IRAN ANNOUNCED yesterday that it had captured the leader of a movement of Sunni insurgents accused of launching deadly attacks in Iran.
Its intelligence minister, Haydar Moslehi, said Abdolmalek Rigi, head of Jundallah (Soldiers of God), had been seized on a flight from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan.
He was shown on Iranian television as he was taken off the aircraft, which seems to have been forced to land on an Iranian airfield. However, other officials claim he was apprehended elsewhere and transferred clandestinely to Iran.
Mr Moslehi displayed photographs of Mr Rigi and said he had been taken by Iranian agents at a US military base in Afghanistan.
The US has denied this as a “totally bogus accusation”.
Tehran claims he is connected with Pakistani, British and US intelligence agencies and charges him with carrying out attacks on Iranian targets in Sistan-Baluchistan, which has a considerable population of Sunni Baluchis who bitterly oppose the country’s Shia clerical regime.
Last May, Jundallah claimed responsibility for an explosion at a Shia mosque at Zahedan that killed 25 people. Jundallah also mounted a suicide bombing in the provincial town of Pisheen that targeted senior commanders of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and tribal leaders – 42 were killed, including seven officers.
Jundallah, a small group that Tehran says is linked to the Taliban and al-Qaeda, emerged five years ago with a series of attacks and kidnappings. The group says it is fighting for Sunni rights in Iran rather than a Baluchi state.
