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Friday, June 09, 2006

Who is Behind Minorities Uprising(Iran)?

The U.S., British and Pakistani intelligence agencies are working to destabilize Tehran by fanning revolt among ethnic minorities on Iran's borders.

Iranian interior minister Mostapha Pur-Mohammadi last month clearly accused three foreign intelligence agencies of fomenting unrest in Iranian provinces close to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. Pur-Mohammadi was speaking before regional police chiefs at Zahedan, capital of the province of Sistan & Baluchistan. His accusation came shortly after a massacre carried out on May 14 by a tiny Sunni group, Jundallah (God's Soldiers) headed by Abdolmalek Righi in the neighboring province of Kerman. The attack, which claimed 12 lives, was carried out far inside Iran for the first time, occuring more than 300 km from the Pakistan-Afghan border.

In fact, for nearly a year elements have been attacking Iranian army installations and police patrols in all of Iran's regions inhabited by minorities such as Azeris, Baluchis, Kurds, Arabs. The assaults have stepped up particularly in the past few months. The Iranian province of Khuzestan on the border with Iraq, where over half the population is of Arab origin, has been prey to several deadly attacks claimed by Sunni extremists. In January, two bombs went off in Ahvaz, capital of the province, the day president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was to have visited the town. On the American side, the Pentagon appears to be coordinating the destabilization operation, keeping the CIA out of the loop. The People's Mujahideen movement led by Massoud Rajavi - it consists of Iranian dissidents based in Iraq - have been mobilized to join Sunni areas on the Iranian border and lend support to small units tasked with conducting a war of attrition against the Iranian regime.

Elsewhere, the Defense Intelligence Agency is encouraging the recruitment of soldiers and officers of Sunni origin in the Iranian army and Revolutionary Guards (Pasdarans) so that they can be enlisted in sabotage operations. Late last year, the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity, the intelligence arm of the Marine Corps, commissioned the firm Hicks & Associates (H&A) to make a highly detailed study of Iranian ethnic groups.

The anti-terrorist department of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) headed by general Mohamed Zaki, has been working in Quetta, the capital of the part of Baluchistan lying in Pakistan, to manipulate extremist Sunni movements and send them marching into Iran. One of the movements is the Lanksar I Jhangvi which was disbanded but has since resumed operations in Nukkundi, a city near the Iranian border, under the benevolent eye of ISI. But the anti-Shi'ite coalition also counts groups like Ansar, Jamiat al Sunna and Jamiat e Uluema Islam. The British military, for its part, is backing operations from its bases in Basra and southern Iraq. This has led to reprisal attacks on the British in recent months by elements acting in Iran's name.

Source: Intelligence Online
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