Posted on 03/09/2002 10:20:36 PM PST by Prodigal Son
An Iranian Revolutionary Guards general and eight other Iranians have been arrested by Afghan forces and handed over to U.S. authorities, an Afghan politician said Saturday.
Izzatullah Wasafi said the officer, whom he identified as a Gen. Razavi, was leading an Iranian group clandestinely distributing money and arms to allies in western Afghanistan when they were seized by Afghan forces last Tuesday.
A day later, at a midnight meeting with Wasafi and others, the governor of Kandahar province abruptly decided to hand the men over to the U.S. military when he learned they were Iranians, Wasafi said.
A U.S. military official confirmed Friday that an Iranian group was being held and interviewed at Kandahar's airport, an American base where scores of suspected members of the Al Qaeda organization and the Afghan Taliban are also detained, The New York Times reported. The newspaper did not identify the military official.
There was no immediate public reaction from the Iranian government to the detention. American officials have complained repeatedly that Iran was working in western Afghanistan to undermine the new U.S. influence in this country.
The basis for the U.S. detention of Iranian nationals in a third country and the Americans' plans for them could not be determined immediately. The U.S. military command at the Kandahar base has routinely refused to discuss its detainees.
Wasafi, who said he had been involved in tracking the Iranian group's activities, said it included three Iranian border guards and five other members of the Revolutionary Guards — a trusted Iranian military corps tied closely to supreme Iranian religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
He said three Afghans serving as the Iranians' guides also were apprehended in the operation, which he described as a trap set by a militia commander in Shindand, in Herat province 170 kilometres east of the Iranian border.
The commander pretended he was interested in the Iranians' offer of money, but when the group approached a meeting point the commander's soldiers fired off warning shots, stopped the three vehicles carrying the 12 men and took them into custody, according to this account.
Now, Wasafi said, he fears that the pro-Iranian governor of Herat, Afghan warlord Ismail Khan, may take action against the Afghans who rounded up the agents, possibly touching off armed clashes in the region.
"Ismail Khan may get pushed by the Iranians to take out these people or whatever. He probably will do something about this," Wasafi said.
A militia commander from western Afghanistan told The Associated Press that Iran is sending "money, food and other things" to certain armed groups in the region.
"There are some commanders under the governor of Herat who are supported by Iran," said the militia leader, Walid Jan Agha from Farah, the province bordering Herat on the south. He said he had come here to warn the Kandahar provincial governor, Gul Agha Shirzai, of the Iranian involvement. Shirzai also bears regional responsibility for Farah and other southwestern provinces.
Shirzai's spokesman, Yusuf Pashtun, has said Iranian operatives were sending arms and cash to certain commanders in western provinces, an area of traditional Iranian influence. But the new Afghan leadership, installed after the U.S.-led war ousted the previous Taliban regime last December, generally has sought a co-operative relationship with its western neighbour, and played down the issue of Iranian interference in Afghanistan.
Gov. Shirzai initially did not realize that the group brought in from the west and put in the Kandahar city jail were Iranians, not just another group of suspected Taliban, Wasafi said. "Then my father told him, `Do you realize who these people are?' It was 12 o'clock at night." The Afghans immediately asked the Americans to take charge of the detainees.
Wasafi, 43, and his father, Azizullah, 75, are long-time supporters of the Afghan king, Mohammad Zahir Shah, who is scheduled to return from European exile around March 19. The Wasafis have lived in Los Angeles and New York the past 19 years.
Izzatullah Wasafi said he believed the detainees were not the only Iranians recruiting western Afghans to Tehran's banner. "I'm sure there are still others. They will carry on."
I'm afraid the only solution is going to be fervent heat, and a blinding light.
All of the countries surrounding Afghanistan have been arming and supporting their proxies: Pakistan, Iran, Uzbeckistan, Tajikistan, etc. - probably even China, too. Everyone wants to set up a "buffer" zone and a proxy in Afghanistan, just like Pakistan did when it supported the Taliban.
If these Iranians had not fallen into the hands of those opposed to Iran, we would never have heard about it. I think it is pretty safe to assume that "our" government is overlooking similar behavior on the part of other countries who have been cooperating with us - Pakistan and Tajikistan especially. Iran gets "outed" because it is on Bush's/Israel's sh!t list.
All of the countries surrounding Afghanistan have been arming and supporting their proxies: Pakistan, Iran, Uzbeckistan, Tajikistan, etc. - probably even China, too. Everyone wants to set up a "buffer" zone and a proxy in Afghanistan, just like Pakistan did when it supported the Taliban.
No one is disputing that.
The interest in the information is only that while we are attempting to do one thing, others are attempting to do something else which will relate to the success of what we are attempting to do. I'm interested because people I know might end up getting shot at by Iranians or with Iranian supplies. Since I have a stake in the matter, I'd prefer it that Iran help, rather than hinder- but if they want to hinder then we should know when they do so, in order to protect our personnel. I don't believe in the 'moral equivalency' of nations argument.
The last thing Iran wants on its flanks is a country where a democratic movement can take root and spread into or energize a similar movement in Iran. The last thing we want is for Afghanistan to fall under Iranian influence, seeing as how the Iranians themselves aren't too fond of their current leaders either.
Iran would prefer to have a like-minded government, but if it cannot have that, Iran will be content to make sure there is no stable government at all, or a weak government which cannot control Afghanistan and which will leave open much of its territory to Iranian influence. That isn't good for us or for Afghanistan, unless the Iranian government changes into one very different from that which we know today.
Liberace is gay?
He is a terrorist, send the General to Guantanamo Bay..........hold him captive for about 435 Days, so Koppell can do a "Held Hostage" count.
Seriously, if we let this worm go, I'll be majorly peeved.
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