"......Jundullah, or Soldiers of God, has killed scores of Iranian soldiers and border guards since 2003 ....The Iranian government accuses the United States of funding the group, making its deadly attacks a key obstacle to rapprochement between the two countries. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly yesterday strongly condemned the killing of Iranian civilians and said that the US government does not fund Jundullah, whose fighters are disgruntled members of the Baluch ethnic minority.
"We do not sponsor any form of terrorism in Iran," Kelly said. "We continue to work with the international community to prevent any attacks against innocent civilians anywhere.".... US officials argue that the administration should swiftly place a terrorist label on Jundullah as a sign of Washington's good faith...........one official estimated that the State Department is halfway through the designation process, while another said the process is underway but might never be completed. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue..........Last year, the State Department opted to keep another anti-Iranian group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq, on its terrorist list, despite strong pressure from European allies to remove it......In February, the Treasury Department designated the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan, an anti-Iranian guerilla group based in the mountains of Iraq, as a terrorist organization, because it is controlled by another group that was already listed....
On Thursday, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a mosque in the southeastern border city of Zahedan. Arabic news channel Al-Arabiya said a Jundullah spokesman called to claim responsibility. Yesterday, gunmen on motorbikes in the same city attacked a campaign headquarters of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, wounding three people....
The New Yorker magazine and ABC News have reported that the US government has been in contact with Jundullah and used such groups to keep tabs on Al Qaeda, which operates in the same territory in Pakistan. A key source for the ABC News story was later discredited, and US officials strenuously denied both reports...
"Iran has its own war on terror," said Michael Rubin, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington-based think tank. "Jundullah has become a consistent threat."
1 comment:
State Department spokesman Ian Kelly, you lie like a rug.
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