US-backed Salafi/Takfiri terrorism in Iran

The following is an article that appeared in MintPress in this regard, titled: “US-backed Salafi/Takfiri Terrorism in Iran”.

Though Iran has been the target of terrorism since the Islamic Revolution ended US hegemony in 1979, Washington, which had covertly backed the MKO and other terrorist groups involved in the killing of Iranian officials and ordinary citizens, stepped up direct support for terrorism inside Iran, especially in the south-eastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan Province by providing Saudi sponsored Salafi/Takfiri terrorist outfits based across the border in Pakistan with funds and weapons to indulge in cross-border kidnappings and killings.

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 West Asia, 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. 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.

These groups are backed by the US and Saudi Arabia, and those striking the southeastern parts of Iran, do so from their safe bases in Pakistan, and are followers of the Wahhabi cult, which also itself Salafis.

Iran has been familiar with terrorism for many decades through the Saddam-backed MKO hypocrites, which waged war on their own country in an attempt to grab power, shortly after the Islamic Revolution. During the 8-year war imposed on Iran by the US in the 1980s through its agent Saddam of the repressive Ba’th minority regime, the MKO, backed and armed by Iraqi security forces, resorted to frequent terrorist attacks, killing many innocent people. While this group was effectively defeated, it has recently been shifted to Albania by the US.

Since the suspicious 9/11/2001 incidents in New York when Al-Qaeda became a household name in the US, Takfiri groups have become increasingly widespread in West and Central Asia and North Africa. Many Takfiri terrorist groups have found their haven in neighboring 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 terrorist 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, which are actually terrorist recruitment centers 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 neighbors. 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 become a regular target of Takfiri terrorism in its south-eastern Sistan-Baluchistan Province bordering Pakistan. One of the more active groups in the region was the self-styled Jundallah terrorist outfit, which should actually be called Jundush-Shaytan for its devilish nature. From their bases in Pakistan, these terrorists have conducted multiple terrorist attacks in Iran, such as the 2007 Zahedan bombings where 18 members of the IRGC were martyred.

Investigation has revealed that these terrorists are backed by the US and the illegal Zionist regime, as Mossad agents posing as CIA officers met with and recruited members of this group in cities such as London to carry out attacks against Iran.

In late 2008, in an interview with the Saudi Al-Arabiyah TV, the now executed terrorist ringleader Abdul-Malek Rigi had 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 next two years, more attacks were carried out in the Sistan-Baluchistan Province as Jundallah stepped up its terrorism. Despite Pakistan’s official policy of cooperating with Iran on the matter of cross border terrorism in this region, some Iranian officials have directly charged Pakistan with playing a double game. It has been pointed out that these terrorist groups 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.

In 2007, ABC News cited US and Pakistani intelligence sources as saying American officials had been secretly advising and encouraging Jundullah terrorists to carry out attacks against targets inside Iran. The following year, in 2008, Seymour Hersh’s New Yorker investigation revealed that the Bush administration had been funding covert operations inside Iran designed to destabilize the country since 2005.

According to Hersh, these covert activities included support for Baluchi groups such as Jundullah. That same year, Pakistan’s former army chief, General Mirza Aslam Baig, claimed to have first-hand knowledge that the US was providing training facilities to Jundallah terrorists in Pakistan and southeastern Iran, specifically to sow unrest between the two neighboring countries.

The final piece of evidence was uncovered when Abdul-Malek Rigi was captured in 2010. In a televised interview with Iranian officials before his execution, Rigi confessed that the Americans “promised to help us and they said that they would co-operate with us, free our prisoners, and would give us military equipment, bombs, machine guns, and they would give us a base.”

Rigi added that “The Americans said Iran was going its own way and they said our problem at the present is Iran… not al-Qaeda and not the Taliban, but the main problem is Iran. We don’t have a military plan against Iran. Attacking Iran is very difficult for us (the US).”

Rigi’s arrest and subsequent execution weakened and ultimately dissolved Jundallah as members broke off to form new terrorist groups such as Harakat Ansar and the more notorious Jaish ul-Adl, which is also based across the border in Pakistan’s Balochistan Province.

The group has carried out numerous attacks against Iranian government institutions, including one infamous incident in March 2014 in which five Iranian border guards were kidnapped, with one being martyred later.

The latest attack was carried out just two months ago this year when a bomber targeted a bus carrying IRGC personnel in the city of Zahedan (capital of Sistan- Baluchistan).

AS/MG