and ransacked his home. But Baksh had slipped away and called two hours later on his satellite phone to confirm he was unscathed.
The Pakistanis had moved in because the Iranian government was convinced his group had killed two soldiers and kidnapped four. “Somebody has killed their soldiers and they think I’ve done it. I also got a call from the Iranians and I told them it wasn’t my group,” he said.
Baksh, 47, is the leader of Sipah e Rasool allah (Army of the Prophet), the largest of three armed Iranian dissident groups waging a hidden war against Tehran’s Shi’ite government, which they accuse of persecuting the Sunni minority.
In the past three months the dissidents have stepped up their campaign of bombing, shooting and kidnapping against Iranian troops in Sist-an-Balochistan province, which borders Pakistan. Two weeks ago the insurgents killed 18 revolutionary guards and injured 30 with a car bomb. In December they kidnapped seven Iranian soldiers but later released them, apparently after a ransom had been paid.
The offensive has rattled Iran, already preoccupied with an American military build-up in the Gulf and United Nations sanctions over its uranium enrichment programme.
Tehran fears that the US may be behind the attacks and will use the dissidents in Sistan-Balochistan province as a base for any future incursion.
Last week Major-General Yahya Rahim Safavi, the commander-in-chief of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, accused the US and Israel of funding the rebels. He warned that his troops were “prepared to chase and disband the enemies even beyond Iran’s borders”.
Dissident sources claim American interests are behind a recent increase in funding from Iranian exiles in London and Dubai and calls for rival insurgent groups to combine forces under a moderate leader.
Last month the Iranian authorities executed Nasrullah Shanbe Zehi, an alleged member of the Jundullah Sunni militant group, which claimed responsibility for the car bombing. He was hanged from a crane after he allegedly confessed that he had been trained in Pakistan and that the attacks were part of an American plot to destabilise Iran.
Pakistan responded to Iranian calls for a crackdown on the insurgents with the armed raid on Baksh’s fortified compound.
Ziaur Rehman, an Iranian religious student close to the dissident commanders, says the rebellion was sparked by attacks on Sunni clerics.
Baksh claims that the persecution of Iranian Sunnis is being ignored. “Nobody in the world, including the human rights groups, comes to our aid. We are alone. And we will continue our fight, even if we die because we are righteous,” he said.
“The world should listen to our grievances.” He claimed 200 Iranian Sunnis were hanged as “dissidents” this year, an allegation repeated by several opposition groups.
Tall, burly and heavily bearded, Baksh, 47, commands 70 full-time fighters but can call on reinforcements from up to 2,000 armed Iranian dissidents among 10,000 exiles living on the Pakistan side of the border. He is regarded as a relative moderate yet boasts of his group’s success at kidnapping, and of executions of Iranian soldiers outside his compound.
“We have killed a lot of them,” said Baksh. “We bring them here, interrogate them and bury them.”
Jundullah (Party of God), is a more militant group that has gained a reputation for savagery. Its leaders are said to have been trained by the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan and released a video last year of fighters questioning Iranian soldiers before decapitating them.
Iranian exile sources in Pakistan say Jundullah has recently received a large consignment of weapons and vehicles. “They are getting money from somewhere — we heard that it’s coming from America,” claimed one source.
The US dismisses the allegations and other western sources are sceptical of any official American involvement. But dissidents in the region claimed leading exiles from Iranian commu ities in Britain, Dubai and Norway had made regular visits to the area to deliver funds and to put pressure on the insurgents to unite.
The Iranians have summoned the Pakistani ambassador to register their complaints and closed border posts last week. All Credit to The Times Online
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article1466948.ece_
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At the opposite end of the country, along Iran's border with Afghanistan and Pakistan,
the security forces are also being stretched—by dozens of bandit groups and particularly by the savagery of Abdolmalek Rigi, a young Baluch who kills in cold blood in the name of his vaunted ideals, Sunni Islam and Baluchi nationalism. Iran has 4m-plus Baluchis.
Last winter, Mr Rigi's Jundullah, or Soldiers of God, kidnapped nine Iranian soldiers, one of whom they later killed. In March, they held up a convoy and slaughtered 22 people, including officials in the provincial administration of Sistan and Baluchistan. Last month, a similar raid, for which Mr Rigi did not claim responsibility, killed 12 people.
Mr Rigi, who is given publicity by some Arabic TV stations, denies that he trafficks in any of the Afghan opiates that traverse the region in vast quantities;
his motives, he insists, are political. According to Mr Pourmohammadi, he flees into Pakistani Baluchistan, where President Pervez Musharraf is struggling to put down an insurgency of his own, with impunity.
In the case of Mr Rigi's attacks, and a series of bomb blasts over the past year in the part-Arab province of Khuzestan, which borders southern Iraq, the Iranians at first blamed the British and Americans—without offering proof. Moreover,
the Iranians' lightning response to such atrocities does not suggest painstaking detective work. Not all Iranians were convinced, for instance, by the broadcast confessions of two Arabs later executed for alleged involvement in the blasts in Khuzestan, home to some 2m Arab Iranians. Mr Rigi has appeared on foreign channels to rebut Iranian claims that he has been killed.
Amid daily boasts of captures, deaths and brilliant punitive operations,
Iranian officials never admit the role of chronic unemployment and poverty, not to mention Iran's institutionalised distrust of minorities, in stoking the unrest. In Sanandaj, for instance, university graduates may find themselves choosing between manual labour and a life in the hills with PJAK. “Is it surprising”, the academic asks, “that some choose the latter?” It certainly deters would-be investors. Rio Tinto, an Anglo-Australian mining company, recently said it was withdrawing from a gold-mining project in Kurdistan.
“In these cases of minority unrest,” observes a seasoned diplomat from a country bordering Iran, “you see the effects of America's invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.” Sandwiched between countries in a state of flux, whose own minorities sense an opportunity, Iran's border areas are vulnerable. Crucially, though,
the instability has yet to affect Iran's populous central areas, where Persians are a big majority.In a fractious discussion among Iranian exiles last winter at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-wing think-tank in Washington, it was plain that Iran's mainstream opposition groups are as hostile to minority irredentism as the Islamic Republic is. For all the unrest around its edges, Iran's heartland remains strong, centralised, and unsympathetic to uppity minorities. Iran's nuclear bomb, if it comes, is unlikely to be aimed inwards. posted by DoctorZin @
6/05/2006 10:32:00 PM at
http://regimechangeiran.blogspot.com/2006/06/uppity-minorities.htmlAlso on the same page from The Economist
The Islamic Republic's culture minister is under the cosh for reacting tardily to last month's publication of a cartoon, showing a cockroach speaking Azeri Turkish, which sparked rioting across Iran's Azeri-dominated north-west.
Members of the Majlis, Iran's parliament, have threatened to impeach Mustafa Pourmohammadi, the interior minister, for failing to stem lawlessness in the part-Baluch south-east. Cast an eye over western Iran's troubled Kurdish and Arab regions and you may concur with
Rahim Shahbazi, an Azeri nationalist based in America, who
calls ethnic strife a “nuclear bomb that will blow away the Iranian regime”. READ MORE
Several days of protests by Iranian Azeris peaked on May 25th, when four demonstrators were killed in the part-Azeri town of Naghadeh. Many Azeris, the biggest minority in a country dominated by ethnic Persians, had not been placated by the banning of the government-owned newspaper in which the offending cartoon appeared, nor by the arrest of the cartoonist and an editor. The killings were only fleetingly acknowledged by the authorities. An official account was hastily withdrawn from the newswire where it was posted.
Iran's Azeris, (perhaps 16m-strong in a population of 70m-plus) are mostly Shia Muslim and have not, compared to Sunni minorities, done badly out of the (Shia) Islamic Republic. Though schooling in Azeri is not permitted and the constitution bans private broadcasting in any language, intermarriage with Persians is widespread and Azeris are well represented in Iran's trading and bureaucratic elite. From the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (himself of Azeri origin) downwards, Iranian officials have blamed the recent unrest on foreign “enemies”.
At a time when the American government is looking for Iranian opposition groups to support, many Iranians believe such claims. Some Azeri nationalists in neighbouring Azerbaijan and others in America used the internet, radio and television broadcasts to incite protesters during the unrest. By contrast, neighbouring Turkey, which also casts a protective eye over its cousins in Iran, kept mum.
Turkey's restraint is partly due to shared interests. Kurdish minorities straddle the border. Emboldened by the autonomy now enjoyed by Iraq's Kurds, and dispirited by their own nationalist parties, some Iranian Kurds were thrilled last year when Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of Turkey's Kurdish rebel movement, called for a region-wide confederation. Since then, according to Kurds from Sanandaj, the capital of the Iranian province of Kurdistan, scores of recruits have crossed into Iraq to join the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK), an Iranian' subsidiary of Mr Ocalan's Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Both groups are based in northern Iraq.
Iranian Kurds, especially the Sunni majority, complain that discrimination hurts their promotion chances in the local bureaucracy. In the words of a prominent Iranian Kurdish academic, they “loathe” the state's pro-government Kurdish-language television station. Many Kurds tune in to Roj TV, which carries PJAK propaganda.
The PJAK's popularity has gone up since a Kurdish criminal suspect died at the hands of Iran's security forces last summer, causing much rioting. A Kurdish group says the security forces killed ten demonstrators in a single incident in February.
The Turks were unbothered by Iran's bombardment of suspected PJAK positions in Iraq last month. The Iranians have handed over captured PKK fighters to the Turks, and both countries recently massed troops near the border where Turkey, Iran and Iraq all meet. No government thinks it can seal these mountain border areas, a paradise for smugglers. But the Turks and Iranians aim to intimidate the PKK's Kurdish hosts in Iraq and their American overlords into reining in Mr Ocalan's cohorts.
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BUT OF COURSE ABC NEWS CONNECTS ONLY THE US FOR THE ATTACKS IN IRAN
ABC News Exclusive: The Secret War Against Iran
April 03, 2007 5:25 PM
Brian Ross and Christopher Isham Report:
A Pakistani tribal militant group responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005, U.S. and Pakistani intelligence sources tell ABC News.
The group, called Jundullah, is made up of members of the Baluchi tribe and operates out of the Baluchistan province in Pakistan, just across the border from Iran.
It has taken responsibility for the deaths and kidnappings of more than a dozen Iranian soldiers and officials.
U.S. officials say the U.S. relationship with Jundullah is arranged so that the U.S. provides no funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or "finding" as well as congressional oversight.
Tribal sources tell ABC News that money for Jundullah is funneled to its youthful leader, Abd el Malik Regi, through Iranian exiles who have connections with European and Gulf states.
Click Here for Full Blotter Coverage.
Jundullah has produced its own videos showing Iranian soldiers and border guards it says it has captured and brought back to Pakistan.
The leader, Regi, claims to have personally executed some of the Iranians.
"He used to fight with the Taliban. He's part drug smuggler, part Taliban, part Sunni activist," said Alexis Debat, a senior fellow on counterterrorism at the Nixon Center and an ABC News consultant who recently met with Pakistani officials and tribal members.
"Regi is essentially commanding a force of several hundred guerrilla fighters that stage attacks across the border into Iran on Iranian military officers, Iranian intelligence officers, kidnapping them, executing them on camera," Debat said.
Most recently, Jundullah took credit for an attack in February that killed at least 11 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard riding on a bus in the Iranian city of Zahedan.
Last month, Iranian state television broadcast what it said were confessions by those responsible for the bus attack.
They reportedly admitted to being members of Jundullah and said they had been trained for the mission at a secret location in Pakistan.
The Iranian TV broadcast is interspersed with the logo of the CIA, which the broadcast blamed for the plot.
A CIA spokesperson said "the account of alleged CIA action is false" and reiterated that the U.S. provides no funding of the Jundullah group.
Pakistani government sources say the secret campaign against Iran by Jundullah was on the agenda when Vice President Dick Cheney met with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in February.
A senior U.S. government official said groups such as Jundullah have been helpful in tracking al Qaeda figures and that it was appropriate for the U.S. to deal with such groups in that context.
Some former CIA officers say the arrangement is reminiscent of how the U.S. government used proxy armies, funded by other countries including Saudi Arabia, to destabilize the government of Nicaragua in the 1980s.
All Credit ABC News and Brian Ross http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/04/abc_news_exclus.html
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News Busters' Report on ABC Report and News Busters Bloggers Comments
Day After Highlighting Iran's Nuclear Threat, ABC Exposes 'Secret War' to Avert It
Posted by Brent Baker on April 3, 2007 - 19:41.
A night after leading with an “exclusive” about the more imminent than thought horrific threat posed by Iran's nuclear weapons capability, ABC's World News began Tuesday with another Brian Ross “exclusive” in which he exposed a clandestine “secret war” inside Iran, a revelation that seemingly could undermine U.S. efforts to prevent Iran's extremist leaders from using those weapons of mass destruction. “Tonight,” anchor Charles Gibson announced at the top of Monday's World News, “an alarming acceleration of Iran's nuclear program. Iran could have material for a bomb in two years. A Brian Ross exclusive.” Ross soon explained how “in the last three months Iran has more than tripled its ability to produce enriched uranium -- meaning, according to weapons experts, that it could have enough material for a nuclear bomb within two years...”
Jump ahead 24 hours, and Gibson teased Tuesday's World News: “Tonight, a secret war going on inside Iran. Deadly stealth attacks in Iran, being conducted with the knowledge of the U.S. government. Brian Ross investigates.” Ross outlined how “U.S. and Pakistani sources tell ABC News that the U.S. has been secretly advising and encouraging a militant group that has carried out a series of guerrilla raids inside Iran, raids that have led to the deaths or capture of Iranian soldiers and officials. The group operates out of the Baluchistan province of Pakistan, just across the border from Iran.” Naturally, ABC managed to make a connection to Dick Cheney as Ross relayed: “Pakistani sources say the secret campaign against Iran was on the agenda when Vice President Cheney met with Pakistani President Musharaff in February.”
Gibson led the April 3 World News:
“Good evening. We have an exclusive report tonight on efforts to undermine the government of Iran. Efforts undertaken with the knowledge of the U.S. government. Our chief investigative correspondent, Brian Ross, has uncovered a U.S. intelligence connection to a militant group in Pakistan that is conducting raids across that country's border with Iran, raids that in some cases, have been deadly. The purpose of those attacks, to destabilize Iran. Brian is here, tonight, with details. Brian?”
Ross elaborated: “Charlie, U.S. and Pakistani sources tell ABC News that the U.S. has been secretly advising and encouraging a militant group that has carried out a series of guerrilla raids inside Iran, raids that have led to the deaths or capture of Iranian soldiers and officials. The group operates out of the Baluchistan province of Pakistan, just across the border from Iran. The group, made up of Baluchi tribesmen, has produced its own videos showing Iranian soldiers and border guards it says it has captured and brought back to Pakistan. U.S. government sources say the U.S. provides no direct funding of the group. But since 2005, has maintained ties to its youthful leader, this man, Abd el Malik Regi, who claims to have personally executed some of the Iranian captives.”
Alexis Debat, ABC News consultant: “He used to fight with the Taliban. He's part drug smuggler, part Taliban, part Sunni activist.”
Ross: “Alexis Debat, a senior fellow on counter-terrorism at the Nixon Center and an ABC News consultant, says tribal sources told him Regi and his group, called Jundullah, are getting money funneled through Iranian exiles who have connections to European and Gulf state countries.”
Debat: “He is essentially commanding a force of several hundred guerilla fighters that stage attacks across the border into Iran on Iranian military officers, Iranian intelligence officers, kidnaping them, executing them on camera.”
Ross: “Most recently, Jundullah took credit for an attack in February that killed at least eleven members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in the city of Zehedan. Last month, Iranian state television broadcast what it said were confessions by those responsible for that bus attack. They reportedly admitted to being members of Jundullah and said they had been trained for the mission at a secret location in Pakistan.”
Debat: “This absolutely could not happen without the approval at the most senior level of the Pakistani government.”
Ross: “In fact, Pakistani sources say the secret campaign against Iran was on the agenda when Vice President Cheney met with Pakistani President Musharaff in February. The only relationship with the group that the U.S. intelligence will admit to for the record, is seeking its help in tracking al Qaeda figures in that part of Pakistan. Other than that, U.S. officials say only they do not provide direct funding to the group to attack Iran. Charlie.”
Gibson, at anchor desk with Ross: “But, Brian, could a small group like this actually have an effect in destabilizing the Iranian government?”
Ross: “There is a belief by U.S. officials, that this minority group, plus four or five other minority groups, if stirred up, could in fact destabilize and upset the Tehran central government, leading to a destabilization.”
Gibson: “All right. Our chief investigative correspondent, Brian Ross. Brian will have more of his report later on Nightline."
The
April 2 posting of the Ross story on ABC News' “The Blotter” blog, “Exclusive: Iran Nuclear Bomb Could Be Possible by 2009,” by Brian Ross and Christopher Isham.
The April 3 “The Blotter” posting of the Ross story, “ABC News Exclusive: The Secret War Against Iran,” by Brian Ross and Christopher Isham.
Brent Baker's blog | login or register to post comments
Categories: Brian Ross | Charles Gibson | Iran | World News
Yet Jundullah suspected behind US consulate attack
KARACHI: Investigators suspect the Islamic militant group Jundullah (Allah’s Brigade) carried out the suicide car bombing that killed a US diplomat and three other people in Karachi, an official said on Saturday.
No group claimed responsibility for the bombing Thursday that some officials believed was timed for the eve of US President George W Bush’s visit to Pakistan.
Investigators believe the bombing’s sophisticated planning seemed to point to Jundullah, also blamed for attacks on other US and Christian targets, said a police investigator, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Guards tried to stop the bomber’s car at a checkpoint, but the attacker sped off and rammed into the diplomat’s SUV, killing the envoy and his Pakistani driver. A guard and woman nearby also died, and 52 people were injured.
The official said that the attack’s planners were sophisticated enough to know that they couldn’t use an old car, commonly used in such bombings, because it would arouse suspicion in the upscale neighborhood, the official said.
The bomber was driving a 2004 Toyota Corolla, reported stolen in May 2005 in Lahore, about 1,300 kilometres northeast of Karachi, the official said. Jundullah was accused in a 2004 attack on an army general, who survived, in Karachi, and 11 members of the group were sentenced to death last month in the assassination attempt.
Jundullah has also been suspected of attacks on the US Consulate, a Christian Bible studies group, a peace concert by an Indian singer and a police station. AP March 5, 2006
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006%5C03%5C05%5Cstory_5-3-2006_pg7_3
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The dismantling process
Four years after the catastrophic invasion of Iraq, Bush shows no sign of calling off his two-year campaign to destabilise Iran.
During the build-up to the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in 2003, Colin Powell, United States secretary of state, reportedly told President Bush: "If you break it, you own it." He was referring to the multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian Iraq.
Four years after the catastrophic invasion of Iraq, the wisdom of Powell's aphorism contrasts sharply with the pathetic inability of the Bush White House to make the Shias, Sunnis and Kurds of Iraq work together in harmony.
But instead of learning from the debacle of Iraq, and desisting from destabilising another country in a volatile region, the Bush administration shows no sign of calling off its two-year old clandestine campaign to destabilise Iran.
Revelations in the New Yorker and the Washington Post in January-February 2005 showed that the Pentagon had been flying drones over Iran since April 2004 for espionage. This had come about after the spying network established by the Central Intelligence Agency in Iran had been exposed and eliminated, according to James Risen, the New York Times reporter on national security, in his book State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration.
Briefed by their experts on Iran, the American policy makers became aware that Iran is also multi-ethnic and multi-sectarian. So they saw an opportunity to weaken the Tehran government by funding and arming ethnic minorities on the ground that the regime's primary support comes from ethnic Persians.
According to the CIA, relying on figures supplied by Iranian exiles, Persians are only 50% of the population. So, if the ethnic minorities can be roused to rebel against the central authority, the theocratic regime will be endangered.
These figures are flawed, and the strategy based on them is dangerously misconceived.
The ethnic composition of Iran is Persians, 65%; Azeris, 20%; Kurds 7%, Arabs 3%; Baluchis, 2%; Turkmen, 2.5%; and Armenian, 0.5%.
Creating disaffection among Azeris is a non-starter. Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei is an Azeri speaker. An Azeri insurgency cannot take off without the active cooperation of Azerbaijan. There is no sign that the government in Baku wants to be part of this destabilising plan.
In any case, the bond of Shia Islam that Azeris and Persians share is much stronger than any differences arising from the different languages the two communities speak.
It is that segment of the Iranian population that follows Sunni Islam which provides a realistic chance of engaging in insurgency. Among them the predominantly Sunni, yet secular, Kurds are pre-eminent. Ever since the Islamic revolution in 1979, a section of the Kurdish community concentrated in the area adjoining the Iraqi Kurdistan has been up in arms against the theocratic regime in Tehran.
In recent years the Komala-e Jian Kordestan (Association of Revival of Kurdistan; also known as Kurdistan Free Life party), has emerged as an insurgent group. It is allied with the Kurdistan Workers party of Turkey. Taking refuge in the mountains of the Iraqi Kurdistan, the two factions have been engaged in violent activity against their respective governments.
According to the Turkish sources, cited by the Guardian, the US is funding and indirectly arming the Komala-e Jian Kordestan.
The CIA also seems to be aiding dissident groups - albeit through proxies - in the Iranian province of Baluchistan-Sistan adjoining Pakistan. A faction, called Sipah-e Rasul Allah (Soldiers of God's Messenger), and headed by Wahid Baksh, has been conducting a campaign of bombing, shooting and kidnapping. Baksh claims that Sunnis are being persecuted in Iran.
A more militant faction, named Jundullah (Army of God), has resorted to car bombings and kidnapping and beheading Iranian soldiers.
According to Iranian exile sources in Pakistan, Junduallah recently received a large consignment of arms and vehicles. "They are getting money from somewhere," said one source. "We heard that it's coming from Americans."
Washington denies the allegation. But leading Iranian exile leaders from Dubai and Britain have visited the area regularly to deliver funds - which most likely originate from the CIA.
The ethnic Arab minority, concentrated in the oil-rich province of Khuzistan which shares its border with Iraq, is another community which has tempted the CIA. Acts of violence in the province are attributed to disaffected ethnic Arabs.
Let us suppose the Bush administration's strategy of encouraging armed insurgencies by ethnic minorities succeeds in creating mayhem in Iran. Do its policy makers have a plan to put Humpty Dumpty back together?
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/dilip_hiro/2007/04/riding_tigers.html
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BLA commander among 18 miscreants arrested from Mand
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Thursday March 15, 2007 (0040 PST)
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QUETTA, March 14 (Online): Frontier Corps Balochistan in a crack down against miscreants rounded up eighteen miscreants including central commander of Balochistan Liberation Army on Wednesday after a brief clash in the gas-rich province of Balochistan. Wahid Baksh Qambar is a leader of the banned Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), a shadowy insurgent group fighting for control of the province's gas resources was arrested after skirmishes in Tump area near Mand near the border with Iran, 640 km (400 miles) southwest of the provincial capital, Quetta. Qambar and his men were hiding there and when security forces intercepted they opened fire and after three hours of operation the miscreants surrendered. The arrested miscreants have been identified as Dilip, Faiz Mohammad, Hamid Khan and others. Huge cache of arms and ammunition was also recovered from their possession.
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Shia-Sunni Violence Spreads in Iran
Inter Press Service News Agency
February 20, 2007
Kimia Sanati
A week after alleged Sunni militants blew up a vehicle transporting members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), killing 11 and injuring 18, sectarian tension is reported prevailing in the predominantly Sunni southeast that borders Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The car bomb attack in Zahedan, capital of the southeastern province of Sistan va Baluchistan, was attributed by Iranian officials to the Sunni militant group Jundullah (army of god) that has networks in Pakistan and is fighting to establish a unified, independent Baluchistan. It is regarded as a terrorist organisation by both Iran and Pakistan.
On Monday, Nasrollah Shanbezehi, one of four men captured soon after they set off the car bomb, was hanged at the site of the blast. Nasrollah was earlier shown on local state-run TV channels confessing to the bombing and having crossed over from Pakistan a few days before the attack on the IRGC.
Despite efforts by the Iranian government to contain the spread of religious sectarianism within the country, Jundullah has carried out several terrorist attacks in the province, including the assassination of four policemen earlier this month. It is allegedly responsible for the kidnapping and assassination of a number of clerics and officials and a bloody road massacre in Kerman province last year.
Jundullah, also called 'Popular Iranian Resistance Movement', has accepted responsibility for the attacks. In a press release dated Feb. 14 and posted on the Internet as well as in interviews with radios and satellite TV channels outside Iran, the leader of the group, Abdul Malik Rigi, said the operations were carried out in retaliation for the execution of its members by the Iranian regime.
The self-styled 24-year-old militant from Baluchistan's Rigi tribe goes by the title 'Emir Abdul Malik Baluch,' and professes peaceful methods as long as Tehran follows the same principle. "But in the face of the regime's violent response to peaceful protests, there has remained no other way than to resort to taking up arms,'' the press release said.
Following the attack, a senior security official in Zahedan said the terrorist operation had been directed "from abroad" and that arms and a powerful bomb had been recovered from a hideout raided by the police the night before the car bombing, Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA) reported.
In his short confession, Nasrollah said he had been recruited by Jundullah only three months ago and had undergone two months of training in Pakistan under 'English-speaking' instructors. He said he had been promised a reward of around 1,000 US dollars by the group and that his only motivation was money.
The name of Jundullah, said to be a splinter of Jundullah of Pakistan, first emerged after a hostage-taking incident in the Sistan va Baluchistan province in January 2006 when militants abducted nine members of IRGC. The hostages were allegedly moved to Pakistan.
Footage aired by the Al-Arabiya satellite TV channel later showed the hostages who Jundullah said would be executed unless 16 of their members in Iranian jails were freed.
One of the hostages, an IRGC officer, was later executed by the group and the footage was offered to Al-Arabiya but the channel declined to air it. The others were later released through 'negotiations', with the government denying that it paid any ransom.
In March 2006 members of the group dressed in police uniforms attacked the motorcade of the governor of Zahedan, killing 22 members of his entourage on the spot and abducting 12 more. The governor himself was badly wounded but survived.
Hossein Ali Shahriari, who represents Zahedan in parliament, has accused Western governments of not doing enough to get Pakistan to stop allowing militant groups from operating from its territory. Shahriari accused the United States, Britain and Pakistan of assisting Jundullah to foment sectarian violence in Iran, the Aftab News Agency reported.
But Shahriari also blamed national security agencies of failing to establish security in the lawless province even after the recent attacks and suggested arming the local people and allowing them to participate in law enforcement as counter measure.
Other Iranian officials have also pointed fingers at Pakistan and 'certain' Western countries. "They entered Iran from Pakistan and have carried out their attack with full support from Western powers. They are neither Shia nor Sunni, they are dependents of arrogant powers and are equipped and supported by them," Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) quoted a senior provincial security official as saying.
Sistan va Baluchistan straddles the main drug-trafficking route from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Europe and is among the poorest and most lawless provinces in the country. Many locals resort to drug trafficking and smuggling in order to survive. Malnutrition is at critical level among the natives and the frustrated majority Sunni population is minimally involved in government decisions.
"Frustration will naturally drive desperate locals to groups such as Rigi's as long as poverty, the main problem in the province, remains unsolved. Sectarian discrimination, no doubt, is also another contributing factor but those arrested so far mostly belong to impoverished groups in Baluchistan and have no support among Sunni intellectuals. The Iranian government bears equal responsibility. The IRGC and its militia wing (Basij) practically rule the area," a political analyst in Tehran told IPS, asking not to be identified.
"There is clearly a sectarian war going on in the Islamic world. Iraq was not the starter, but was certainly a catalyst. Scores are now being settled in places other than the main battle field and Iranian Baluchistan is one of them. There were bloody stand-offs between the regime and militant Sunnis as early in the early 1990s when al-Qaeda and Sunni extremists were becoming hugely active in Pakistan and Afghanistan,'' the analyst said. (END/2007)
http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/mideast/iran/4477.html_____________________________________________________________________________________
Reflections on the Iranian hostage conflict and current problems with Iran
by
Hibernianscribe
Kulao, Pakistan close to the Iranian border echoed to the sound of AK47 gunfire and smoke clearly indicating that Wahid Baksh, Iran's most wanted man had a battle on his hands last week. Pakistan's elite anti-terrorist squad sealed off roads and opened fire on Baksh's heaviy guarded compound, overran the defenders and captured 5 of his men and ransacked his home. Baksh (47) is the leader of Sipah e Rasool Allah (Army of the Prophet), the largest of 3 armed Iranian dissident groups waging a hidden war against Iran's Shi'ite Government, which they accuse of persecuting the Sunni minority.
During the last 3 months the Iranian dissidents have bombed and kidnapped Iranian troops in Sisian-Baluchistan province which borders Pakistan.
This offensive worries Iran, presently preoccupied with a U.S. militay build up in the Gulf and U.N. sanctions over its uranium enrichment programme. Teheran fears the U.S. will use the dissidents in Sistan-Baluchistan province as a base for future operations. Last week, Maj.Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, the Commander-in Chief of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps acused the U.S. and Israel of funding the rebels. Certainly, there has been an increase in funding from London and Dubai.
Last month, Iran executed Nasrullah Shanbe Zehi a member of the Jundullah (Party of God) a Sunni militant group, he confessed to car bombings and admitted he was trained in Pakistan. Pakistan responded to Iranian pressure by attacking Baksh's armed compound.
Baksh claims 200 Iranian Sunnis were hanged as dissidents in Iran this year and that his group is entirely alone in opposing Iran. Meanwhile Jundullah a group that has a reputation for savagery has recently acquired a large contingent of weapons and vehicles from Sunni groups based in the U.K., Dubai and Norway.
Is the United States involved?
ALL CREDIT TO Hibernianscribe AT http://www.helium.com/tm/198680/kulao-pakistan-close-iranian