Iran accuses US of backing rebel leader

TEHRAN - Iran Tuesday accused the US of backing Abdolmalek Rigi, the leader of the Pakistan-based Iranian Sunni rebel group Jundallah, Xinhua reported.

The US has dismissed the Iranian accusations.

Iran’s state-run IRIB TV Tuesday showed a footage of Rigi captured by Iranian forces and being led out of a plane by some security officials in an Iranian airport.

Rigi was reportedly captured on a flight from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan, Iran’s English-language Press TV said without elaborating.

Rigi was at a US base in Afghanistan before being arrested, Iranian Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi was quoted as saying by Press TV.

At a news conference after Rigi’s capture Tuesday, Moslehi shed light on Rigi’s arrest and his links with foreign elements, the report said.

Rigi had contacts with US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Israeli foreign intelligence service Mossad, and he had even met NATO military chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer in Afghanistan in April 2008, Moslehi was quoted as saying.

Also, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast stressed the group led by Rigi was supported by the US, the official IRNA news agency reported.

The group, founded by Rigi, has been identified by Iran and Pakistan as a terrorist organisation.

Jundallah, or Peoples Resistant Movement of Iran, is an insurgent Sunni Islamic organisation based in Balochistan of Pakistan that claims to fight for the rights of Sunni Muslims in Iran.

In his weekly press briefing Tuesday, Mehman-Parast said the support of the US for Rigi was a disgrace both for Washington and other countries claiming respect for human rights.

Iran’s intelligence minister said Rigi had been in contact with some Eeropean Union countries and had travelled to those countries too, Press TV reported.

He was being monitored for five months before being captured by the Iranian forces, Moslehi added, reiterating that no foreign intelligence service helped Iran in Rigi’s capture.

Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar was quoted by Press TV as saying that Rigi was arrested outside the country as he was preparing for a new act of sabotage and was consequently transferred to Iran.

In August, Abdolhamid Rigi, the brother of Abdolmalek Rigi, told reporters in Zahedan, the capital city of Iran’s southeastern province of Sistan-Balouchestan, that the US had a supporting role in launching some plots inside Iran.

However, the US Tuesday dismissed Iran’s accusations of links to Abdolmalek Rigi.