US Funds Terror Groups to Sow Chaos in Iran

Posted on December 15, 2010 by abby

TELEGRAPH– 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.

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.

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.

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An Attack on Iran- Back on the Table

Posted on July 15, 2010 by abby

YAHOO NEWS– In late 2006, George W. Bush met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon and asked if military action against Iran’s nuclear program was feasible. The unanimous answer was no. Air strikes could take out some of Iran’s nuclear facilities, but there was no way to eliminate all of them.

Some of the nuclear labs were located in heavily populated areas; others were deep underground. And Iran’s ability to strike back by unconventional means, especially through its Hizballah terrorist network, was formidable. The military option was never officially taken off the table. At least, that’s what U.S. officials always said.

But the emphasis was on the implausibility of a military strike. “Another war in the middle East is the last thing we need,” Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wrote in 2008. It would be “disastrous on a number of levels.”

Gates is sounding more belligerent these days. “I don’t think we’re prepared to even talk about containing a nuclear Iran,” he told Fox News on June 20. “We do not accept the idea of Iran having nuclear weapons.” In fact, Gates was reflecting a new reality in the military and intelligence communities. Diplomacy and economic pressure remain the preferred means to force Iran to negotiate a nuclear deal, but there isn’t much hope that’s going to happen. “Will [sanctions] deter them from their ambitions with regards to nuclear capability?” CIA Director Leon Panetta told ABC News on June 27. “Probably not.” So the military option is very much back on the table.

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UN Approves New Iran Sanctions

Posted on June 10, 2010 by abby

AL JAZEERA– The United Nations Security Council has overwhelmingly agreed to a new package of economic sanctions against Iran.

12 of the council’s 15 members voted on Wednesday to approve the sanctions resolution. Turkey and Brazil both voted against the resolution, while Lebanon abstained.

Barack Obama, the US president, called the resolution “the toughest sanctions ever faced” by the Iranian government.

“We recognize Iran’s rights. But with those rights come responsibilities. And time and again, the Iranian government has failed to meet those responsibilities,” Obama said at the White House.

Susan Rice, the United States ambassador to the UN, praised the vote as a “decisive” move against Iran’s nuclear programme, which she called a “grave threat to international security.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, was one of several high-ranking Iranian officials to quickly condemn the decision. Ahmadinejad said the sanctions would not have an impact on Iran.

“Sanctions are falling on us from the left and the right. For us they are the same as pesky flies,” Ahmadinejad said. “We have patience and we will endure throughout all of this.”

Alaeddin Boroujerdi, the head of the Iranian parliament’s national security committee, said lawmakers would review the level of Iran’s cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency. And Manouchehr Mottaki, the Iranian foreign minister, said the vote “damaged” the UN Security Council.

Several other European countries praised the sanctions resolution; the Chinese government endorsed it as well, while insisting that it still wants a diplomatic solution.

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Photo by Flickr User Daniella Zalcman

George Stephanopoulos Interviews Iranian President Ahmadinejad

Posted on May 13, 2010 by abby

George Stephanopoulos conducts a very fascinating ABC interview with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Despite Stephanopoulos’s fear mongering about Israeli and US intervention, Ahmadinejad makes some very pertinent points and presents some provocative questions for George.

US Military Prepares Transport of Bunker Buster Bombs for Iran Nuclear Strikes

Posted on May 3, 2010 by abby

SCOTLAND HERALD– Hundreds of powerful US “bunker-buster” bombs are being shipped from California to the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in preparation for a possible attack on Iran.

The Sunday Herald can reveal that the US government signed a contract in January to transport 10 ammunition containers to the island. According to a cargo manifest from the US navy, this included 387 “Blu” bombs used for blasting hardened or underground structures.

Experts say that they are being put in place for an assault on Iran’s controversial nuclear facilities. There has long been speculation that the US military is preparing for such an attack, should diplomacy fail to persuade Iran not to make nuclear weapons.

Although Diego Garcia is part of the British Indian Ocean Territory, it is used by the US as a military base under an agreement made in 1971. The agreement led to 2,000 native islanders being forcibly evicted to the Seychelles and Mauritius.

The Sunday Herald reported in 2007 that stealth bomber hangers on the island were being equipped to take bunker-buster bombs. Although the story was not confirmed at the time, the new evidence suggests that it was accurate.

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