US Funding Anti-Iran Terror Groups

TEHRAN (FNA)- A report on Sunday said that Washington has been funding covert operations to destabilize the Iranian government, with full approval from the US Senate.

Writing in the New Yorker magazine, investigative journalist Seymour Hersch said the tempo of operations against Iran has escalated in recent months, with cross border raids by US Special Forces, and the funding of indigenous armed opposition groups such as the Jundallah, which operates in the southeastern border region with Pakistan.

Hersch claims Senate and Congressional leaders “quietly” agreed to $400 million (200 million) in funding for clandestine operations against Iran aimed at regime change and disrupting the country’s nuclear energy program.

Iran has blamed US and British agents based in neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan for launching deadly attacks in border provinces in recent years.

Documents obtained in previous cases have proved that Britain and the United States have both striven to destabilize the Islamic Republic by supporting rebels, mainly those in sensitive border areas.

Another group allegedly benefitting from the fund is the Iraq-based terrorist group the Mojahedeen-e Khalq Organization (MKO).

The Iraqi government has ordered the MKO to lay down its weapons and leave the country.

The MKO is regarded as a terrorist group by West and much of the international community.

The MKO is on the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations subject to an EU-wide assets freeze. The group benefits from American support, while it has ironically been designated by the US government as a foreign terrorist organization.

Formed in the 1960s in opposition to the rule of the US-backed Shah, the MKO took part in the 1979 Islamic revolution but then took up arms against the Islamic republic.

Leaders of the group have been fighting to shed its terrorist tag after a series of bloody anti-Western attacks in the 1970s, and nearly 30 years of violent struggle against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

It killed several of Iran’s new leaders in the early years after the revolution and moved to Iraq in the early 1980s, where it carried out terrorist acts against the Iranian people until the United States invaded in 2003.

The MKO backed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the 1980-1988 imposed war on Iran.