Iraqi news source: witness claims U.S. soldiers among the arrested by Iranian coast guard

[sabra]

http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=40117&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

Iranian coast guards arrest British soldiers in Shatt-el-Arab

Basra, March 23, (VOI)- Iranian coast guards arrested on Friday some British soldiers in Shatt-el-Arab waterway in southern Iraq, while a spokeswoman for the Multi-National forces in southern Iraq admitted the incident.

An Iraqi fishermen told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) "a force from the Iranian coast guards detained this morning a number of British soldiers and others from the Multi-National forces at the entry of the Shatt-el-Arab waterway in south of Basra."

Another fisherman said "the incident occurred inside the Iraqi territorial waters."

"Two boats from the Multi-National forces were searching commercial ships, including Iranian, at the entry of Shatt-el-Arab waterway when a force from the Iranian coast guards intervened and surrounded the two boats and then arrested their crewmen," a third fisherman said.
He added "one boat was raising a British flag."
A fourth eyewitness said "there were U.S. soldiers among the arrested."

[SpiralHawk]

1. "Nuke 'em." - Commander AWOL

"I have carefully contemplated my stategery for 2 minutes in the White House Skull & Boner Krypt with top military expert Dickie "Five Military Deferments" Cheney, and we KNOW we can find a way for republicon cronies to MAJORLY PROFIT from this. So all you American people can just shut up and sit down. Who cares what you think?"

- Commander AWOL

[maddezmom]

2. US Navy has said there are none being held

:shrug:
U.S. Navy says none of its personnel held by Iran
23 Mar 2007 12:34:56 GMT

LONDON, March 23 (Reuters) - The U.S Navy in the Gulf said none of its military personnel was captured by Iran during an incident in Iraqi waters on Friday.

"We can confirm that there are no U.S. military involved or held in this incident," a spokesman for U.S. Naval Central Command said.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L23645933.htm

[sabra]

4. let's keep an eye on this one...

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. Or they are being disavowed.

[BOSSHOG]

3. This is outstanding news for the insane criminals in the white house

In fact, I wouldn't doubt that bush LET THIS HAPPEN AS WELL so he can be a fake war president in Iran too.

[Ganja Ninja]

6. I wouldn't put it past them to deliberately send our guys into Iranian

territory just to draw attention away from their troubles at home. Nothing is beneath these bastards.

[soothsayer]

7. it's an obvious false flag exercise. predictable.

[stillcool]

8. some articles that may be pertinent..

What is Covert Action?
J.V. Grady, ICH
Septeber 21, 2005

The main thing about Covert Action is that it must be deniable. There is a term called "plausible deniability". When a government authorizes a covert action operation, the operation must be done in such a way that the government can claim that it knows nothing about it; in other words, the operation must not be attributable to the government that authorized it.

Covert Action operations are often Disinformation Operations, which are conducted in such a way as to discredit the opposition or the enemy. This is done, for example, by doing a violent action, such as a bombing, but making it look like the forces of another country or group did it. Such operations are sometimes called False-Flag Operations, meaning that the operation is conducted to make it look like it was done by people serving under another flag, preferably the enemy’s flag. If the operation succeeds as designed, people will blame the action on the wrong party (the enemy). Thus, public opinion will be won over to the side that actually did the killing. Such false-flag, covert action operations are often referred to as Dirty Tricks.

The British regularly employed Covert Action operations in Ireland, with the result that it is likely that the IRA often took the blame for violent actions with which they had no involvement, although they were hardly innocent players in the general mayhem. Many people suspect that the Northern Irish bank robbery that occurred some time back was actually a British Covert Action operation designed to make the IRA take the blame, so that people would believe that the IRA was not honouring the Good Friday Agreement. Incidentally, most of the British Northern Irish bank notes taken were worthless old notes, so they were no skin off anyone’s teeth.

The policy in Iraq is to keep the country destabilized and on the verge of civil war to show that it cannot govern itself and that it therefore requires the continued presence of American and British forces. The man accused of being behind much of the bombing going on there is Al-Zarqawi, a man known to be dead for some time now. Also, because he is (or, rather, was) a Sunni, bombings against the Shi’ia population, if blamed on him and the Sunni insurgents, can keep the pot of civil war simmering, thus giving further justification to keeping American and British forces there.
J.V. Grady is a former member of US Military Intelligence
:: Article nr. 15994 sent on 22-sep-2005 00:14 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=15994

US Funds Terror Groups to Sow Chaos in Iran
By William Lowther and Colin Freeman
Telegraph
February 26, 2007

America is secretly funding militant ethnic separatist groups in Iran in an attempt to pile pressure on the Islamic regime to give up its nuclear programme. In a move that reflects Washington's growing concern with the failure of diplomatic initiatives, CIA officials are understood to be helping opposition militias among the numerous ethnic minority groups clustered in Iran's border regions. The operations are controversial because they involve dealing with movements that resort to terrorist methods in pursuit of their grievances against the Iranian regime. In the past year there has been a wave of unrest in ethnic minority border areas of Iran, with bombing and assassination campaigns against soldiers and government officials.

Such incidents have been carried out by the Kurds in the west, the Azeris in the north-west, the Ahwazi Arabs in the south-west, and the Baluchis in the south-east. Non-Persians make up nearly 40 per cent of Iran's 69 million population, with around 16 million Azeris, seven million Kurds, five million Ahwazis and one million Baluchis. Most Baluchis live over the border in Pakistan.

Funding for their separatist causes comes directly from the CIA's classified budget but is now "no great secret", according to one former high-ranking CIA official in Washington who spoke anonymously to The Sunday Telegraph. His claims were backed by Fred Burton, a former US state department counter-terrorism agent, who said: "The latest attacks inside Iran fall in line with US efforts to supply and train Iran's ethnic minorities to destabilise the Iranian regime."

Although Washington officially denies involvement in such activity, Teheran has long claimed to detect the hand of both America and Britain in attacks by guerrilla groups on its internal security forces. Last Monday, Iran publicly hanged a man, Nasrollah Shanbe Zehi, for his involvement in a bomb attack that killed 11 Revolutionary Guards in the city of Zahedan in Sistan-Baluchistan. An unnamed local official told the semi-official Fars news agency that weapons used in the attack were British and US-made. Yesterday, Iranian forces also claimed to have killed 17 rebels described as "mercenary elements" in clashes near the Turkish border, which is a stronghold of the Pejak, a Kurdish militant party linked to Turkey's outlawed PKK Kurdistan Workers' Party.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/intervention/2007/0226sowchaos.htm

IRAN:
Blaming the West for Sunni Unrest
Kimia Sanati

TEHRAN, Mar 5 (IPS) - As a Shia majority country with several large ethnic groups like the Kurds, Arabs and Baluchis that follow the Sunni faith, Iran has for years been vulnerable to unrest, riots and terrorist attacks that officials routinely attribute to foreign powers.

''Iranian intelligence services have acquired information that show the United States, Britain and Israel have been behind the unrest in various parts of Iran, including Khuzistan, Kurdistan and West Azerbaijan in the past few years," Mostafa Pour Mohammadi, Iran's intelligence minister was quoted as saying by the Aftab News Agency.

A car bomb attack last month by the separatist 'Jundullah' (also called Popular Iranian Resistance Movement) in the south-eastern city of Zahedan, that killed 13 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), triggered clashes between security forces and guerrillas of the 'PJAK', a separatist Kurdish party, around the city of Khoy in north-western Iran.

''In the past one and a half years and following air raids on PJAK bases in northern Iraq, clashes with the Iranian military have increased. The clashes used to occur at border points mostly, but the recent encounter was more intense and occurred inside Iranian soil,'' the Aftab News Agency quoted Abed Fattahi, representative of Oroumiyeh in Parliament, as saying.

An IRGC helicopter crashed on Friday, 17 km inside the Iranian border, killing its two high-ranking commanders and seven other military staff. The guerrilla group that claimed responsibility has connections with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) that has bases in Turkey and northern Iraq. The same group had blown up the Iran-Turkey gas pipeline, last September.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=36810

Shia-Sunni Divide Pillar of US Policy
Beirut, Lebanon, March 16-- Lebanon’s Shiite leader Allameh Seyyed Mohammad Hussein Fadhlallah said Thursday that creating discord among Shiites and Sunnis has long been an important pillar of US foreign policy.
In an interview with the Arabic journal ’Tahavvolat’ he recalled that Washington over the past few decades has resorted to a variety of tactics pit Shiites against the Sunnis and vice versa.
“We see how some in the Arab world succumb to US plans because they have gotten used to such practices.“ Such unacceptable behavior leaning on surrender is visible in statements made by certain Arab rulers, the highly respected religious leader was quoted as saying.
Iraq is among countries where schism between Shiites and Sunnis is evident, he complained, ISNA reported.
“Washington is trying to convey that Arab and Muslim countries should be divided into two categories. One comprising of moderates that function in accordance with US policy, and the second including countries such as Iran Syria, and political groups such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas.“
“The US claims that Iran wants to expand its influence in the region and hence is a threat to the world, especially because the US and Europe consider military motives to be behind Iran’s nuclear program,“ he noted.
He declared that the concept of supreme jurisprudence on which Iran’s ruling foundations are based does not contradict democracy.
Commenting on the concept and its relationship with political Islam, Fadhlallah recalled that the rule of supreme jurisprudence was first introduced by late Imam Khomeini.
“Imam Khomeini was its architect and promoted coordination between supreme jurisprudence and democracy in the sense that members of parliament the Assembly of Experts must be elected by popular vote.“http://www.iran-daily.com/1385/2806/html/

this classic piece of writing is something I like to keep in mind when contemplating 'news'.

A Timeline of CIA Atrocities
By Steve Kangas
The following timeline describes just a few of the hundreds of atrocities and crimes committed by the CIA. (1)

CIA operations follow the same recurring script. First, American business interests abroad are threatened by a popular or democratically elected leader. The people support their leader because he intends to conduct land reform, strengthen unions, redistribute wealth, nationalize foreign-owned industry, and regulate business to protect workers, consumers and the environment. So, on behalf of American business, and often with their help, the CIA mobilizes the opposition. First it identifies right-wing groups within the country (usually the military), and offers them a deal: "We'll put you in power if you maintain a favorable business climate for us." The Agency then hires, trains and works with them to overthrow the existing government (usually a democracy). It uses every trick in the book: propaganda, stuffed ballot boxes, purchased elections, extortion, blackmail, sexual intrigue, false stories about opponents in the local media, infiltration and disruption of opposing political parties, kidnapping, beating, torture, intimidation, economic sabotage, death squads and even assassination. These efforts culminate in a military coup, which installs a right-wing dictator. The CIA trains the dictator’s security apparatus to crack down on the traditional enemies of big business, using interrogation, torture and murder. The victims are said to be "communists," but almost always they are just peasants, liberals, moderates, labor union leaders, political opponents and advocates of free speech and democracy. Widespread human rights abuses follow.

This scenario has been repeated so many times that the CIA actually teaches it in a special school, the notorious "School of the Americas." (It opened in Panama but later moved to Fort Benning, Georgia.) Critics have nicknamed it the "School of the Dictators" and "School of the Assassins." Here, the CIA trains Latin American military officers how to conduct coups, including the use of interrogation, torture and murder.http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/CIAtimeline.html