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Iran is gloating now that it has seized its public enemy No. 1. On Feb. 22, Iranian agents allegedly intercepted Abdolmalek Rigi, leader of Jundallah, a Sunni extremist group that has waged a low-level war against Tehran for the better part of a decade, killing hundreds. According to state media, Rigi, 27, was on a flight bound for Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, from Dubai when the Iranians forced the plane to land at the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas. A day later, Iran's Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi hailed Rigi's arrest as proof of "the power of the Islamic Republic...
...still unclear how exactly Tehran caught wind of Rigi's presence in Dubai. News of the arrest has only been gleaned from accounts revealed by Iranian state-media sources and cannot be independently confirmed. On Feb. 25, Iranian state television broadcast footage of a supposed confession made by Rigi, saying he was flying to Central Asia to meet with American handlers at the U.S.-run Manas air base in Kyrgyzstan. Intelligence Minister Moslehi had already pointed his finger at Washington and the hand of the CIA, claiming to have evidence that Rigi was earlier housed at a U.S. base...
That religious zeal has led some analysts to speculate whether Jundallah has organizational links with al-Qaeda. The group raised its profile in 2005 by kidnapping a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and supposedly launching a botched assassination attempt on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Jundallah cemented its terrorist credentials in the past two years, with three bombings, two of which were suicide attacks. The most recent blast, last October in the Iranian border city of Pishin, killed at least 40 people, including many civilians. It also convinced Tehran that Jundallah was Iran's greatest internal security threat...
...past year, the two countries have also stepped up diplomatic visits and military exchanges, including a Feb. 21 meeting held in Quetta - capital of Pakistani Baluchistan - between two senior Iranian and Pakistani army commanders. "It seems quite clear that the Iranians could not have [arrested Rigi] without Pakistani cooperation," says Bokhari. Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI, is said to have a highly sophisticated operation in Dubai, where Rigi was picked...
...country, and these incidents caused disputes and in some instances hostilities, and events took place that no Muslim heart could accept. The families of both protesters and officers were harmed, and one must sympathize with and tend to them all." (See the top 10 players in the Iranian political crisis...