Is the Bush administration behind the bombings in Iran?
Peter Symonds | 17.02.2007 19:06 | Analysis | Anti-militarism | Terror War | World
Two bombings this week in Zahedan in southeastern Iran are the latest in a series of incidents involving armed opposition groups based among the country’s ethnic minorities. The most recent attacks again raise questions about the activities of the US military and CIA inside Iran as the Bush administration intensifies its preparations for war.
Two bombings this week in Zahedan in southeastern Iran are the latest in a series of incidents involving armed opposition groups based among the country’s ethnic minorities. The most recent attacks again raise questions about the activities of the US military and CIA inside Iran as the Bush administration intensifies its preparations for war.
The first blast killed at least 11 members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) who were travelling in a bus from their housing compound to a military base. After forcing the bus to stop, the attackers triggered explosives packed in a car. Another 31 people were injured in the explosion. A further bombing, followed by sustained clashes between police and an armed group, was reported yesterday.
Jundallah, a Sunni extremist group based among Iran’s Baluch minority, claimed responsibility for the Wednesday bombing. Iranian police have already rounded up some 65 people allegedly connected to the organisation, along with explosives and weapons. Zahedan is the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan province, which borders Pakistan and Afghanistan and is home to Iran’s estimated 1-2 million ethnic Baluchis.
According to provincial police chief Brigadier General Mohammad Ghafari: “A video seized from the rebels confirms their attachment to opposition groups and some countries’ intelligence services such as America and Britain.” An unnamed Iranian official told the Islamic Republic News Agency yesterday that one of those arrested had confessed that the attack was part of US plans to provoke unrest in Iran. “This person who was behind the bombing confessed that those who trained them spoke in English,” he said.
The Iranian authorities have provided no definitive proof of US or British involvement with Jundallah. Neither the video nor any further evidence has been released. However, the attack on the IRGC bus took place amid a propaganda campaign being waged by the Bush administration accusing the IRGC’s Quds Force of arming anti-US insurgents in Iraq. President Bush has vowed to break up alleged Iranian networks and authorised the US military to kill or capture Iranian agents.
US officials insist that American forces are targetting Iranian agents inside Iraq, not in Iran itself. No more credibility should be placed in these denials than in US claims that it has no plans for attacking Iran. Over the past year, the Bush administration has boosted its funding for “regime change” in Iran, including support for Iranian opposition groups. Moreover, there are growing signs that Washington is taking an active interest in exploiting unrest among Iran’s numerous ethnic minorities and may be covertly assisting armed groups such as Jundallah.
An article in the latest issue of the Washington Quarterly entitled “Iran’s ethnic tinderbox” noted: “According to exiled Iranian activists reportedly involved in a classified US research project, the US Department of Defense is presently examining the depth and nature of ethnic grievances against the Islamic theocracy. The Pentagon is reportedly especially interested in whether Iran would be prone to a violent fragmentation along the same kinds of fault lines that are splitting Iraq and that helped to tear apart the Soviet Union with the collapse of communism.”
Veteran US journalist Seymour Hersh, who has many contacts in the American intelligence establishment, published several articles in the New Yorker last year pointing to US activities inside Iran. In an article last November entitled “The Next Act: Is a damaged Administration less likely to attack Iran, or more?” he wrote:
“In the past six months, Israel and the United States have also been working together with a Kurdish resistance group known as the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan. The group has been conducting clandestine cross-border forays into Iran, I was told by a government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon civilian leadership, as ‘part of an effort to explore alternative means of applying pressure on Iran.’ The Pentagon has established covert relationships with Kurdish, Azeri and Baluchi tribesmen and has encouraged their efforts to undermine the regime’s authority in northern and southeastern Iran.”
Opposition to Tehran
Various opposition parties and organisations exist among Iran’s ethnic minorities that have legitimate grievances about the anti-democratic methods used not only by the current theocratic Shiite regime, but by the previous US-backed Shah Reza Pahlavi to suppress dissent. Such groups not only point to religious, language and ethnic discrimination, but to economic neglect.
Most Baluchis, for instance, belong to the Sunni Islamic sect—a minority in predominantly Shiite Iran. The province of Sistan-Baluchistan is one of the most economically backward in the country. Large areas are mountainous or desert, and Iranian security forces have fought a long-running war to halt smuggling and drug running across the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan. Unemployment is estimated to be 30-50 percent, which is high even by Iranian standards, and poverty is widespread.
Jundallah is a shadowy organisation formed in 2003 and led by a 23-year-old, Abdulmalak Rigi. Iranian officials allege that it has links with Al Qaeda but have provided no proof. Even if true, such a connection does not preclude the group’s involvement with US intelligence, which was responsible for helping to establish Al Qaeda in the 1980s in its holy war against the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan. Jundallah almost certainly has connections with armed Baluch separatists fighting in Pakistan.
Over the past year, Jundallah has claimed responsibility for a series of attacks on Iranian officials and security forces. In an interview with the British-based Telegraph in January 2006, spokesman Abdul Hameed Reeki boasted that the group had 1,000 trained fighters. While denying any connection with the US or Pakistani governments, he made a definite appeal for Western aid. Jundallah fighters, he declared, had the dedication needed to defeat the Iranian army—particularly if some help were to prove forthcoming from the West.
Reeki’s appeal reflects the venal calculations of sections of the Baluch elite who, like their counterparts among Iran’s Azeri, Kurdish, Arab and other minorities, are considering the potential benefits of aligning themselves with Washington in a military conflict with Iran. US support for such layers has the potential to create an even greater catastrophe than in neighbouring Iraq, where the American-led invasion has triggered an escalating sectarian civil war.
In its comment on Wednesday’s bombing, Stratfor certainly considered “this latest attack against IRGC guards was likely carried out by armed Baluch nationalists who have received a boost in support from Western intelligence agencies.” The think tank, which has close connections to US intelligence and military circles, went on to point to an escalating covert war being waged by the US and Israel to destabilise the Iranian regime.
“The US-Iranian standoff over Iraq has reached a high level of intensity. While the hard-line rhetoric and steps toward negotiations absorb the media’s attention, a covert war being played out between Iran on the one side, and the United States and Israel on the other, will escalate further. While Israel appears to be focused on decapitating Iran’s nuclear program through targeted assassinations, the United States has likely ramped up support for Iran’s variety of oppressed minorities in an attempt to push the Iranian regime towards a negotiated settlement over Iraq,” Stratfor wrote.
Israel’s “targeting assassinations” is a reference to the suspicious death last month of top Iranian nuclear scientist Ardeshir Hassanpour. In an article entitled “Israeli Covert Operations in Iran”, Stratfor noted that while the official announcement—a week after the scientist’s death—claimed Hassanpour died of overexposure to radiation, the details were murky. Citing “Stratfor sources close to Israeli intelligence”, the article declared that “Hassanpour was in fact a Mossad target” and pointed to allegations of Mossad’s involvement in the killing of top Iraqi scientists during the 1980s.
While no proof has surfaced of the direct involvement of American intelligence agencies in the latest bombing in Zahedan, the US is certainly engaged in inflaming ethnic and political opposition inside Iran. Stratfor offers the rather benign interpretation that the purpose of such reckless and illegal activities is simply to press Tehran to reach a negotiated settlement with the US over its list of demands. Even if that were the case, the US military build-up in the Persian Gulf, its propaganda campaign and tightening economic restrictions against Iran—along with its covert activities inside the country—all serve to heighten a conflict that could rapidly spiral out of control.
The first blast killed at least 11 members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) who were travelling in a bus from their housing compound to a military base. After forcing the bus to stop, the attackers triggered explosives packed in a car. Another 31 people were injured in the explosion. A further bombing, followed by sustained clashes between police and an armed group, was reported yesterday.
Jundallah, a Sunni extremist group based among Iran’s Baluch minority, claimed responsibility for the Wednesday bombing. Iranian police have already rounded up some 65 people allegedly connected to the organisation, along with explosives and weapons. Zahedan is the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan province, which borders Pakistan and Afghanistan and is home to Iran’s estimated 1-2 million ethnic Baluchis.
According to provincial police chief Brigadier General Mohammad Ghafari: “A video seized from the rebels confirms their attachment to opposition groups and some countries’ intelligence services such as America and Britain.” An unnamed Iranian official told the Islamic Republic News Agency yesterday that one of those arrested had confessed that the attack was part of US plans to provoke unrest in Iran. “This person who was behind the bombing confessed that those who trained them spoke in English,” he said.
The Iranian authorities have provided no definitive proof of US or British involvement with Jundallah. Neither the video nor any further evidence has been released. However, the attack on the IRGC bus took place amid a propaganda campaign being waged by the Bush administration accusing the IRGC’s Quds Force of arming anti-US insurgents in Iraq. President Bush has vowed to break up alleged Iranian networks and authorised the US military to kill or capture Iranian agents.
US officials insist that American forces are targetting Iranian agents inside Iraq, not in Iran itself. No more credibility should be placed in these denials than in US claims that it has no plans for attacking Iran. Over the past year, the Bush administration has boosted its funding for “regime change” in Iran, including support for Iranian opposition groups. Moreover, there are growing signs that Washington is taking an active interest in exploiting unrest among Iran’s numerous ethnic minorities and may be covertly assisting armed groups such as Jundallah.
An article in the latest issue of the Washington Quarterly entitled “Iran’s ethnic tinderbox” noted: “According to exiled Iranian activists reportedly involved in a classified US research project, the US Department of Defense is presently examining the depth and nature of ethnic grievances against the Islamic theocracy. The Pentagon is reportedly especially interested in whether Iran would be prone to a violent fragmentation along the same kinds of fault lines that are splitting Iraq and that helped to tear apart the Soviet Union with the collapse of communism.”
Veteran US journalist Seymour Hersh, who has many contacts in the American intelligence establishment, published several articles in the New Yorker last year pointing to US activities inside Iran. In an article last November entitled “The Next Act: Is a damaged Administration less likely to attack Iran, or more?” he wrote:
“In the past six months, Israel and the United States have also been working together with a Kurdish resistance group known as the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan. The group has been conducting clandestine cross-border forays into Iran, I was told by a government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon civilian leadership, as ‘part of an effort to explore alternative means of applying pressure on Iran.’ The Pentagon has established covert relationships with Kurdish, Azeri and Baluchi tribesmen and has encouraged their efforts to undermine the regime’s authority in northern and southeastern Iran.”
Opposition to Tehran
Various opposition parties and organisations exist among Iran’s ethnic minorities that have legitimate grievances about the anti-democratic methods used not only by the current theocratic Shiite regime, but by the previous US-backed Shah Reza Pahlavi to suppress dissent. Such groups not only point to religious, language and ethnic discrimination, but to economic neglect.
Most Baluchis, for instance, belong to the Sunni Islamic sect—a minority in predominantly Shiite Iran. The province of Sistan-Baluchistan is one of the most economically backward in the country. Large areas are mountainous or desert, and Iranian security forces have fought a long-running war to halt smuggling and drug running across the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan. Unemployment is estimated to be 30-50 percent, which is high even by Iranian standards, and poverty is widespread.
Jundallah is a shadowy organisation formed in 2003 and led by a 23-year-old, Abdulmalak Rigi. Iranian officials allege that it has links with Al Qaeda but have provided no proof. Even if true, such a connection does not preclude the group’s involvement with US intelligence, which was responsible for helping to establish Al Qaeda in the 1980s in its holy war against the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan. Jundallah almost certainly has connections with armed Baluch separatists fighting in Pakistan.
Over the past year, Jundallah has claimed responsibility for a series of attacks on Iranian officials and security forces. In an interview with the British-based Telegraph in January 2006, spokesman Abdul Hameed Reeki boasted that the group had 1,000 trained fighters. While denying any connection with the US or Pakistani governments, he made a definite appeal for Western aid. Jundallah fighters, he declared, had the dedication needed to defeat the Iranian army—particularly if some help were to prove forthcoming from the West.
Reeki’s appeal reflects the venal calculations of sections of the Baluch elite who, like their counterparts among Iran’s Azeri, Kurdish, Arab and other minorities, are considering the potential benefits of aligning themselves with Washington in a military conflict with Iran. US support for such layers has the potential to create an even greater catastrophe than in neighbouring Iraq, where the American-led invasion has triggered an escalating sectarian civil war.
In its comment on Wednesday’s bombing, Stratfor certainly considered “this latest attack against IRGC guards was likely carried out by armed Baluch nationalists who have received a boost in support from Western intelligence agencies.” The think tank, which has close connections to US intelligence and military circles, went on to point to an escalating covert war being waged by the US and Israel to destabilise the Iranian regime.
“The US-Iranian standoff over Iraq has reached a high level of intensity. While the hard-line rhetoric and steps toward negotiations absorb the media’s attention, a covert war being played out between Iran on the one side, and the United States and Israel on the other, will escalate further. While Israel appears to be focused on decapitating Iran’s nuclear program through targeted assassinations, the United States has likely ramped up support for Iran’s variety of oppressed minorities in an attempt to push the Iranian regime towards a negotiated settlement over Iraq,” Stratfor wrote.
Israel’s “targeting assassinations” is a reference to the suspicious death last month of top Iranian nuclear scientist Ardeshir Hassanpour. In an article entitled “Israeli Covert Operations in Iran”, Stratfor noted that while the official announcement—a week after the scientist’s death—claimed Hassanpour died of overexposure to radiation, the details were murky. Citing “Stratfor sources close to Israeli intelligence”, the article declared that “Hassanpour was in fact a Mossad target” and pointed to allegations of Mossad’s involvement in the killing of top Iraqi scientists during the 1980s.
While no proof has surfaced of the direct involvement of American intelligence agencies in the latest bombing in Zahedan, the US is certainly engaged in inflaming ethnic and political opposition inside Iran. Stratfor offers the rather benign interpretation that the purpose of such reckless and illegal activities is simply to press Tehran to reach a negotiated settlement with the US over its list of demands. Even if that were the case, the US military build-up in the Persian Gulf, its propaganda campaign and tightening economic restrictions against Iran—along with its covert activities inside the country—all serve to heighten a conflict that could rapidly spiral out of control.
Peter Symonds
Homepage:
http://wsws.org/articles/2007/feb2007/bomb-f17.shtml
Comments
Hide the following 2 comments
It's not unusual ...
17.02.2007 23:02
It's not unusual
to be screwed by them again:
they did the lying,
we did the dying
nothing good comes this way.
So did they bomb the place?
And did they hide their face?
I bet it was the CIA
wet work and black ops too
in the end it all comes down
to securing the US of A
====takes applause=====
double bee
Irony Striking
17.02.2007 23:34
The irony here is striking. Note Seymour Hersh's work on the covert (terrorist) operations being run into Iran from the neighbouring 'Stans, being funded with a portion of the TRILLIONS plundered from the Iraqi treasury.
Report: Weapons used in attack in Zahedan, Iran come from U.S.
TEHRAN, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) -- Explosive devices and arsenals used in a terrorist attack in the southeastern Iranian city of Zahedan on Wednesday came from the United States, the semi-official Fars news agency reported on Saturday.
Relevant documents, photographs and film footage, which show that the explosives and arsenals used in the attack were American, would soon be made public, an "informed source" was quoted as saying.
The source further pointed out that Jundallah, a shadowy Sunni militant group, had several plots for assassinating Sunni and tribal leaders to sow discord and foment conflicts between the Shiite and Sunni citizens in Sistan-Baluchestan province.
On Wednesday morning, an explosive-laden car exploded in Zahedan as a bus, belonging to ground forces of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps, passed by, killing at least 11 people and injuring 31 others.
Jundallah has reportedly claimed responsibility for the Wednesday attack. Iran has blamed the group for past killings in the area bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan.
So far a total of 65 suspects in addition to the three people responsible for the bomb attack have been arrested, the official IRNA news agency reported Thursday, quoting Brigadier General Mohammad Gaffari, a senior police officer in Sistan-Baluchestan province.
Jundallah also claimed responsibility for a second bombing on Friday in Zahedan, which caused no casualties.
Related:
Report: Security restored in Zahedan after 2nd bombing
TEHRAN, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) -- Local police have restored full security in the southeastern Iranian city of Zahedan where a second bomb exploded Friday night, the official IRNA news agency reported on Saturday.
Friday's bombing, which caused no casualties, came after another explosion earlier this week in the same city that had killed 11 people.
Bomb explodes in southeastern Iran
TEHRAN, Feb. 16 (Xinhua) -- A bomb exploded in southeastern Iranian city of Zahedan on Friday, in the same city where another explosion earlier this week had killed 11 people, the official IRNA news agency reported.
"The sound of a bomb explosion was heard minutes ago in one of the streets in Zahedan," IRNA said without giving further details.
Iran arrests more suspects for bomb attack in Zahedan
TEHRAN, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- More suspects have been arrested over the deadly bomb attack against members of the Revolutionary Guards in Iran's southeastern city of Zahedan, the official IRNA news agency reported on Thursday.
"Some key members linked with the Jundallah terrorist group were arrested last night," said Brigardier General Mohammad Gaffari, a senior police official in Sistan-Baluchestan province.
Report: five arrested on suspicion of involving in Iran's blast
TEHRAN, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- Five people were arrested on suspicion of involving in a car bomb attack in Iran's southeastern city of Zahedan on Wednesday morning which killed at least 11, the official IRNA news agency reported.
"Five people suspected of involvement in the huge blast had been arrested," said Soltan-Ali Mir, director-general for political affairs in office of Sistan-Baluchestan province's governor.
IRNA: 18 killed in car-bomb explosion in Iran
TEHRAN, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- Eighteen people were killed on Wednesday in a car bomb explosion in Iran's southeastern city of Zahedan, the official IRNA news agency reported.
The explosion occurred around 6:30 a.m.(0300 GMT) in Ahmadabad district on the outskirts of Zahedan, the report said.
Bomb Explodes in Tehran
Friday, Feb. 16, 2007 By AP Article
(TEHRAN, Iran) —A bomb exploded in southeastern Iran late Friday, near the site where an explosion this week killed 11 members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, and clashes broke out afterward between Iranian police and insurgents, Iranian news agencies reported.
"The sound of a bomb explosion was heard in one of Zahedan's streets," IRNA, Iran's official news agency, reported. The report gave no further details, including whether there were casualties. The semiofficial Fars news agency said the explosion was at a school and was followed by clashes.
"The insurgents began shooting at people after the explosion. Clashes are continuing between police and the armed insurgents," the Fars agency said.
On Wednesday, a car bomb blew up a bus owned by the elite Revolutionary Guards in Zahedan, capital of the Sistan-Baluchestan province on the border with Pakistan.
A Sunni Muslim militant group called Jundallah, or God's Brigade, which has been blamed for past attacks on Iranian troops, claimed responsibility for the Wednesday bombing.
Iran has accused the United States of backing militants to destabilize the country. The accusation come amid growing tensions between Iran and the United States over the insurgency in Iraq and Iran's nuclear activities.
Separately, IRNA quoted an unnamed "responsible official" late Friday as saying that one of those arrested in Wednesday's bombing has "confessed" that the attacks were part of alleged U.S. plans to provoke ethnic and religious violence in Iran.
"This person who was behind the bombing confessed that those who trained them spoke in English," IRNA quoted the official as saying.
The agency did not identify the official nor the person arrested in Wednesday's bombing but said his group had planned to kill local Sunni Muslim leaders to provoke religious violence in Iran.
A majority of Iran's population are Shiite Muslims but minority Sunnis live in southeastern Iran.
Covert War Run Out Of 'Stans