US sponsored terrorism? Let's hope not!

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 concerned?

"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 an 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.

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cross-posted at HuffPo

Comments

[Larisa Alexandrovna]

French: you make a good point, but we may both be wrong. I am hearing something else that, should it pan out, I will report on and then we can discuss.

[french swede the rootless vegetable]

A Baluch organisation called "Jundallah" or "Jondallah" is suspected according to what I've read (much more probable logistically than the MEK who has its bases in Iraq).

It has also carried out attentats in Pakistan against Western & Paki military targets in Karachi.

You all probably know of that Seymour Hersh article in the New Yorker, that told that the US was trying to incite any and all ethnic minority in Iran to rebellion, so the US is a prime suspect.

But the Jundallah has also been supported by AQ in the past... and they'd like nothing more than a war between the Christian infidels and the Shia heretics.

Also, the Jundallah is a Salafist movement. And what nation supports Salafism worldwide, and considers Iran its main strategic enemy? That's right, Saudi Arabia.

I think Iran feel faced by an "AQSAUS of evil"...

[Larisa Alexandrovna]

I don't think it is about a fix, but I agree... BYOT. Maybe I should put that on a t-shirt or something?:D

[Djm]

Like you always say, Larisa. BYOT. They're just doing it by any and all means necessary.

In one of Keith Olbermann's Special comments, he mentioned that the Administration is dead-set in thinking that they only way to stop the terrorists is to become a little bit like the terrorists. Who doesn't think that someone authorized by Cheney has no problem with this? Who doesn't think that someone authorized by Cheney is getting their fix of feeling macho from stories like this?