Tehran Sees the Hidden Hands of US and UK Agents

Iran is convinced that the two bomb blasts that killed 9 people in the ethnic Arab provincial capital of Ahwaz Tuesday Jan. 24, were the opening shots of a new American-British scheme to fragment the country by means of ethnic uprisings. Officials in Tehran go about saying that the Americans, failing to dismantle its nuclear program, are now intent on dismantling the Islamic republic before it acquires an atom bomb.

The ayatollahs do not bother to offer proofs: they are satisfied with the intelligence data supplied by Shiite terrorist networks in Basra claiming that British MI6 secret service officers are training guerrilla fighters from oil-rich Khuzestan, arming them with weapons, explosives and cash and sending them back across the Shat al-Arb waterway. They also point out that a mysterious television station called the Freedom Fighters of Khuzestan has begun broadcasting in Arabic to all corners of the Arabic-speaking oil region. The station announcers say they are broadcasting from Abu Dhabi, but Iranian officials say they have tracked its waves to a point inside Iraq.

They believe the American and British secret services have split up their subversion operations against the Iranian regime. The British are in charge of covert operations in southern Iran, focusing on Khuzestan, while the Americans are running operations in central and northern Iran.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Iranian sources report that Tehran is certain that the American long arm is stirring up the unrest sweeping the Iranian regions of Kurdistan, Balochistan and Azerbaijan, particularly among the Azeris of Tabriz. They say the Americans are motivated additionally by the urge to get their own back for Iranian meddling in Iraq.

The last Iraqi visitor to Tehran was the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, who came out with a firm promise to send his Mehdi Army militia to Iran if it were attacked.

The firebrand cleric’s record of violence is such that his pledge may be taken seriously.

After assassinating certain rivals, in April 2004, Sadr launched an armed revolt against American forces in Baghdad, Najef, Kufa and Karbala, causing heavy casualties, until the Americans subdued him and disarmed his 10,000-strong militia.

Sadr then found refuge in the Imam Ali Shrine in Najef, after which Ayatollah Ali Sistani obtained from the Americans a promise of immunity in return for his renouncing violence.

In Tehran, he was given the red carpet treatment, meeting all the top officials of the regime. They presented him with a detailed plan of action in Iraq for his army and agreed to make Arab-speaking instructors available for training his men.

Tehran laid out the welcome mat for another violent visitor, Khaled Mashaal, political leader of the Palestinian Hamas, who is based in Damascus. He too was handed a detailed military plan for striking at American interests and targets should Iran’s nuclear sites come under attack.