By Larisa Alexandrovna
Posted on February 15, 2007, Printed on February 15, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers//48080/
I think people should be very concerned about the following:
"A car loaded with explosives blew up near a bus carrying members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards in southeastern Iran, killing 18 of them, the state-run news agency reported today.
The car stopped in front of the bus near Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchestan Province, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported. It called the attack a terrorist operation and said the car's occupants fled on motorbikes seconds before the car exploded.
"This blind terrorist operation led to the martyrdom of 18 citizens of Zahedan," IRNA quoted a Guards commander, Qasem Rezaei, as saying.
State-run television said the bus had been taking them to work when the attack took place. There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Rezaei blamed "insurgents and elements of insecurity" for the attack. Hossein Ali Shahriyari, a deputy representing Zahedan, told an open session of the parliament today that "insurgents and drug traffickers" were behind the attack.
Shahriyari called lawless regions in southwestern Pakistan a safe haven for Iranian insurgents and drug traffickers, and called on the government to take up the issue with Islamabad."
Why should we be...
"The Pentagon is bypassing official US intelligence channels and turning to a dangerous and unruly cast of characters in order to create strife in Iran in preparation for any possible attack, former and current intelligence officials say.
One of the operational assets being used by the Defense Department is a right-wing terrorist organization known as Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), which is being "run" in two southern regional areas of Iran. They are Baluchistan, a Sunni stronghold, and Khuzestan, a Shia region where a series of recent attacks has left many dead and hundreds injured in the last three months.
One former counterintelligence official, who wished to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the information, describes the Pentagon as pushing MEK shortly after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The drive to use the insurgent group was said to have been advanced by the Pentagon under the influence of the Vice President's office and opposed by the State Department, National Security Council and then-National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice.
-snip-
According to all three intelligence sources, military and
intelligence officials alike were alarmed that instead of securing a
known terrorist organization, which has been responsible for acts of
terror against Iranian targets and individuals all over the world -
including US civilian and military casualties
- Rumsfeld under instructions from Cheney, began using the group on
special ops missions into Iran to pave the way for a potential Iran
strike.
They are doing whatever they want, no oversight at all," one intelligence source said."
and the below is just one example of a policy to support terrorists for use as proxy groups:
"Bomb blasts struck Iranian government buildings in the capital of an oil-rich border province, followed within hours by two other bombs in central Tehran, killing nine people, days before presidential elections."
I believed that the attacks by MEK had been halted in March of last year. If this attack is shown to be tied to MEK terrorists or any other "group" we are funding, arming, and training in the region, then the US will be implicated - even if we had nothing to do with the bombing directly.
Let's use Al Qaeda and the US as an example to illustrate how the MEK-US relationship might look to Iranians:
Imagine that this morning you woke up to find that 18 US national guardsmen were assassinated on US soil via a car bomb on their way to a work facility. Now imagine that it was determined that Al Qaeda was behind the attack and that Syrian government officials were behind the funding, training, and harboring of this Al Qaeda cell. How would you react? Would you not see this as a declaration of war against our country? How then would this look to Iranian citizens if it turns out MEK or any other organization being run by Israel and the US is behind this attack?
We can only hope that the US backed groups had nothing to do with this bombing, but I fear given what we already know, the case against us is looking very strong.
Larisa Alexandrovna is a journalist, essayist and poet. She is currently managing news editor for Raw Story.
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