Tehran believes the United States is using a terror organization to destabilize the Iranian regime, an official in the Iranian province that borders Pakistan told The Media Line.
This claim is backed by the former chief of staff of the Pakistani army, (ret.) Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg.
In an attempt to create unrest in the border area between Iran and Pakistan, and to destabilize the Iranian regime, the U.S. is providing training facilities inside Iran to an Iranian-Sunni organization known as Jundullah, Beg told Pakistani media outlets.
Beg was Pakistan’s army chief of staff between 1988 and 1991 and now heads a research center in Rawalpindi. The intelligence agencies of the U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan, are also “working against the interests of Pakistan, China and Russia in the region,” Beg said.
Jundullah, also known as the Iranian People’s Resistance Movement, is a Sunni organization based on both sides of the Iranian-Pakistani border in a region called Baluchistan. Jundullah is referred to by both Iran and Pakistan as a terrorist movement and several officials in these countries have claimed it is linked with Al-Qa’ida.
“It is the common belief in Tehran that the CIA is financially supporting Jundullah and other terror organizations in Iran,” an official in the Iranian border district Sistan-Baluchistan told The Media Line.
Former Iranian speaker of the parliament Ghulam ‘Ali Haddad ‘Adil was quoted last year by Reuters as saying that the U.S. was putting pressure on Iran by supporting anti-Iranian militants operating from the Pakistani border region. ‘Adil was referring to an attack committed in Sistan-Baluchistan by Jundullah a few weeks earlier, which claimed the lives of 18 Iranian soldiers.
In an interview on Wednesday, Beg hailed the Pakistani security authorities for handing over to Iran ‘Abd Al-Hamid Rigi, brother of Jundullah leader ‘Abd Al-Malik Rigi.
Jundullah has so far denied any connection with the U.S.
