Iran: Western Spy Networks Discovered http://www.topix.net/content/ap/1127813186122582546929611869081074626643 The Associated Press Iran said Saturday it has uncovered spy rings organized by the United States and its Western allies, claiming on state-run television that the espionage networks were made up of 'infiltrating elements from the Iraqi occupiers.' The Intelligence Ministry has 'succeeded in identifying and striking blows at several spy networks comprised of infiltrating elements from the Iraqi occupiers in western, southwestern and central Iran,' said the statement, using shorthand for United States and its allies. The broadcast did not elaborate, saying further details would be published within days. Meanwhile, the state IRNA news agency said the uncovered networks 'enjoyed guidance from intelligence services of the occupying powers in Iraq' and also that 'Iraqi groups' were 'involved in the case.' The White House said Saturday that it does not confirm or deny allegations about intelligence matters. 'We urge Iran to play a positive role in Iraq ... and stop blaming everyone else for problems they are only bringing on themselves,' White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said. Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Iran has often accused the United States and Britain of trying to undermine the security of the Islamic Republic. The allegations Saturday come two days before American and Iranian ambassadors are to meet in Baghdad to discuss ways to ease the crisis in Iraq. It remains unclear how the announcement will affect those talks, although it clearly reflects a toughening of Iran's stand. The talks Monday in Baghdad will offer a rare one-on-one forum between the two countries, which broke off formal relations after Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution. The agenda is expected to be limited to Iraqi affairs, without touching on the nuclear impasse between Iran and the West. The talks will also take place against the backdrop of five Iranians held by U.S. troops for more than three months after their January capture in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil. U.S. authorities said the five were members of Iran's elite Quds Force, accused of arming and training Iraqi militants. Tehran has claimed they were part of a government liaison office and has demanded their release. Saturday's Iranian statement did not refer to either U.S. or Britain by name, but followed reports that President Bush has authorized the covert CIA action to destabilize the Iranian government. 'This is the first we've heard of any such claims and we would obviously want to know more about what lies behind the claims,' said a British Foreign Office spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with department policy. Iranian officials have repeatedly raised concerns that Washington could incite members of Iran's many ethnic and religious minorities as pressure points against the Shiite-led government in Tehran. State television said this month that Iran had captured 10 men crossing the country's eastern border, with $500,000 in cash, maps of sensitive Iranian locations and modern spying equipment. No other details were available. Iran has arrested a number of Iranian-Americans in recent months, accusing them of seeking to topple the ruling establishment. Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East Program at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, has been held at Tehran's notorious Evin Prison since early May and charged with seeking to topple the government in Tehran. She traveled to Iran in December to visit her 93-year-old mother but was stopped when she headed to the airport to leave on Dec. 30 by knife-wielding men in masks. She was interrogated extensively and, earlier this month, imprisoned. The Iranian government this week announced she was being charged with setting up a network to overthrow the Islamic establishment. Other Iranian-Americans have also been prohibited from leaving Iran in recent months, including Parnaz Azima, a journalist for the U.S.-funded Radio Farda; Ali Shakeri, a founding board member at the University of California, Irvine's Center for Citizen Peacebuilding; and Kian Tajbakhsh, consultant working for George Soros' Open Society Institute. Another American, former FBI agent Robert Levinson, disappeared in March after going to Iran's resort island of Kish. U.S.-Iranian tensions have also increased after Pentagon moved two aircraft carriers and seven other ships into the Persian Gulf.
of course we have black ops in iran. we have been pulling this stuff on them for over half a century, starting in 1953 when the cia was funding and carrying out terrorist attacks in order to destablize the democratically elected mosaddeq government. who are the terrorists again? in these covert operations inside iran the bush administration is now funding the jundullah, who were founded by 9/11 mastermind khalid sheikh mohammed. in other words, our government is now working with and supplying al-queda groups. who are the terrorists again? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...FF4AVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2007/05/27/wiran27.xml Bush sanctions 'black ops' against Iran President George W Bush has given the CIA approval to launch covert "black" operations to achieve regime change in Iran, intelligence sources have revealed. Mr Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilise, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs. Under the plan, pressure will be brought to bear on the Iranian economy by manipulating the country's currency and international financial transactions. Details have also emerged of a covert scheme to sabotage the Iranian nuclear programme, which United Nations nuclear watchdogs said last week could lead to a bomb within three years. Security officials in Washington have disclosed that Teheran has been sold defective parts on the black market in a bid to delay and disrupt its uranium enrichment programme, the precursor to building a nuclear weapon. advertisement A security source in the US told The Sunday Telegraph that the presidential directive, known as a "non-lethal presidential finding", would give the CIA the right to collect intelligence on home soil, an area that is usually the preserve of the FBI, from the many Iranian exiles and emigrés within the US. "Iranians in America have links with their families at home, and they are a good two-way source of information," he said. The CIA will also be allowed to supply communications equipment which would enable opposition groups in Iran to work together and bypass internet censorship by the clerical regime. The plans, which significantly increase American pressure on Iran, were leaked just days before a meeting in Iraq tomorrow between the US ambassador, Ryan Crocker, and his Iranian counterpart. Tensions have been raised by Iran's seizure of what the US regards as a series of "hostages" in recent weeks. Three academics who hold dual Iranian-American citizenship are being held, accused of working to undermine the Iranian government or of spying. An Iranian-American reporter with Radio Free Europe, who was visiting Iran, has had her passport seized. Another Iranian American, businessman Ali Shakeri, was believed to have been detained as he tried to leave Teheran last week. The US responded with a show of force by the navy, sending nine warships, including two aircraft carriers, into the Persian Gulf. Authorisation of the new CIA mission, which will not be allowed to use lethal force, appears to suggest that President Bush has, for the time being, ruled out military action against Iran. Bruce Riedel, until six months ago the senior CIA official who dealt with Iran, said: "Vice-President [Dick] Cheney helped to lead the side favouring a military strike, but I think they have concluded that a military strike has more downsides than upsides." However, the CIA is giving arms-length support, supplying money and weapons, to an Iranian militant group, Jundullah, which has conducted raids into Iran from bases in Pakistan. Iranian officials say they captured 10 members of Jundullah last weekend, carrying $500,000 in cash along with "maps of sensitive areas" and "modern spy equipment". Mark Fitzpatrick, a former senior State Department official now with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said industrial sabotage was the favoured way to combat Iran's nuclear programme "without military action, without fingerprints on the operation." He added: "One way to sabotage a programme is to make minor modifications in some of the components Iran obtains on the black market." Components and blueprints obtained by Iranian intelligence agents in Europe, and shipped home using the diplomatic bag from the Iranian consulate in Frankfurt, have been blamed for an explosion that destroyed 50 nuclear centrifuges at the Natanz nuclear plant last year. The White House National Security Council and CIA refused to comment on intelligence matters.
There are no good guys in War... but actions like these deserve a response. How would the US like it if we were being sold faulty equipment from China? I wish America would stop butting into Iranian affairs.
you are denying that the u.s. government and in particular the c.i.a. has carried out terrorist attacks in order to overthrow democratically elected governments? you dont consider bombing peoples homes to be terrorism? or kidnapping people? or murdering people? how do you feel about our government now supporting and working with a group that was founded by 9/11 mastermind khalid sheikh mohammed. a group with ties to the taliban. this group is now covertly operating in iran carrying out terrorism. or do you not consider kidnappings and murder to be terrorism? http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/04/abc_news_exclus.html ABC News Exclusive: The Secret War Against Iran April 03, 2007 5:25 PM Brian Ross and Christopher Isham Report: A Pakistani tribal militant group responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005, U.S. and Pakistani intelligence sources tell ABC News. The group, called Jundullah, is made up of members of the Baluchi tribe and operates out of the Baluchistan province in Pakistan, just across the border from Iran. It has taken responsibility for the deaths and kidnappings of more than a dozen Iranian soldiers and officials. U.S. officials say the U.S. relationship with Jundullah is arranged so that the U.S. provides no funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or "finding" as well as congressional oversight. Tribal sources tell ABC News that money for Jundullah is funneled to its youthful leader, Abd el Malik Regi, through Iranian exiles who have connections with European and Gulf states. Jundullah has produced its own videos showing Iranian soldiers and border guards it says it has captured and brought back to Pakistan. The leader, Regi, claims to have personally executed some of the Iranians. "He used to fight with the Taliban. He's part drug smuggler, part Taliban, part Sunni activist," said Alexis Debat, a senior fellow on counterterrorism at the Nixon Center and an ABC News consultant who recently met with Pakistani officials and tribal members. "Regi is essentially commanding a force of several hundred guerrilla fighters that stage attacks across the border into Iran on Iranian military officers, Iranian intelligence officers, kidnapping them, executing them on camera," Debat said. Most recently, Jundullah took credit for an attack in February that killed at least 11 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard riding on a bus in the Iranian city of Zahedan. Last month, Iranian state television broadcast what it said were confessions by those responsible for the bus attack. They reportedly admitted to being members of Jundullah and said they had been trained for the mission at a secret location in Pakistan. The Iranian TV broadcast is interspersed with the logo of the CIA, which the broadcast blamed for the plot. A CIA spokesperson said "the account of alleged CIA action is false" and reiterated that the U.S. provides no funding of the Jundullah group. Pakistani government sources say the secret campaign against Iran by Jundullah was on the agenda when Vice President Dick Cheney met with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in February. A senior U.S. government official said groups such as Jundullah have been helpful in tracking al Qaeda figures and that it was appropriate for the U.S. to deal with such groups in that context. Some former CIA officers say the arrangement is reminiscent of how the U.S. government used proxy armies, funded by other countries including Saudi Arabia, to destabilize the government of Nicaragua in the 1980s.
