Iran Says U.S., Britain Behind Attack

Source: NYT

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Iranian officials claimed Monday they had evidence of American and British involvement in the country’s worst suicide bombing attacks in years, raising tensions as Iran meets with Western nations for another round of delicate talks on its nuclear program.

At least five commanders of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps were killed and dozens of other people were left dead and wounded on Sunday in two bombings in the restive southeast along Iran’s frontier with Pakistan, according to Iranian state news agencies.

The coordinated strike, one of the largest against the Guards in the region, appeared to mark an escalation in hostilities between Iran’s leadership and the Baluchi ethnic minority. Iranian officials accused foreign enemies of supporting the insurgents, singling out the intelligence agencies of United States, Britain and Pakistan.

Mohammad Ali Jafari, the Guards’ commander in chief, told the semi-official ISNA agency on Monday: “Behind this scene are the American and British intelligence apparatus, and there will have to be retaliatory measures to punish them,” adding that Iran had documents proving their and Pakistani involvement.

more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/world/middleeast/20iran.html?hp
___________________________________________________________________________________________________

What do you think?

I do believe they've got nothing to lose if they're authentic.

Knowing some of what the usa has done covertly in south america gives me pause

terrorism for its terrorism only when committed by guys wearing the black hats and we get to decide the color of the hat. :shrug:

Since it "sounds like something they would do". Find even one example.

"Sounds like something the CIA, Special Forces or Rangers would do."

Please back that statement up.

put it past the sneaky snakes at the US and Brit Intelligence agencies, I wouldn't be surprised that the Iranians simply just pissed off the wrong people internally, especially with the "election" bullshit they pulled off a couple of months ago.

relationships with Iran.

Now, my mind is racing. Was it an internal attack, with blame being given to us to disrupt the diplomacy?

Was it one of the hit squads that Sy Hersh mentioned, doing the bidding of the neo-cons, undermining diplomacy?

Or, was it a CIA/MI5/ISI deal?

within Iran? I seem to recall the story saying Israel would not launch a regular military strike but would do so covertly and attack their nuclear scientists and other high value targets. :shrug:...just saying..

It's just something governments do -- like W routinely blaming attacks on Israel in Lebanon on Iran.

In this case, it helps deflect from the fact that Iran has a serious problem with a real violent opposition group, which it does not want to admit.

Probably some sort of verbal maneuvering in advance of talks, which both Iran and the US want to be fruitful.

to take out 5 commanders without having some very professional support. Whether it was from within Iran or from another intelligence agency.

and the reason they were able to get close is that the local population is supportive of the insurgency and provided the intelligence and support needed to get that close.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go back to an article that Sy Hersh wrote in The New Yorker, where he says, “One of the most active and violent anti-regime groups in Iran today is the Jundallah, also known as the Iranian People’s Resistance Movement, which describes itself as a resistance force fighting for the rights of Sunnis in Iran. ‘This is a vicious Salafi organization whose followers attended the same madrassas as the Taliban and Pakistani extremists,’” said Tufts University professor Nasr, who went on to say, “They are suspected of having links to Al Qaeda and they are also thought to be tied to the drug culture.”

Then Sy Hersh goes on to say, “The Jundallah took responsibility for the bombing of a busload of Revolutionary Guard soldiers in February, 2007. At least eleven Guard members were killed. According to Baer and to press reports, the Jundallah is among the groups in Iran that are benefiting from U.S. support.” That was Sy Hersh in The New Yorker.

I have been watching the mainstream media coverage in this country, and they are immediately dismissing the Iranian leadership’s allegations that this has anything to do with US or British or Pakistani support of Jundallah.


PEPE ESCOBAR: Well, Amy, the thing is, the brother of Abdul Malik Rigi, Abdulhamid, he was captured last year by the Pakistanis, by the way, in Baluchistan, and then he was extradited to Iran. He was executed in Iran, in fact. Last year—if I’m not mistaken, last year he gave an interview to Press TV, the semi-official Iranian TV network, where he explained in—I would say in a reasonable detail how the CIA approached his brother starting in 2003 and offering not only support, but cash. He specifically talked about a $100,000 cash advance by the CIA so Rigi could organize not only kidnappings, but starting to behead hostages live on camera and put it on YouTube. In fact, some of these tapes circulated on YouTube, in fact, some who were beheaded, if I’m not mistaken, in an attack in 2007, these hostages. So there is direct involvement of CIA.

It’s—obviously none of us can prove directly. We rely on sources from captured Jundallah soldiers, in fact, who volunteer their confessions, and many good Pakistani analysts, especially Baluchi analysts who have good connections with Baluchi separatist movements, which is not the case of Jundallah, by the way. Jundallah is a sectarian, anti-Shiite movement. They are not involved in Baluchistan nationalism, unlike many other Baluchi separatist groups. So if we take these confessions and some of this analysis, there’s a very good case pointing to direct US involvement supporting Jundallah, as the West supported the Mujahedin-e-Khalq based in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq against Iran, as the US supports, as well, separatists in Khuzestan province, where the oil of Iran is concentrated, as well. So what we need is a definite smoking gun. There are suspicions. There are confessions. We only lack a smoking gun, actually.

...

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/19/six_senior_iranian_revolutionary_guard_commanders

And the only way they could mount this attack inside an Iranian city, which was obviously very well guarded and fortified, because people came from Tehran the Revolutionary Guards came for this meeting, is that they had local tribal alliances that gave them on-the-ground intel pinpointing the exact location of the meeting. So, you know, it was a—in military terms, was a very well-organized operation, and it could only be organized with extremely good and reliable on-the-ground intelligence, and this means Baluchi Sunni tribal leaders who live inside Iran and not in Pakistan.

<end quote>

The OP asks a question about the logistics of THIS WEEK'S BOMBING, not what happened back in 2003, 2007 or 2008 when the Bush administration was trying to destabilize Iran.

Pepe Escobar and see if your characterization is accurate.

I doubt Amy, or Pepe think that the US destabilization attempts ended with Bush.

about THIS WEEK'S BOMBING, as opposed to the Bush administration's policy.

as opposed to, say, a US financed operation with local support.

"One of the most active and violent anti-regime groups in Iran today is the Jundallah, also known as the Iranian People’s Resistance Movement, which describes itself as a resistance force fighting for the rights of Sunnis in Iran. “This is a vicious Salafi organization whose followers attended the same madrassas as the Taliban and Pakistani extremists,” Nasr told me. “They are suspected of having links to Al Qaeda.” The Jundallah took responsibility for the bombing of a busload of Revolutionary Guard soldiers in February, 2007. At least eleven Guard members were killed. According to Baer and to press reports, the Jundallah is among the groups in Iran that are benefitting from U.S. support.
The C.I.A. and Special Operations communities also have long-standing ties to two other dissident groups in Iran: the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, known in the West as the M.E.K., and a Kurdish separatist group, the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan, or PJAK.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh

This event could later be seen as a key one in that chain...

Google them.

Don

The fact that one of the major smuggling routes for Afghan heroin goes through Baluchistan is also far from a coincidence.


http://hydraspeaks.blogspot.com/2006/06/bernard-lewis-project-revisited.html

June 6, 2006

‘If the order were to be given for an attack, the American combat troops now operating in Iran would be in position to mark the critical targets with laser beams, to insure bombing accuracy and to minimize civilian casualties. As of early winter, I was told by the government consultant with close ties to civilians in the Pentagon, the units were also working with minority groups in Iran, including the Azeri’s, in the north, the Baluchi's, in the southeast, and the Kurds, in the northeast. The troops “are studying the terrain, and giving away walking-around money to ethnic tribes, and recruiting scouts from local tribes and shepherds,” the consultant said. One goal is to get “eyes on the ground”—quoting a line from “Othello,” he said, “Give me the ocular proof.” The broader aim, the consultant said, is to “encourage ethnic tensions” and undermine the regime.’

This is a segment of an article in the New Yorker by Seymour Hersh, a widely respected American journalist. Based on anonymous sources in the Pentagon, Hersh discusses the Bush administration’s plans to launch major air attacks on Iran and its covert operations within Iran’s borders to destabilize the country. The US “encouragement of ethnic tensions” has been recently addressed by critics, including the Islamic Republic itself. Prior to the latest presidential elections in Iran, the province of Khuzestan was shocked by multiple bombings, which led to considerable civilian casualties. Many blamed the Arab separatists who are becoming growingly active in this region. One influential theory says that these separatist groups receive support from the US and Great Britain.

The stimulation of ethnic unrest is (unfortunately) not a new idea. Specifically in case of Iran, the current US plans seem to resemble a much older agenda, which is known as the “Bernard Lewis Project”. . . . The Bernard Lewis Project was first presented in 1979. The core proposal of this project is to divide countries in the Middle East along ethnic and regional lines into smaller, rival states in order to weaken the power of existing governments. According to Lewis the West should provoke rebellion for national autonomy by certain minority groups that will, eventually, lead to the fragmentation of powerful states. In case of Iran, he formally proposed to target the Arabs of Khuzestan (the Al-Ahvaz Project), the Azeri’s (the Greater Azerbaijan Project), the Kurds (the Greater Kurdistan Project) and the Baluchi’s (the Pakhtunistan Project).

Now more than 25 years later, Iran is still too big for the region. This is especially problematic, as the country is perceived as a hostile state by the US. Undoubtably, Iran is a true (potential) threat to the US interests in the Middle East. Given the neoconservative agenda of the current US administration, it is not surprising that parts of Lewis’s proposition have been reconsidered in the context of recent developments, and already initiated in practice.


(See much more at http://www.rozanehmagazine.com/NoveDec05/AZPartVI.html)

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/04/abc_news_exclus.html

April 03, 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, 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.


http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/05/bush_authorizes.html

May 22, 2007

The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert "black" operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, say President Bush has signed a "nonlethal presidential finding" that puts into motion a CIA plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran's currency and international financial transactions. . . .

Current and former intelligence officials say the approval of the covert action means the Bush administration, for the time being, has decided not to pursue a military option against Iran.

"Vice President Cheney helped to lead the side favoring a military strike," said former CIA official Riedel, "but I think they have come to the conclusion that a military strike has more downsides than upsides."

That said, the mullahs might just have to get used to the fact that like any other repressive regime in the Middle East, their people have learned from those groups that they so gleefully funded for many years, and now the suicidal chickens with semtex vests have come home to roost.

Unless you can cite a prior example.

and/or intelligence support to a homegrown group that then carries out a suicide bombing?

That is what we are most likely talking about here.

The US has a very long history of sopporting some very violent, blood-thirsty groups to help along "regime change".

...

PEPE ESCOBAR: Well, Amy, the thing is, the brother of Abdul Malik Rigi, Abdulhamid, he was captured last year by the Pakistanis, by the way, in Baluchistan, and then he was extradited to Iran. He was executed in Iran, in fact. Last year—if I’m not mistaken, last year he gave an interview to Press TV, the semi-official Iranian TV network, where he explained in—I would say in a reasonable detail how the CIA approached his brother starting in 2003 and offering not only support, but cash. He specifically talked about a $100,000 cash advance by the CIA so Rigi could organize not only kidnappings, but starting to behead hostages live on camera and put it on YouTube. In fact, some of these tapes circulated on YouTube, in fact, some who were beheaded, if I’m not mistaken, in an attack in 2007, these hostages. So there is direct involvement of CIA.

It’s—obviously none of us can prove directly. We rely on sources from captured Jundallah soldiers, in fact, who volunteer their confessions, and many good Pakistani analysts, especially Baluchi analysts who have good connections with Baluchi separatist movements, which is not the case of Jundallah, by the way. Jundallah is a sectarian, anti-Shiite movement. They are not involved in Baluchistan nationalism, unlike many other Baluchi separatist groups. So if we take these confessions and some of this analysis, there’s a very good case pointing to direct US involvement supporting Jundallah, as the West supported the Mujahedin-e-Khalq based in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq against Iran, as the US supports, as well, separatists in Khuzestan province, where the oil of Iran is concentrated, as well. So what we need is a definite smoking gun. There are suspicions. There are confessions. We only lack a smoking gun, actually.

...

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/19/six_senior_iranian_revolutionary_guard_commanders

Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if these aren't really pissed off Iranians who decided to use a time honored tactic of terror against their leaders. One could consider it a brutal lesson in karma for the mullahs.

My comment wasn't specifically about suicide bombings, (I admit I know of no examples of US sponsored suicide bombings) but about our penchant for covert and clandestine actions against governments we have deemed hostile. Surely Iran falls on that list.

After all, the 3 nations are renowned for prolific suicide bombers.

mark

No disaster in the Islamic Republic is complete without a blanket condemnation of the "Great Satan" and its allies. One almost is prompted to wonder whether or not the government did this itself (an Iranian MIHOP) in order to continue the breakdown in relations between Iran and the west. I somewhat doubt it, but the conspiracy theorist in me wonders.