Iran, Kurdish rebels and the CIA
Vladimir van Wilgenburg
From Holland to Kurdistan
Mar 1, 2007
Some recent reports:
Iranian Military May Pursue Kurdish Rebels Into Iraq (Update1)
By Marc Wolfensberger and Ladane Nasseri
Feb. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Iran's forces may cross into Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish
rebels if the government in Baghdad can't expel the militants from border areas,
an Iranian commander said.
``I warn Iraq's Kurdish movements and
anti-revolutionary armed insurgents who are linked with foreigners that Iraq's
government must oust them from the region,'' Revolutionary Guards leader Yahya
Rahim Safavi was cited as saying today by state-run Mehr News. ``Otherwise the
Revolutionary Guards, to protect the security of the country and Iranian people,
will consider it as their right to chase and neutralize them beyond the
borders.''
Iran's armed forces have regular clashes with Kurdish rebels in the northwest of
the country, mainly members of the Party of Free Life in Kurdistan, or PJAK.
Iranian forces killed three local PJAK chiefs Feb. 26, Agence France-Presse
reported.
``PJAK, which calls for official recognition for Iranian Kurds, in 2005
reportedly killed at least 120 Iranian soldiers inside Iran,'' London-based
Control Risks, which advises businesses on investment hazards, said in a note to
investors today. ``The group in 2006 launched attacks from both northern Iraq
and Iran that are likely to have caused higher casualties.''
Ethnic Kurds across a contiguous area that includes parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria
and Turkey have sought self-determination for the region, which they call
Kurdistan.
Fourteen Iranian military personnel died when their helicopter crashed last week
during an operation against rebels close to the Turkish border, AFP said. Safavi
made his comments at a ceremony in West Azerbaijan province to honor the
personnel who were killed.
Turkish Links
PJAK has links with Turkey's outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. Iran and
Turkey signed an accord in 2004 to combat the PKK and an armed Iranian
opposition group in Iraq called the People's Mujahedeen. [Which is trying to get
support from American neocons]
Iran may participate in a conference on Iraqi security next month if the meeting
is ``in the interest'' of Iraq, top Iranian security official Ali Larijani said
today. Syria also will take part in the meeting, AFP cited the government in
Damascus as saying. U.S. diplomats also will attend the conference, Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday.
The meeting will mark the first time that the U.S. has sat in Baghdad with Iran
and Syria to look at Iraq's future, an initiative that lawmakers and a
bipartisan panel of U.S. leaders have sought.
Attacks in Iraq
Iran's role in majority-Shiite Iraq has been under scrutiny, with the Bush
administration accusing the Revolutionary Guards of supplying Iraqi Shiite
militias with tank-busting weapons that have been used against U.S. troops.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters in Washington that the
issue will be ``at the top of our list'' in any talks on security in Iraq. Iran
rejects the accusation it is fomenting violence in Iraq.
The Revolutionary Guards are the military unit most loyal to the Shiite Muslim
clerics who control Iran.
The dispute adds to tension between Iran and the U.S. over Iran's nuclear
program. The U.S. and some of its allies allege Iran is using the development of
nuclear power to hide a weapons program, in contravention of the
Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran denies the accusations.
The United Nations Security Council unanimously voted Dec. 23 to impose
sanctions against Iran over the nuclear work and ordered it to halt uranium
enrichment by Feb. 21. A measure for tougher sanctions is being discussed by the
council's permanent members, following Iran's failure to meet last week's
deadline.
To contact the reporters on this story: Marc Wolfensberger in Tehran at mwolfens@bloomberg.net
; Ladane Nasseri in Tehran at lnasseri@bloomberg.net .
Report: 3 Gulf states agree to IAF overflights en route to Iran
Three Arab states in the Persian Gulf would be willing to allow the Israel Air
force to enter their airspace in order to reach Iran in case of an attack on its
nuclear facilities, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Siyasa reported on Sunday.
According to the report, a diplomat from one of the gulf states visiting
Washington on Saturday said the three states, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab
Emirates, have told the United States that they would not object to Israel using
their airspace, despite their fear of an Iranian response.
Al-Siyasa further reported that NATO leaders are urging Turkey to open its
airspace for an Attack on Iran as well and to also open its airports and borders
in case of a ground attack.
According to a British diplomat who spoke to an Al-Siyasa correspondent, Turkey
will not repeat the mistake it made in 2003, when it refused to open its
airspace to U.S. Air Force overflights en route to attacking Iraq.
British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported Saturday that Israel is
negotiating with the U.S. over permission for an "air corridor" over Iraq,
should an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities become necessary.
Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh on Saturday denied the reports and said
Israel has no such plans.
US funds terror groups to sow chaos in Iran (America supports PJAK or KOMALA???)
By William Lowther in Washington DC and Colin Freeman, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:30am GMT 25/02/2007
America is secretly funding militant ethnic separatist groups in Iran in an
attempt to pile pressure on the Islamic regime to give up its nuclear programme.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime is accused of repressing minority rights
and culture
In a move that reflects Washington's growing concern with the failure of
diplomatic initiatives, CIA officials are understood to be helping opposition
militias among the numerous ethnic minority groups clustered in Iran's border
regions.
The operations are controversial because they involve dealing with movements
that resort to terrorist methods in pursuit of their grievances against the
Iranian regime.
In the past year there has been a wave of unrest in ethnic minority border areas
of Iran, with bombing and assassination campaigns against soldiers and
government officials.
Such incidents have been carried out by the Kurds in the west, the Azeris in the
north-west, the Ahwazi Arabs in the south-west, and the Baluchis in the
south-east. Non-Persians make up nearly 40 per cent of Iran's 69 million
population, with around 16 million Azeris, seven million Kurds, five million
Ahwazis and one million Baluchis. Most Baluchis live over the border in
Pakistan.
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Funding for their separatist causes comes directly from the CIA's classified
budget but is now "no great secret", according to one former high-ranking CIA
official in Washington who spoke anonymously to The Sunday Telegraph.
His claims were backed by Fred Burton, a former US state department
counter-terrorism agent, who said: "The latest attacks inside Iran fall in line
with US efforts to supply and train Iran's ethnic minorities to destabilise the
Iranian regime."
Although Washington officially denies involvement in such activity, Teheran has
long claimed to detect the hand of both America and Britain in attacks by
guerrilla groups on its internal security forces. Last Monday, Iran publicly
hanged a man, Nasrollah Shanbe Zehi, for his involvement in a bomb attack that
killed 11 Revolutionary Guards in the city of Zahedan in Sistan-Baluchistan. An
unnamed local official told the semi-official Fars news agency that weapons used
in the attack were British and US-made.
Yesterday, Iranian forces also claimed to have killed 17 rebels described as
"mercenary elements" in clashes near the Turkish border, which is a stronghold
of the Pejak, a Kurdish militant party linked to Turkey's outlawed PKK Kurdistan
Workers' Party.
John Pike, the head of the influential Global Security think tank in Washington,
said: "The activities of the ethnic groups have hotted up over the last two
years and it would be a scandal if that was not at least in part the result of
CIA activity."
Such a policy is fraught with risk, however. Many of the groups share little
common cause with Washington other than their opposition to President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, whose regime they accuse of stepping up repression of minority
rights and culture.
The Baluchistan-based Brigade of God group, which last year kidnapped and killed
eight Iranian soldiers, is a volatile Sunni organisation that many fear could
easily turn against Washington after taking its money.
A row has also broken out in Washington over whether to "unleash" the military
wing of the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), an Iraq-based Iranian opposition group
with a long and bloody history of armed opposition to the Iranian regime.
The group is currently listed by the US state department as terrorist
organisation, but Mr Pike said: "A faction in the Defence Department wants to
unleash them. They could never overthrow the current Iranian regime but they
might cause a lot of damage."
At present, none of the opposition groups are much more than irritants to
Teheran, but US analysts believe that they could become emboldened if the regime
was attacked by America or Israel. Such a prospect began to look more likely
last week, as the UN Security Council deadline passed for Iran to stop its
uranium enrichment programme, and a second American aircraft carrier joined the
build up of US naval power off Iran's southern coastal waters.
The US has also moved six heavy bombers from a British base on the Pacific
island of Diego Garcia to the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which could allow them
to carry out strikes on Iran without seeking permission from Downing Street.
While Tony Blair reiterated last week that Britain still wanted a diplomatic
solution to the crisis, US Vice-President Dick Cheney yesterday insisted that
military force was a real possibility.
"It would be a serious mistake if a nation like Iran were to become a nuclear
power," Mr Cheney warned during a visit to Australia. "All options are still on
the table."
The five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany will meet in
London tomorrow to discuss further punitive measures against Iran. Sanctions
barring the transfer of nuclear technology and know-how were imposed in
December. Additional penalties might include a travel ban on senior Iranian
officials and restrictions on non-nuclear business.
