US funds terror groups to sow chaos in Iran

The United States is secretly funding militant ethnic separatist groups in Iran in an attempt to pile pressure on the Iranian government to give up its nuclear program. In a move that reflects Washington's growing concern with the failure of diplomatic initiatives, CIA officials are understood to be helping opposition militias among the numerous ethnic minority groups clustered in Iran's border regions. The operations are controversial because they involve dealing with movements that resort to terrorist methods in pursuit of their grievances against the Iranian regime. In the past year there has been a wave of unrest in ethnic minority border areas of Iran, with bombing and assassination campaigns against soldiers and government officials. Such incidents have been carried out by the Kurds in the west, the Azeris in the north-west, the Ahwazi Arabs in the southwest and the Baluchis in the southeast. Non-Persians make up nearly 40 percent of Iran's 69 million population, with around 16 million Azeris, seven million Kurds, five million Ahwazis and one million Baluchis. Most Baluchis live over the border in Pakistan. Funding for their separatist causes comes directly from the CIA's classified budget but is now "no great secret," according to one former high-ranking CIA official in Washington. His claims were backed by Fred Burton, a former State Department counter-terrorism agent, who said: "The latest attacks inside Iran fall in line with US efforts to supply and train Iran's ethnic minorities to destabilize the Iranian regime." John Pike, the head of the influential Global Security think tank in Washington, said: "The activities of the ethnic groups have heated up over the last two years and it would be a scandal if that was not at least in part the result of CIA activity." Such a policy is fraught with risk, however. Many of the groups share little common cause with Washington other than their opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose regime they accuse of stepping up repression of minority rights and culture. The Baluchistan-based Brigade of God group, which last year kidnapped and killed eight Iranian soldiers, is a volatile Sunni organization that many fear could easily turn against Washington after taking its money. A debate has also broken out in Washington over whether to "unleash" the military wing of the Mujahadeen-e Khalq, an Iraq-based Iranian opposition group with a long and bloody history of armed opposition to the Iranian regime. The group is currently listed by the State Department as a terrorist organization, but Pike said: "A faction in the Defense Department wants to unleash them. They could never overthrow the current Iranian regime but they might cause a lot of damage." At present, none of the opposition groups are much more than irritants to Tehran, but US analysts believe that they could become emboldened if the regime was attacked by the United States or Israel. Such a prospect began to look more likely last week, as the UN Security Council deadline passed for Iran to stop its uranium enrichment program, and a second US aircraft carrier joined the build up of US naval power off Iran's southern coastal waters. Vice President Dick Cheney insisted that military force was a real possibility. "It would be a serious mistake if a nation like Iran were to become a nuclear power," Cheney warned during a visit to Australia on Feb. 24. "All options are still on the table."