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Iran Bombing

Captain.Sassy

Master Poster
Captain.Sassy
Joined
Sep 14, 2009
Messages
2,236
So somebody just exploded some Iranian Revolutionary Guard leaders.

HuffPo says that Iran is blaming Jundallah, a Taliban linked sunni insurgent group:
"Iranian officials have accused Jundallah of receiving support from al-Qaida and the Taliban in neighboring Pakistan, though some analysts who have studied the group dispute such a link."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/18/iran-suicide-bomb-senior-_n_325009.html

The BBC says that Iran blamed Jundullah, and subsequently also accused the US of being involved.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8312964.stm

The Asia Times Online differentiates the two groups as follows:
"On May 28, a suicide bomber blew himself up inside the Ameer al-Momenin mosque in Zahedan, capital of Iran's Sistan-Balochistan province, killing 25 people and injuring 130 others. Since the attack took place during a Shi'ite festival, it incensed Tehran. It was carried out by a member of Jundullah (which is a Baloch insurgent group, not to be confused with Jundallah, a pan-Pakistan offshoot of Baitullah Mehsud's Taliban faction)."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KH07Df04.html

The Telegraph has suggested that the Bush administration supported JundUllah
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1552784/Bush-sanctions-black-ops-against-Iran.html

(...which would apparently make the US a sponsor of terrorism, since Jundulah has engaged in civilian attacks... but whatever.)

Balochistan (the province where both Jundullah and Jundallah are active) would seem to be a strategically salient area, especially in light of the recent agreements between Pakistan and Iran on pipelines.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KE09Df03.html
http://www.iags.org/n0115042.htm

China is also a beneficiary of this pipeline deal:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KE27Df03.html
(some say gas pipelines are China's only strategic objective in Central Asia)

So this story about the bombing raises some interesting questions. First, was it the US sponsored terrorist organization (Jundullah) that did the bombing, or was it the Taleban backed organization (Jundallah)? How closely does Jundallah work with the Taliban? How closely does the US work with Jundullah? How closely do these two organizations work together? Should the attack on the Revolutionary Guard leaders be seen in light of Pakistan's ground offensive in Pashtunistan, or is the timing just coincidental?

Finally (and somewhat tangentially) to what extent is US grand strategy in the region built around a containment of China? Or, is the larger Sino-US geo-political rivalry (which may never fully materialize) merely a red-herring in this region?
 
Wait.

Something got blown up and they did not blame Israel?:jaw-dropp

That has to be a first.
 
From the article:

Jundullah (meaning 'God's Army') is a Pakistan-based terrorist group closely affiliated with the notorious al-Qaeda organization and is made up of disgruntled members of Iran's Sunni Baluch community.

A 2007 Sunday Telegraph report revealed that the CIA had created Jundullah to achieve 'regime change in Iran'.

The report said it was the very same US intelligence outfit that had tried to destabilize Iran by 'supplying arms-length support' and 'money and weapons' to Jundullah.

Another report posted by ABC also revealed that the US officials had ordered Jundullah to 'stage deadly guerrilla raids inside the Islamic Republic, kidnap Iranian officials and execute them on camera', all as part of a 'programmatic objective to overthrow the Iranian government'.

Jundullah has carried out a number of bombings and other violent attacks in Iran resulting in many casualties. Some of the attacks for which it has claimed responsibility are the killings of at least 16 Iranian police officers in a 2008 attack, nine Iranian security guards in 2005, and another 11 in a 2007 bombing.
Click to expand...


Charming. "War on Terror" live.
 
Pardalis:
What conspiracy theories?

You think that geopolitical posturing and strategy don't exist? You think the US has never supported irregular armed forces to weaken or destabilize an enemy? I don't know if the US specifically ordered Jundullah to carry out the attack. Probably not. However, even the US state department has admitted to working with Jundullah on some level, though they have denied funding it (according to ABC News) http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/04/abc_news_exclus.html

Even without a direct chain of command with Jundullah, it could still be useful to destabilize that part of Iran through tacit support of Jundullah, if the US strategy in the region is anything like the strategy proposed by this guy from Harvard:

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mesh/2009/09/how-to-beat-irans-pipeline-strategy/
In particular:
"The Obama administration should actively promote alternative energy corridors [to proposed Iran-Pakistan-India/China pipelines] which will prevent Iranian gas from reaching major markets while addressing Asia’s and Europe’s energy needs. One potential gas-pipeline project is the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline. The project can supply Pakistan and India as much gas at a lower construction cost, while providing the impoverished Afghan government with a steady revenue stream in the form of transit fees. Most important, TAPI would allow Turkmenistan to sell its gas to India, enriching two U.S. allies (Afghanistan and Pakistan) rather than selling the same gas to Europe, enriching a U.S. enemy (Iran)."
 
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Did anyone see any large silver saucer shaped balloons flying over the area just before the bombs went off?
 
Everything that happens in Iran is because of the US, according to the rulers of Iran. Dissent and protests after the mock elections? The US's fault of course. Bloggers and journalists critical of the regime? US shills of course. Earthquakes? The US is behind it of course. And now terrorist attacks? You guessed it, they blame it on the US again.

Like the boy who cried wolf, maybe it's true this time, but nobody is listening anymore.
 
Pardalis said:
Like the boy who cried wolf, maybe it's true this time, but nobody is listening anymore.
Click to expand...

that too..is part of the plan. :)

plant some provaceteurs to constantly blaim the USA and Israel for everything and anything under the sun, so that then we actually ARE responsible for something, most folks will just disregard the accusations as more pathetic scapegoating.

hee hee....hee.
 
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Pardalis: The Iranian regime presents a certain picture of the US to its people, ergo the US is definitely not covertly involved in any way in Iran or the region?

Come on man.

Hey, I'm not even saying that I think the US was behind the bombing. But I don't dismiss it as beyond the realm of the possibilities merely because the Iranian government puts out hyperbolic and sometimes paranoid propaganda about the US.

ETA: Nobody is listening to the boy who cried wolf, but zoologists are still interested in counting the wolves.
 
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Also I don't know that I personally would call blowing up military leaders a 'terrorist attack'. Aren't military leaders OK to kill?
 
I honestly can't imagine the USA having anything to do with this, except by a rogue nut in the CIA or something like that.

And why do I say this?

Because such attacks only feeds into the paranoia and militancy of Iranian hardliners, and convinces more Iranians that they are a nation under attack from the West and its allies.

The USA does not want the common man in Iran to be afraid of the West. This attack will not help in that goal.
 
Well, it may be stupid and counter-productive, but was that ever a reason not to do it anyway?

Selig S. Harrison said:
The most readily available means of [covertly harrassing the iranian regime] was to get Pakistan and Israel to arm and finance already-existing insurgent groups in the Baluch and Kurdish areas through well-established US ties with the Interservices Intelligence Directorate (ISI) and the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. The ISI channelled weapons and money to an already established Iranian Baluch dissident group, Jundullah (Soldiers of God), which inflicted heavy casualties in raids on Iranian Revolutionary Guard units in Zahedan and southeastern Iran in 2006 and 2007. The US made no effort to hide its support for Jundullah. On 2 April 2007 the Voice of America interviewed its leader, Abdolmalek Rigi, introducing him as "the leader of the popular resistance movement of Iran". Several of my Baluch contacts recently provided detailed proof of Rigi's ISI ties.
Click to expand...
 
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Parky:
Interesting and I think you raise a valid point. At the same time, the US strategy up until recently was very much one of 'containment'. Now Obama seems to be shifting more towards a mix of containment and engagement (congagement, as I like to call it.)

At the same time... Obama's brand of engagement is largely diplomatic. I don't think he's looking for any economic engagement of Iran. They are more in the business of economic isolation of Iran to put the pressure on them, while still maintaining a diplomatic dialogue. In terms of economic isolation, destabilizing the region between Pakistan and Iran through which any pipeline would have to run sounds like it would still be aligned with this strategy.

In related news:

Russia recently supported Pakistan's accession to the SCO and offered help with the Iran-Pakistan pipeline:
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect...4-gilani-putin-agree-to-strengthen-ties-qs-02

China and Pakistan recently had feel-good talks at the SCO meeting, where they discussed greater economic integration. At these same talks Pakistan and Iran discussed speeding up work on the Pakistan-Iran pipeline.
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect...with-china-set-to-double-in-two-years--szh-06

And once again I don't think there is any evidence to support that the US directly ordered a bombing at the moment. If the US was involved at all it was more likely in the form of 'arms length support' of Jundullah.

Still, perhaps the recent bombing is a legacy of an earlier strategy i.e. support (tacit or otherwise) of Jundullah ? I.e. perhaps the US has withdrawn its support now. However, if the US *did* provide support to Jundullah to destabilise Baluchistan as part of its Bush-era regional strategy of Iran containment, then the most recent bombing might be a delayed effect of this earlier support (like a strategic landmine or timebomb, set in an earlier era and detonated at an inopportune moment.)
 
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