Pakistani Intel sources and Iranian parliament claims CIA aiding anti-Iranian militants
Steve Watson Infowars.net Friday, April 6, 2007
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 according to Pakistani Intelligence and Iranian officials.
The United States is putting pressure on Iran by supporting anti-Iranian militants operating from the Pakistani border region, the speaker of Iran's parliament, Gholamali Haddadadel, said on Thursday, as reported by Reuters news agency.
"There is no doubt in our minds that the United States spares no effort to put pressure on the Islamic Republic of Iran," Haddadadel said.
"The best indication of United States' support to a particular terrorist group is that one of the leaders of this terrorist group was given the opportunity to speak on VoA after committing the crime," Haddadadel said without specifying which crime he was referring to.
It is possible Haddadadel was referring to the February 2007 bombing attack on Zaheden, which lies in the southeastern Iranian province of Sistan-Baluchestan, bordering on both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Following this attack, which killed 18 Iranian soldiers, Brigadier General Mohammad Ghafari "renewed Iranian accusations that the Jundullah group was receiving support from British and US forces in neighboring Afghanistan for its campaign of violence in Sistan-Baluchestan," David Eshel wrote in the March 2007 Defense Update.
Following the arrest of some key members linked with the Jundallah group Ghafari asserted that "A video seized from the rebels confirms their attachment to opposition groups and some countries' intelligence services such as America and Britain."
It was then reported that explosive devices and arsenals used in the attack came from the United States.
Haddadadel's claims are backed up by an ABC News investigative report this week that cites Pakistani intelligence sources.
ABC's Brian Ross states:
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.
ABC cited Pakistani government sources as saying the secret campaign against Iran was on the agenda when U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney met Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in February.
One interesting aspect of this is that, according to the Asia Times, the Jundullah group was formerly allegedly headed by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the so called al-Qaeda operational commander of the 9/11 attacks.
Wikipedia entry:
Jundullah (Army of God) is a militant Islamic organization that is based in Waziristan, Pakistan and affiliated with Al-Qaeda. It is a part of the Baloch insurgency in Pakistan and in Iran's Sistan and Baluchistan Province. The goal of the group is to form an independent and united Baluchistan under a hardline Sunni Islamist government similar to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Though Baloch-dominated, the group claims to represent all Sunnis in Iran, regardless of ethnicity. Iran and Pakistan have designated it a terrorist organization and banned it. The militant Sunni group operates inside Iran's southeastern border. The group poses a threat to the country's Shi'ite clerical regime, which already faces a crisis with the West over its nuclear ambitions. The Iranian government has accused the United States of supporting the Sunni group as a destabilizing element against Ahmadinejad's regime. The Jundallah deny any link with the United States.
The group was supposedly an anti-Western terrorist group, which means that if Pakistani and Iranian intel is to be believed, at some point the group has been co-opted by Western intelligence. Is the CIA knowingly aiding an Al Qaeda affiliated group in order to pressure the Iranian regime?
The CIA and the government have a history of using proxy armies, funded by other countries to destabilize foreign governments. Nicaragua in the 1980s is one such example, as is the funding of anti-Castro militants in Cuba.
In 1953 such tactics were successful when the CIA and MI6 removed the democratically elected nationalist cabinet of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh from power by working with Qashqai tribal leaders in southern Iran to establish a clandestine safe haven from which U.S.-funded guerrillas and intelligence agents could operate.This is not the only anti-Iranian terror group that US government has been accused of funding in an attempt to pressure the Iranian government.
Multiple credible individuals including US intelligence whistleblowers and former military personnel have asserted that the government is conducting covert military operations inside Iran using guerilla groups to carry out attacks on Iranian Revolution Guard units.
It is widely suspected that the well known right-wing terrorist organization known as Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), once run by Saddam Hussein's dreaded intelligence services, is now working exclusively for the CIA's Directorate of Operations and carrying out remote bombings in Iran of the sort that the Bush administration condemns on a daily basis inside Iraq.
Just last month after a bombing inside Iran, the London Telegraph also reported on how a high ranking CIA official has blown the whistle on the fact that America is secretly funding terrorist groups in Iran in an attempt to pile pressure on the Islamic regime to give up its nuclear programme.
The British government has hinted that yesterday's attack in Basra that killed four British soldiers was carried out by militants with ties to the Iranian government. Meanwhile the fifteen British sailors, released yesterday by Iran, have admitted that they were engaged in intelligence gathering on Iranian activity.
The evidence suggests that The US and Britain are fully engaged in a covert war with Iran that has spilled over the border into Iraq, sowing more chaos and endangering the lives of more US and British troops, the vast majority of whom have no knowledge of such activity.
