[lit-ideas] Iran (6) More Iranian Achievements
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 3 Feb 2006 11:50:01 -0800
(4) "North Africa became another theater of Iranian activity. Tehran took
advantage of Saddam Hussein's defeat in the Gulf War to tighten its military
and political ties to one of Baghdad's principal allies: Sudan. In December
1991 meetings with his Sudanese counterpart, Hassan al-Bashit, Iranian
President Rafsanjani committed the Pasdaran to hosting a range of violent
Islamist groups at camps located in the North African state. The two
countries also hammered out a deal under which Sudan would train a 'nucleus
for Islamic action in Europe' at a specific terror training camp outside
Khartoum. In the years that followed, Sudan became a haven and training
center for various Iran-linked terrorist outfits, including the Abu Nidal
Organization, the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) and Egypt's Gama'a
Islamiyya.
"A similar effort took place in Algeria, where Iranian financing helped
propel the radical Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) to a sweeping victory in
preliminary parliamentary elections in 1991 - a development that led to a
hostile regime takeover by the country's military just a month later. That
Iran had a hand in Algeria's turmoil is an understatement; not only did the
Revolutionary Guards take an active role in the country's resulting civil
war, they are even suspected of assassinating the country's interim
president, Mohammed Boudiaf, in June 1992.
"In Egypt, Iranian support for two Sunni terrorist groups, the Islamic Jihad
and Gama'a Islamiyyai, underwrote a wave of terror against the regime of
President Hosni Mubarak in the early 1990s. Iran's activism led Mubarak, in
a 1993 interview with Time magazine, to charge that the Islamic Republic was
attempting to institute regime change in Cairo. 'The Iranians have said
that if they could change the Egyptian regime, they would control the whole
area,' he explained. Iran didn't succeed, but it was not for a lack of
trying; Iranian elements were subsequently implicated in the June 1995
assassination attempt on Mubarak while the Egyptian President was visiting
Ethiopia.
(5) Tehran's destabilizing influence also extended further south. In 1994,
meeting with Tanzanian premier John Malecela, Rafsanjani made clear that his
government was committed to helping eradicate 'traces of colonialism and
underdevelopment' in Africa. Rafsanjani was as good as his word. In the
fall of 1996, he launched a six-country diplomatic tour, visiting South
Africa, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Sudan, Uganda, and Kenya over the span of two
weeks to further a radical agenda aimed at convincing the continent's Muslim
population to embrace the principles of the Islamic Revolution. As part of
this diplomatic offensive, Iranian intelligence officials succeeded in
hammering out a cooperation pact with the radical Capetown-based People
Against Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD), making if the 'eyes and ears' of the
Iranian regime in Africa in exchange for money, training, and arms. In the
wake of the deal, elements of Iranian intelligence and the Pasdaran wasted
no time organizing terrorist training and mobilization for a number of the
indigenous Islamic movements through a variety of front groups, and helping
Iranian-sponsored and supported organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah
broaden their local influence."
(6) Iran's most insidious role, however, was in the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. Tehran's direct involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian arena,
although minimal during the mid- to late 1980s, expanded in earnest
following the Gulf War.
"In 1991, it hosted a major international conference to generate solidarity
for the Palestinian cause in a radical counterpoint to the Madrid Peace
Conference. In its aftermath, Iran institutionalized its relationship with
two terror groups. The first, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), had
become a wholly owned subsidiary of the Islamic Republic in the Palestinian
territories during the first Palestinian intifada in the late 1980s -
similar in both structure and ideology to Tehran's principal proxy,
Hezbollah. The second, the Palestinian Hamas organization, had received
early pledges of funding and training - promise that were codified in late
1992 under a formal agreement establishing Iranian financial and political
funding for the group.
These relationships were only strengthened in the years that followed The
Islamic Republic became the principal financier of the PIJ, funneling some
$2 million annually to the group to bankroll its anti-Israeli activities.
Iran also made good on its pledges of financial support to Hamas, and began
picking up some 10 percent of the group's total operational budget. It also
encouraged both terror outfits to develop a symbiosis with Hezbollah,
helping to forge transnational partnerships that allowed them to establish
military ties with and receive military training from - the Lebanese
terrorist powerhouse."
Lawrence
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