On Feb. 23, the Iranian government reported that it had captured Abdolmalek Rigi, leader of the Jundallah terrorist group. A Kyrgyz airline later confirmed that one of its planes had been intercepted in Iranian air space and forced to land in the southern Gulf port of Bandar Abbas, where Rigi’s arrest took place.

Iranian TV broadcast a confession by Rigi in which he alleged that U.S. representatives had contacted his organization last March with offers of arms and training. According to Rigi’s account, the CIA officials with whom he allegedly met stated that they considered Iran, rather than the Taliban and al-Qaida, as their regional adversary. They explained that since attacking Iran with conventional forces would prove extremely difficult, American policymakers had instead decided to provide extensive assistance to all terrorist movements that would wage war inside Iran against its government. They offered Jundallah access to a military base near the Iranian border, along with weapons, advanced communications equipment, and training facilities.

According to Iranian media, when captured, Rigi was on his way to Kyrgyzstan to meet with a senior U.S. government representative in Afghanistan to dicsuss the planned guerrilla war against Iran. The Iranian news agency, IRNA, noted that the arrest coincided with a visit to Manas by Richard Holbrooke, U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In a Tehran news conference, Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi announced that he had “solid evidence” that the United States and Britain had supported Rigi, displaying a photograph of Rigi supposedly at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan the day before his capture, as well as what he claimed was an identity card and Afghan passport prepared for Rigi by American intelligence. Moslehi further stated that Rigi had recently met with representatives of EU countries, NATO military commanders, and Israel’s Mossad spy agency.

Despite Pakistani claims of having assisted in the capture, Moslehi boasted that Iranian intelligence had captured Rigi “without the slightest help of intelligence services of other countries.” In the past, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other Iranian officials have blamed Pakistani intelligence for assisting Jundallah and other Sunni extremist groups.

Jundallah is a small extremist group that purports to fight for freedom of repressed Iranian minorities, especially the Sunni tribes in Iran’s southeastern province of the Sistan-Baluchistan, against Iran’s Shiite clerical regime based in Tehran. Representatives of the Baluchi ethnic group, located on both sides of the Iran-Pakistan border, have used violence to support their autonomy demands against the governments of both countries. Jundallah has claimed responsibility for major terrorist strikes within Iran over the past decade, including an attack last October that killed senior commanders of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard as well as dozens of civilians. Iranian officials have accused Jundallah of engaging in narcotics trafficking and kidnapping as well as terrorism. They also link Jundallah to the al-Qaida terrorist network.

Following Rigi’s capture, Jundallah has since named al-Hajj Mohammed Dhahir Baluch as its new leader. Ironically, the group has blamed U.S. intelligence, along with Afghan and Pakistani agents, for helping Iran capture Rigi.

This isn’t the first time that Iranian officials have charged the U.S. government with supporting Jundallah. U.S. representatives have categorically denied the latest Iranian accusations as well those made earlier, with Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell calling them “just another false claim in a long list of ridiculous Iranian fabrications.”

There are several plausible explanations for the timing of Iran’s accusations. First, the affair helps distract attention from the controversies surrounding Iranian government repression of its domestic political opposition as well as the U.S.-led international campaign to impose harsher sanctions on Tehran for its nuclear activities. Both issues have dominated international news coverage of Iran, often casting Tehran in a bad light.

Second, Iranian government officials are using the Rigi incident to substantiate their claim that despite its rhetoric of peaceful dialogue, the Obama administration, like its predecessors, continues to seek their violent overthrow. In the confession broadcast on Iranian TV, Rigi stated
that he began receiving offers of assistance after the Obama administration had assumed office, and after it had begun its efforts to engage the Iranian government. Unlike the Bush administration, Obama and his top aides have taken care to avoid challenging the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, with the president himself using that full title in his Nowruz message to the Iranian people.

Finally, the Iranian government is seeking to exploit the incident to advance its geopolitical goals in Central Asia. Rigi’s statement implied that the Americans sought bases in Central Asia not for their stated aim of defending the region against the Taliban and al-Qaida, but rather to wage a covert war against the Iranian government. Russian television has since quoted Kyrgyz citizens criticizing the continued American access to the base. English-language Russia Today cited Kyrgyz political analyst Toktogul Kakchekeev as saying, “It’s sad that the U.S. air base has now become a transit corridor for pro-American militants from Sunni insurgent groups which organize attacks in Iran.” In the past, some Russian officials have pressed Kyrgyzstan and other Central Asian governments to limit the U.S. military presence in their countries.

A primary Iranian objective in Central Asia has been to keep governments in the region from aligning themselves with U.S. efforts to isolate Tehran or pressure the Iranian government to change its policies. Ideally, Tehran wants these governments to curtail the access that U.S. military forces have enjoyed in Central Asia since the September 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States.

At a minimum, Iranian officials want to constrain the U.S. military’s access to territory, airspace, or military facilities in Central Asia that could be used to attack Iran. Following the Uzbek government’s decision in 2005 to expel all American military personnel from its territory, Kyrgyzstan has hosted the sole remaining U.S. military base in Central Asia at its Manas International Airport. The Kyrgyz authorities, under pressure from some foreign governments as well as disgruntled Kyrgyz citizens to end this arrangement, have repeatedly insisted that American military personnel are only allowed to use the facility to support only coalition operations in Afghanistan (i.e., not to facilitate military operations against Iran).

Rigi’s accusations, the result of a coerced confession, ring as false as the statements that peaceful Iranian protesters have been forced to read on Iranian television since last June’s disputed presidential elections. Unfortunately, opponents of the U.S. military presence in Central Asia will use the opportunity to try to decrease U.S. influence in Eurasia. But skillful American diplomacy should be able to parry stratagem.