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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Iran blames border province violence on US, Britain |
| 2006-05-21 |
| TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian police said on Saturday they had found papers linking Britain and the United States to vaguely identified "bandits" in a border province which is a drug smuggling center and a base for Sunni Muslim guerrillas. A British diplomat in Tehran said Britain had nothing to do with mounting lawlessness in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan. The United States has no embassy in Iran. Iran has previously blamed Britain and the United States for bombings and killings in its increasingly volatile frontier regions where unrest is simmering among Kurdish, Arab and Baluch minorities. Washington and London deny any involvement. Iranian police spokesman Mehdi Ahmadi said security forces had destroyed a bandit stronghold in the Pirsouran mountains of Sistan-Baluchistan, which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan. The main opium smuggling route to Europe crosses the province. "These people were involved in evil deeds," Ahmadi said, but would not say whether he was referring to drug smuggling or a low-level Sunni Muslim insurgency against the predominantly Shi'ite Muslim Iranian authorities. "We found important documents regarding the involvement of foreigners and countries like America and Britain in incidents in eastern Iran," he said, but declined to give details. Iran has accused a shadowy Sunni Muslim group called Jundollah (God's soldiers) of kidnapping and murdering Iranian soldiers and civilians in Sistan-Baluchistan. It says the group's commander is Abdolmalek Rigi and that he leads a cell of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. Sistan-Baluchistan resembles a war zone, dotted with forts, trenches and machinegun posts. More than 3,300 Iranian security personnel have died fighting drug traffickers there since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Abdolmohammad Raoufinejad, governor of neighboring Kerman province, said bandits using the stronghold that was destroyed had killed 11 people beside a road in his province last Saturday. "Behind the curtain, the Zionists and the Americans were plotting that incident," he told the official IRNA news agency. Police spokesman Ahmadi said he could not produce evidence of any link between the roadside killings and the bandits in the mountain hideout. He could not comment on the fate of the men in the fort. |
| Posted by:Sheling Unomons1998 |
| #4 Yeah, it's us, whatcha goin t do about it, eh ? |
| Posted by: wxjames 2006-05-21 11:28 |
| #3 Think what just 1000 American "independent operators" could accomplish. |
| Posted by: ed 2006-05-21 08:52 |
| #2 I sincerely hope we are. I'd like to see us taking the fight to them for a change. |
| Posted by: mac 2006-05-21 08:08 |
| #1 Baluchistan is one palce that woudl spliut off if the central governmetn collapses. The ara Guflf area around Hormuz is another. The Kurdish north woudl spilt yet more of NW Iran away, and the Caspian N would be drawn to Azerbaijan. Some of the Sunni NE would be drawn into tribal Afghanistan. Iran is no more a monolith than is Iraq. And without the Shia mullahs and thier goons to held things at bay, Iran would be consiberably smaller in a very short time. I'm sure the Tusk woudl "step and and help" to take over old territory jsut to keep the Kurds and some Armenian offshots quiet. |
| Posted by: Oldspook 2006-05-21 01:58 |