Iran claims discovery of 'spy rings'
Iran says it has uncovered spy rings organised by the United States and its Western allies, claiming on state-run television that the espionage networks were made up of “infiltrating elements from the Iraqi occupiers”.
The Intelligence Ministry has “succeeded in identifying and striking blows at several spy networks comprised of infiltrating elements from the Iraqi occupiers in western, southwestern and central Iran,” said the statement.
The broadcast yesterday did not elaborate, saying further details would be published within days.
Meanwhile, the state IRNA news agency said the uncovered networks “enjoyed guidance from intelligence services of the occupying powers in Iraq” and also that “Iraqi groups” were “involved in the case”.
The White House said yesterday that it does not confirm or deny allegations about intelligence matters.
“We urge Iran to play a positive role in Iraq ... and stop blaming everyone else for problems they are only bringing on themselves,” White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said.
Since the US-led invasion of Iraq, Iran has often accused the United States and Britain of trying to undermine the security of the Islamic Republic.
The allegations came two days before American and Iranian ambassadors are to meet in Baghdad to discuss ways to ease the crisis in Iraq. It remains unclear how the announcement will affect those talks, although it clearly reflects a toughening of Iran’s stand.
The talks tomorrow in Baghdad will offer a rare one-on-one forum between the two countries, which broke off formal relations after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. The agenda is expected to be limited to Iraqi affairs, without touching on the nuclear impasse between Iran and the West.
The talks will also take place against the backdrop of five Iranians held by US troops for more than three months after their January capture in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil.
US authorities said the five were members of Iran’s elite Quds Force, accused of arming and training Iraqi militants. Tehran has claimed they were part of a government liaison office and has demanded their release.
The Iranian statement did not refer to either US or Britain by name, but followed reports that President Bush has authorised the covert CIA action to destabilise the Iranian government.
“This is the first we’ve heard of any such claims and we would obviously want to know more about what lies behind the claims,” said a British Foreign Office spokesman.
Iranian officials have repeatedly raised concerns that Washington could incite members of Iran’s many ethnic and religious minorities as pressure points against the Shiite-led government in Tehran.
Iran has arrested a number of Iranian-Americans in recent months, accusing them of seeking to topple the ruling establishment.
Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East Programme at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Centre for Scholars, has been held at Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison since early May and charged with seeking to topple the government in Tehran.
She travelled to Iran in December to visit her 93-year-old mother but was stopped when she headed to the airport to leave on December 30 by knife-wielding men in masks.
She was interrogated extensively and, earlier this month, imprisoned. The Iranian government this week announced she was being charged with setting up a network to overthrow the Islamic establishment.
Other Iranian-Americans have also been prohibited from leaving Iran in recent months, including Parnaz Azima, a journalist for the US-funded Radio Farda; Ali Shakeri, a founding board member at the University of California, Irvine’s Center for Citizen Peacebuilding; and Kian Tajbakhsh, consultant working for George Soros’ Open Society Institute.
Another American, former FBI agent Robert Levinson, disappeared in March after going to Iran’s resort island of Kish.
US-Iranian tensions have also increased after Pentagon moved two aircraft carriers and seven other ships into the Persian Gulf.
