Foreign backed terrorism in Iran: Part one -US/Israeli backed Salafists in Iran
by Aram Mirzaei for The Saker • April 07, 2019 • 13 Comments
While terrorism is a phenomenon most of us have come in touch with during our lifetime, much of the coverage is shadowed by terrorism in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Iraq, where US backed terrorist groups have wreaked havoc in devastating the wars that have plagued these countries.
Nonetheless, terrorism is widespread across the region, even in Iran. Due to Iran's relatively strong internal stability, terrorist groups have been unable to catch major headlines in the Islamic Republic as terrorist groups often conduct hit and run attacks or the occasional kidnappings of young drafted border guards and soldiers near the Pakistan/Afghanistan border areas as well as across Iran's western borders towards Iraq. Some groups are motivated by separatist goals, while others are driven by religious extremism. In this first part I will cover terrorism across Iran's eastern borders, one that is driven by the Salafist ideology.
Iran has been familiar with terrorism for many decades through the Saddam Hussein-backed "People's Mujahideen", a strange group of "Marxist-Islamists" who waged war on their own country in an attempt to grab power, shortly after the Islamic Revolution. During Saddam's 8 year war on Iran they were backed and armed by Iraqi security forces, often resorting to terrorist attacks, killing many innocent people in the process. While this group was effectively defeated, it has nonetheless survived as it was sheltered by the Saddam regime and recently have found refuge in Albania. I will come back to this group later.
Since the 9/11 attacks when Al-Qaeda became a household name, Takfiri groups have become increasingly widespread in the Middle East and central Asia. Many Takfiri groups have found their haven in neighbouring Pakistan which they use as a home base to launch cross border attacks on Afghanistan and Iran. Pakistan's government and security apparatus are known to support Takfiri groups across the region, at the behest of Washington, a fact that former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf admitted to.
Pakistan is home to multiple Saudi funded so called Madrasas, terrorist recruitment centres focused on brainwashing young men into joining militant groups with similar ideologies such as the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. For decades, since the days of the Soviet-Afghan war, Islamabad has used terrorism as a tool for its foreign policy towards its neighbours. But it is important to understand that Islamabad and Pakistan’s security services are working for Washington's interests, because had they had their own interests at heart, they wouldn't allow the Waziristan province to turn into a terrorist controlled region in the country, endangering the lives of Pakistanis across the country. These Takfiri groups have committed heinous crimes against Pakistanis as well, such as the notorious Peshawar school shootings of 2014 where 132 schoolchildren were murdered.
Since 2003, Iran has been plagued by Takfiri terrorism that has penetrated through Iran's south-eastern borders into the Sistan and Baluchistan province. One of the more active groups in the region was the Jundallah terrorist group, made up of the predominantly Sunni Muslim Baluchis (a people living in southeastern Iran and southwestern Pakistan). Jundallah claimed to be fighting for Baluchi rights in Iran while also espousing the formation of a Sunni Baluchi state. From their bases in Pakistan, over the course of 8 years, Jundallah conducted multiple terrorist attacks in Iran, such as the 2007 Zahedan bombings where 18 members of the IRGC were killed.
The following investigation pointed towards external backing by the U.S and Israel, as Mossad agents posing as CIA officers met with and recruited members of Jundallah in cities such as London to carry out attacks against Iran. In late 2008, in an interview with the Saudi Al-Arabiyah TV, Jundallah leader Abdolmalek Rigi said that his group had been "given 2000 men as well as military and ideological training", indicating that external support to his group was indeed an ongoing process. In the following two years more attacks were carried out in the Sistan and Baluchistan province as Jundallah stepped up their operations. Despite Pakistan's official policy of cooperating with Iran on the matter of cross border terrorism in this region, some Iranian officials have directly accused Pakistan of playing a double game. It has been claimed that Jundallah can not operate with at least some degree of support from within Pakistan and that elements from within Pakistani security establishment, particularly ISI with financial support of Saudi Arabia and its supplementation through the largest opium black market in the world have created a network of drug smugglers and terrorists in the region.
Please go to The Saker to read the entire article.
Related to the news above:
Jundallah: the US-backed Salafi Terrorists Operating in Iran
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Source: Voltaire Network
The use of terrorism according to John Bolton
by Thierry Meyssan | 22 January 2019
After having taken back from Daesh the State they had promised, straddling parts of Iraq and Syria, the United States now intend to recuperate some of their mercenaries in order to make use of them in a different manner. National Security Advisor John Bolton has designed new goals, new partners and new methods. Since this new system is secret, we know about it only insofar as parts of the plan have already been implemented. Thierry Meyssan explores this world of violence.
John Bolton speaking in 2017 before the People's Mujaheddin Organization of Iran.
n 1978, President Carter’s National Security Advisor, Zbignew Brzezinski, decided to use the Muslim Brotherhood against the Soviets, and sent Arab combatants to support the Afghan opposition against the Communist régime. Responding to a call for help from the Afghan government, the Red Army became bogged down in an unwinnable conflict.
In Afghanistan, the Muslim Brotherhood were not armed by the CIA, who were unable to obtain the authorisation from Congress for an operation of that magnitude, but by Israël. In view of their success, the Arab-Afghans were later mobilised in many other theatres of operation. It followed, amongst other things, that the Brotherhood, armed both by Israël and Iraq, took a shot at the Syrian Arab Republic, in 1978-82. One thing leading to another, a representative of the Brotherhood was incorporated into the staff of NATO during the attack in Kosovo against Yugoslavia.
The position of the Muslim Brotherhood as auxiliary troops for NATO was cancelled at the end of the Clinton presidency, but the collaboration of the Brotherhood with the CIA has never been terminated. It was clearly re-instated with the attack on Libya under the Obama presidency, where it furnished almost all of the ground troops for the Atlantic Alliance. One of their representatives was even incorporated into the US National Security Council. Then, during the attack on Syria, NATO's LandCom, situated in Izmir, coordinated the jihadist troops.
Since the Trump administration opposes on principle the use of terrorist groups by the US Armies, the moment arrived for the White House to redefine the role of the Muslim Brotherhood.
We do not yet know the new strategy defined by National Security Advisor John Bolton. However, several elements enable us to guess its general form.
Daesh
At the beginning of 2018, US Special Forces illegally stationed in Syria exfiltrated thousands of Daesh combatants overseas. In May 2018, General Yahya Rahim Safavi, military advisor to Ayatollah Khamenei, accused the USA of organising the transfer of Daesh combatants to Afghanistan.
Currently, approximately 7,000 of them are still on Afghani soil. Contrary to their past position, they do not support the Taliban, who are currently opposed to all foreign presence, but now oppose them.
Please go to Voltaire Network to read the entire article.
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Source: Moon of Alabama
Why Is Trump Designating Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps As Foreign Terrorist Organization?
April 8, 2019
After their failed coup plot in Venezuela, the Trump administration launched another crazy plan:
The United States is expected to designate Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards Corps a foreign terrorist organisation, three U.S. officials told Reuters, marking the first time Washington has formally labelled another country's military a terrorist group.The White House just issued the designation (no link yet).
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is a part of the general Iranian military. It was founded after the 1979 revolution in Iran to protect the state from a coup by the regular Iranian army that served under the Shah.
With some 125,000 men during peacetime the IRGC is only about a third the size of Iran's regular military. It has a similar structure with a groundforce, a navy and an aerospace branch. The IRCG has two additional small branches that are of foreign policy interest. One is the missile force which controls Iran's medium range missiles. The other is the Quds Force, a brigade size unit with some 4,000 men trained for special operations abroad.
The IRGC size during wartime is about triple its peacetime size. Like Iran's regular army its personnal is made up of professionals, conscripts and reservists. Attached to the IRGC is the voluntary Basji force, local paramilitaries that can be called up for internal security issues. There are several endowments and charitable trusts (bonyads) with strong relations to the IRGC. They own commerical enterprises but their profits are distributed to IRGC veterans and to widows and orphans of deceased soldiers.
In 2007 the U.S. Treasury already designated the Quds Force for its "support of terrorism". It also sanctioned several enterprises that are connected to the IRGC. It is totally unclear what the designation of the IRCG as a whole is supposed to achieve. It could be a symbolic move or, as some assume, a step towards a war on Iran:
Former Under-Secretary of State and lead Iran negotiator, Wendy Sherman, said she worried about implications for U.S. forces.
"One might even suggest, since it's hard to see why this is in our interest, if the president isn't looking for a basis for a conflict," said Sherman, who is director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. "The IRGC is already fully sanctioned and this escalation absolutely endangers our troops in the region."
Mohammad al Shabani lists additional reasons:
Mohammad Ali Shabani @mashabani - 14:36 utc - 8 Apr 2019Colonel Pat Lang likewise presumes that the move is an attempt to provoke a war:
THREAD. Usual suspects pushed Trump to designate #IRGC as FTO. Why?
- Constrain Trump's deal-making instincts
- Box in next US president on Iran (Dems say will rejoin JCPOA)
- Force Lebanon/Iraq into picking between Iran/US
- Force Europe to further cut whatever meager outreach
- provoke Iran to scrap JCPOA - and, ideally, initiate military confrontation
The AUMF on terrorism has been used far and wide as a hunting license to attack any armed group that could even distantly be thought a terrorist enemy. The anti-terrorism AUMF makes such attacks legal under US law.
Please go to Moon of Alabama to read the entire article.
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General Michael Flynn admits the US was behind setting up ISIS:
Michael Flynn, Trump and Russia: What Is Really Going On?
Caution with Max Blumenthal unless he discusses Israel as a component of the creation of ISIS:
POSTPONED: Max Blumenthal - The Management of Savagery: How America's National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Donald Trump—at The Wharf
Let them all die:
Under Trump, US Pushes "Let 'Em All Die" Policy Towards Iran Flood Victims
Related:
Yet Another Senator from Israel
MAJOR: Iran Reveals U.S Supports ISIS, asks Iraq to Expel U.S forces ASAP
More land:
Well-Known Zionist Settler-Activist Sees More Land Grabs and a "Greater Israel" as a Given
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