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Pedro Gonçalves

BBC News - Iran Jundullah leader claims US military support - 0 views

  • Iranian state television has broadcast a statement by a captured Sunni rebel leader in which he alleges he had American support.
  • The US has denied having links with the group, Jundullah. In the tape, Mr Rigi alleged the US had promised to provide his group with military equipment and a base in Afghanistan, near the Iranian border. He says he was on his way to a meeting with a "high-ranking person" at the Manas US military base in Kyrgyzstan when he was captured.
  • Jundullah has launched several deadly attacks in recent years in the south-east of Iran in protest over the discrimination of Sunni minorities in Iran. The attacks include the killing of six senior commanders of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard in October.
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  • Mr Rigi said the initial US contact was made after US President Barack Obama was elected in November 2008 and took place through a person in Quetta, Pakistan. "The Americans said... that we don't have a problem with al-Qaeda or the Taliban, but the problem is Iran and we don't have a military programme against Iran." The rebel leader claimed that he was promised US support to launch attacks on Iran in return for the release of Jundullah prisoners. "They [Americans] promised to help us and they said that they would co-operate with us, free our prisoners and would give us [Jundullah] military equipment, bombs, machine guns, and they would give us a base,"
  • Iran has linked Jundullah to the Sunni Islamist al-Qaeda network and accuses Pakistan, Britain and the US of backing the group to destabilise the country
  • Jundullah was founded in 2002 to defend the Baluchi minority in the poor, remote and lawless region of south-east Iran.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC News - Iran 'arrests leader of Sunni militants Jundullah' - 0 views

  • Iranian authorities have arrested the leader of the Sunni Muslim militant group Jundullah, according to reports on state television.
  • He is said to be behind a series of deadly bombings and killings in Sistan-Baluchistan province. Last October 42 people, including six Revolutionary Guard commanders, were killed in a suicide bombing in Zahedan.
  • Jundullah was founded in 2002 to defend the Baluchi minority in the poor, remote and lawless region of south-east Iran. The group has been using neighbouring Pakistan as a base, and in the past the Iranians have accused Pakistan of allowing them to operate there.
Pedro Gonçalves

Homemade bomb on board plane raises tension ahead of Iran elections | World news | guar... - 0 views

  • Rising political tensions in Iran ahead of watershed presidential elections on 12 June intensified today with the discovery of a homemade bomb on board a domestic airliner. The incident closely followed a fatal attack on a mosque that hardline Iranian leaders blamed on the US, Israel and Britain.
  • The Ahvaz incident followed an apparent suicide bombing on Thursday at a mosque in Zahedan, in Sistan-Baluchistan province in south-eastern Iran, which killed 25 people and wounded more than 100. Three men convicted of planning the explosion were publicly executed yesterday.
  • Khuzestan and Sistan-Baluchistan provinces have witnessed numerous attacks attributed to separatists, ethnic and religious groups, and mujahideen resistance fighters since the 1979 revolution. Oil-rich Khuzestan, which borders Iraq, is home to Iran's Arab minority. Sistan-Baluchistan, bordering Pakistan, has a high concentration of Sunni Muslims. Iran is predominantly Shia.
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  • A Sunni opposition group known as Jundullah (God's Soldiers), which Iran links to al-Qaida and the US, claimed responsibility for the mosque bomb.
  • The Saudi-owned al-Arabiya television said a man claiming to represent Jundullah called it saying the bombing was a suicide attack aimed at Basiji forces, a religious militia, that were meeting in the mosque to co-ordinate election strategy.
  • Iran's leaders have repeatedly blamed US and Israeli "spy agencies" for arming and assisting insurgent groups, including dissident Kurds living in western Iran. They say the aim is to destabilise Iran and promote regime change.
  • Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader and a strong, public backer of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's bid to win a second term, added his weight to the claims. "No one can doubt that the hands of … some interfering powers and their spying services are bloodied by the blood of the innocent," he said.
  • Major General Hassan Firouzabadi, Iran's armed forces chief of staff, also blamed outside forces, pointing the finger at Britain in particular. "The attempts made by colonialism, Zionism and on top of them England for sowing discord between Shias and Sunnis have yielded no result," he said.
  • Any direct or indirect US involvement in fomenting pre-election tensions is considered unlikely, given Obama's new policy of engagement with Iran. Israel, which believes Iran poses an existential threat, takes a harder line.
  • Unconfirmed reports published in the US last year said the Bush administration obtained $400m in "off-the-books" congressional funding to finance covert operations aimed at assisting minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organisations inside Iran. It is unclear whether these alleged operations have continued since Obama took office.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC News - Iran hangs Sunni militant leader Abdolmalek Rigi - 0 views

  • Jundullah has said it was responsible for a string of high-profile attacks in Sistan-Baluchistan, including a suicide bombing near the Pakistani border that killed 42 people, including six senior Revolutionary Guards commanders, and a bombing in a Shia mosque in Zahedan that killed 25 people.
  • Shortly after his arrest, state media reported that Mr Rigi had admitted that he had been on his way to a meeting with a "high-ranking person" at the US military base at Manas in Kyrgyzstan when he was captured. "They said they would co-operate with us and would give me military equipment," he said in a video statement broadcast on Iranian TV.
Pedro Gonçalves

Iran blames US and Israel for mosque bomb - Middle East, World - The Independent - 0 views

  • Iran blamed the US and Israel yesterday for a bombing in a Shiite mosque in southeast Iran that killed 25 people, saying the countries were trying to stoke sectarian tension with the Sunni Muslim minority.
  • Iran has repeatedly accused the US and other Western countries of backing militants and opposition groups in the country — charges they have denied. The blame could be intended to mask real sectarian issues between Iran's Sunnis and majority Shiite population.
  • Thursday's bombing took place in the remote city of Zahedan, which has witnessed attacks by an Islamic militant group called Jundallah that claims to be fighting for the rights of Sunnis and is believed to have al-Qaida links.
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  • "I announce that ... those who committed the bombing are neither Shiite nor Sunni. They are Americans and Israelis" who want to stoke sectarian conflict in the country, Iranian Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli said on the ministry's Web site. Jalal Sayyah, a senior security official in Zahedan, said 145 people were injured in the bombing and three suspects have been detained. "Hire of the terrorists by the US was verified based on investigation," Sayyah told The Associated Press.
  • Sayyah did not say whether the terrorists belonged to a specific group. In 2007, Jundallah, or God's Brigade, killed 11 members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards in Zahedan.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iran executes trio for mosque bombing - 0 views

  • Three men convicted of bombing an Iranian mosque two days ago have been publicly executed, state media says.The bombing killed at least 19 people during evening prayers in the south-east city of Zahedan on Thursday. The three men, who were hanged on Saturday morning near the mosque, were already in custody before the attack. One Iranian official had earlier accused the US of hiring mercenaries to carry out the bombing - a claim dismissed by Washington. The men were arrested before Thursday's bombing in connection with other attacks, including a 2007 attack on Iran's Revolutionary Guard in which 11 people died.
  • Part of a Shia mosque, Amir al-Mohini, was destroyed in Zahedan, a mainly Sunni Muslim city. A Sunni militant group had claimed responsibility, with Abdel Raouf Rigi, described as a spokesman for the Jundallah group, telling Saudi-owned TV channel Al-Arabiya that a suicide bomber had targeted a secret meeting of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards inside the mosque.
Pedro Gonçalves

Iran official blames U.S. in deadly mosque bombing | Reuters - 0 views

  • An Iranian official accused the United States on Friday of involvement in a mosque bombing that killed more than 20 people in volatile south-eastern Iran, two weeks before the Islamic Republic's presidential election. Jalal Sayyah, of the governor's office in Sistan-Baluchestan province
  • Sistan-Baluchestan province, home to Iran's mostly Sunni ethnic Baluchis, is the scene of frequent clashes between security forces and heavily armed drug smugglers and bandits.
  • Iran has previously accused the United States, its arch-foe, of backing Sunni rebels operating on its border with Pakistan, who Tehran says are linked to the Islamist al Qaeda network.
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  • "It has been confirmed that those behind the terrorist act in Zahedan were hired by America and the arrogance's other hands," Sayyah told the semi-official Fars News Agency.
  • A bomb attack in Zahedan in early 2007 which killed 18 Revolutionary Guards was claimed by Jundollah (God's Soldiers), an insurgent group that says it is fighting for the rights of Iran's Sunni minority but which Tehran says is part of al Qaeda.
  • Defense analyst Paul Beaver said it was "highly unlikely" that the U.S. administration of President Barack Obama, who is seeking to engage Tehran diplomatically after three decades of mutual mistrust, would support Sunni insurgents in Iran.
  • In April, Iran's intelligence minister said it had arrested a group of people linked to Israel who were planning bombings ahead of the June 12 election, in which hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is seeking a second four-year term.
  • The explosion, which some officials and media suggested was a suicide bombing, took place on a religious holiday in the mainly Shi'ite Muslim country. More than 80 people were wounded.
  • "The terrorists, who were equipped by America in one of our neighboring countries, carried out this criminal act in their efforts to create religious conflict and fear and to influence the presidential election," Sayyah told state radio.
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