Update below. Update II

The ringleader of Iran’s notorious Sunni terrorist group Jundullah, which operates mainly in Sistan Baluchestan, has been captured this morning in a major military operation near the Iran-Pakistan border. On October 18, in a suicide attack in the border region of Pishin conducted by the group, more than 40 people including 15 members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards had been killed.

Iran has repeatedly accused the U.S. of supporting Jundullah militants in order to stir unrest in Iran and destabilize the country’s leadership. Rigi himself has given in April 2007 a telephone interview to the governmental broadcasting service Voice of America when he was introduced as the “leader of the Iranian people’s resistance movement”, which has heavily been criticized in Iran for giving terrorists a voice. In 2007, on request by former U.S. president G. W. Bush, Congress had granted 400 million dollars for covert operations in the country with the aim of regime change in Iran. In March 2008, Bush had signed a secret finding authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian government. Among possible beneficiaries are, according to Seymour Hersh, the Kurdish separatist party PJAK, Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) and Jundullah.

As Muhammad Sahimi at antiwar.com has put it: Iran’s fist is clenched for a reason.

Update May 25, 2010. Abdolhamid Rigi, Abdolmalek’s brother, has been hanged yesterday, May 24, 2010, in Zahedan.

Update June 20, 2010. Abdolmalek Rigi has been hanged today at Evin prison in Tehran.