Enemies of Iran were found on the Kyrgyz plane

Tehran accuses Washington, London and Tel Aviv

Iranian authorities reported on February 23 an operation to forcibly land a Boeing 737-300 passenger aircraft belonging to the Kyrgyz airline Istok-Avia and operating a flight of the Kyrgyzstan company on the Dubai-Bishkek route. The purpose of the operation was to arrest the leader of the radical Sunni group Jundallah (Warriors of Allah), Abdulmalik Rigi, who was on board the plane, whom Tehran accuses of preparing and carrying out terrorist attacks on Iranian territory in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan, bordering Pakistan. The loudest of these was the explosion on October 18 during a meeting between the leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and local tribal leaders and religious leaders, which killed 49 people, including 15 IRGC commanders.

The first reports about the detention of the Jundallah leader looked very contradictory. First, Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar announced the arrest of the terrorist leader, saying that the arrest was made outside Iran and refusing to comment further. Then the Iranian news agency IRNA reported that Rigi was on a plane heading through Pakistan to an Arab country. “The plane was ordered to land, and after a search of the plane, an arrest was made,” France Press reported, citing Iranian parliament member Mohammad Dehghan.

However, yesterday the Kyrgyz agency AKIpress reported that two Iranian fighter jets forced the Kyrgyz Boeing to land at the airport in the city of Bandar-e-Abbas in southern Iran, where four Iranian intelligence officers in black masks disembarked two passengers who were not citizens of Kyrgyzstan. Otherwise, as the report said, citing employees of Kyrgyzstan Airlines, the flight proceeded normally, except for the fact that the arrival of the plane with 117 passengers in Bishkek was delayed by nine hours.

After this, Interior Minister Mohammad-Najjar held another press conference in Tehran, this time together with Iranian Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi. They stated that Abdulmalik Rigi is a “triple agent” of the intelligence services of the United States, Great Britain and Israel, and the Iranian intelligence services have been “herding” him for the last five months. According to Heydar Moslehi, in April 2008, Rigi met with one of the leaders of NATO forces in Afghanistan, and also had contacts with some representatives of EU countries. Citing sources in Iranian intelligence, the Iranian press claims that 24 hours before Rigi was detained at an American base in Afghanistan, where he was provided with a fake Afghan passport. Another senior Iranian official in an interview with Iranian media made it clear that the arrested Baloch militant leader is already confessing.

According to the general director of the Russian Center for the Study of Modern Iran, Rajab Safarov, most likely in the near future Abdulmalik Rigi will make public confessions, from which it will follow, in particular, that his “Warriors of Allah” are financed by Washington and London and enjoy technical assistance from the Israeli intelligence service Mossad. Moreover, the expert does not rule out that from Riga’s testimony it will become known about the “preparation” by the Anglo-American-Israeli coalition of a coup in Iran, in which an important place should supposedly be given to some leaders of the Iranian opposition. Rajab Safarov believes that such a decisive operation of the Iranian intelligence services should demonstrate both their technical equipment and their wide capabilities for recruiting agents even among the personnel of American military bases, as well as in the countries of Central Asia. In addition, the successful capture of Riga, which is considered one of the main enemies of the Iranian Shiites, and its possible “disclosure” of a broad anti-Iranian conspiracy, Mr. Safarov is confident, will help stem the wave of protests in Iran over the sharp increase in military spending in the country.

A former employee of one of the Russian special services, who was involved in the Iranian direction, noted on condition of anonymity in an interview with Vremya Novostey that the risky action of forcing a civilian aircraft belonging to a foreign state to land, even in the airspace of its own country, is very typical for Tehran. “This game is on the edge, on the edge of a knife,” the veteran believes, “quite in the spirit of all the latest actions of Iran, which shocked the world with its statements about its readiness to enrich uranium by 20 percent.”

There is no reaction from official Bishkek to Tehran’s actions yet. Washington, London and Tel Aviv also do not comment on Iranian accusations against them.

Arkady DUBNOV