Translated material
Terrorist who fell out of an airplane
New mysteries in the history of Iran’s detention of a Kyrgyz plane
The adventurous story of the capture of the leader of the Sunni terrorist group Jundallah (Warriors of Allah) Abdulmalik Rigi by Iranian intelligence services, which happened on February 23, is surrounded by mysterious omissions. On that day, several Iranian fighters (presumably MiG-29) forced a Boeing 737 passenger plane that appeared in Iranian airspace to land. He was on a flight of the Kyrgyzstan company on the Dubai-Bishkek route . The 23-year-old Iranian Rigi and his companion on board, according to reports from Tehran, were detained when landing the plane at the airport in the Iranian city of Bandar Abbas. Then the Boeing, having lost two of its 119 passengers, continued its flight to the capital of Kyrgyzstan.Only yesterday, almost a week after the incident, the Kyrgyz authorities finally commented on it. But they did it in such a way that they introduced even more ambiguity. According to the State Ministry of Foreign Affairs (as the foreign policy department is now called in Kyrgyzstan), “information published in a number of media outlets about the detention of foreign citizens on board an aircraft of Kyrgyzstan Airlines does not correspond to reality.” It is difficult to understand what they meant in Bishkek when they published this message. The very fact of the “forced landing” of the plane is confirmed in this message. As stated there, the Kyrgyz Embassy in Iran “promptly responded and took the necessary measures to determine the reasons for the delay of the Kyrgyz civil aircraft.” In addition, the Kyrgyz Ambassador to Tehran Medet Sherimkulov met with the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran Mohammad Reza Raouf Shaiboni and protested the inadmissibility of such actions by the Iranian side. He “made an official apology.”
But if so, then, according to a not very clear message from the State Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kyrgyzstan, all other information about the detention of the Jundalli leader by Iranian special services, coming from official Tehran, is not true. Or then Rigi and his companions had Kyrgyz citizenship, since Bishkek denies the detention of foreign citizens. Otherwise, we can only assume that the Iranians, using an operation to force military fighters to land a civilian aircraft with passengers on board, carried out a dangerous provocation that threatens the lives of people. Or a hoax, the purpose of which is to show that the leader of Jundallah, responsible for the deaths of dozens of Iranian civilians, was heading to Bishkek. There, in the American transit center (as the former US military base Manas is now called), he was waiting for a meeting with a certain “very important person from the USA,” that is, with CIA agents.
The prisoner himself spoke about this at a press conference in Tehran two days after his arrest. Earlier, in an interview with our newspaper, the general director of the Russian Center for the Study of Modern Iran, Rajab Safarov, hot on the heels, suggested that the arrested person publicly admits to participating in a “broad anti-Iranian conspiracy” with the participation of the United States, Great Britain and Israel. Obviously, Mr. Safarov knows how this happens in modern Iran, his forecast turned out to be accurate: Rigi said what was expected to be heard from him. “The Americans told me: Iran is too independent. Iran, and not the Taliban or Al-Qaeda, is our main problem,” these were the words of the American agent quoted by the terrorist. “We are not going to attack the Islamic Republic, it is too difficult. Our government has realized that it can do nothing about Iran. The CIA is interested in you and is ready to provide you with any assistance,” it was also allegedly said.
US State Department spokesman John Sullivan called such statements absurd, and Pentagon press secretary Jeff Morrell called “Iranian propaganda” and “another ridiculous insinuation.” But Rajab Safarov in an interview with VN said: “US military bases in the Persian Gulf and Kyrgyzstan serve as centers for training and coordinating the activities of terrorist organizations like Jundallah.” “Tehran, having carried out this anti-terrorist operation, sent a clear signal to the governments of all countries on whose territory American bases are located... which can become a center for coordination of Western intelligence services to overthrow any current government with the help of the local opposition and with the support of the forces of international terrorism,” - - the expert believes.
It’s hard to say whether this is how Bishkek read the “signal” from Tehran. But Moscow also noticed that the Kyrgyz authorities were not telling something. An anonymous source in one of the Russian special services told our newspaper that Tehran may have been forced to inform Bishkek about the detention of the plane after the incident. According to one version, the Iranians were going to detain Rigi in the city of Dubai, but something “didn’t stick together” there, and they urgently changed their plan of action. According to VN’s source, there may still be questions for the Kyrgyz authorities if the Jundalla leader was really heading to Bishkek.
There is another version, outlined by Israeli expert on Iran Menashe Amir on the Izrus Internet portal. He suggests that the terrorist could have been extradited to Iran by Pakistan (“Jundallah” consists of Baluchis living in Iran near the Pakistani border) and there really was no detention of Riga on the Kyrgyz plane, it was a staged act by the Iranian special services. Mr. Amir refers to the video recording of the capture of Riga, he is taken out of the plane, on which there are no inscriptions indicating his Kyrgyz origin. By the way, the story of the “capture of Riga” and its “testimony” eclipsed in popularity all soap series on Iranian television; dozens of victims of the terrorist attacks organized by Jundallah have not yet been forgotten there.