Asia

Home page

Asia

US passed decision to conduct secret operations against Iran

08 December 2011 07:59 (UTC +04:00)

After the alleged Iranian government plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador in Washington, the White House issued a finding to the intelligence community authorizing stepped-up covert action against Iran. A â€œfindingâ€ is top-level approval for secret operations considered to be particularly politically sensitive.

The magazine writes that â€œan earlier finding of the Bush administration already permitted the use of intelligence assets to disrupt Iranian Revolutionary Guard activity in border zonesâ€”the areas adjacent to Pakistan inhabited by ethnic Baluchis, the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, and the ethnically Arab province of Khuzistan, which borders southeastern Iraq. That effort was abandoned altogether in 2009, when the Obama administration decided to increase intelligence and military cooperation with Ankara against the Kurdish Workersâ€™ Party (PKK). Attacks in Baluchistan and the Arab region over the past seven years, which have killed a large number of Revolutionary Guards and even more civilians, were part of the program authorized under the earlier findingâ€.

According to the magazine, the last decision of the US on the secret operations in Iran covers the wider territory. The magazine writes that US intended to use the ethnic groups against Iran.