A Pakistani tribal militant group responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran
has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005, ABC News
reported Tuesday, quoting US and Pakistani intelligence sources.
According to the report, broadcast Tuesday on the news program Nightline, the group, called Jundullah, is made up of members of the Baluchi tribe and operates out of the Baluchistan province in Pakistan, just across the border from Iran.
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The organization has taken responsibility for the deaths and kidnappings of more than a dozen Iranian soldiers and officials.
American officials told ABC News that the US relationship with Jundullah is arranged so that the US provides no funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or "finding" as well as congressional oversight.
Tribal sources, however, said that money for Jundullah is funneled to its youthful leader, Abd el Malik Regi, through Iranian exiles who have connections with European and Gulf states.
According to the report, the group leader, Regi, claims to have personally executed some of the Iranians.
"He used to fight with the Taliban. He's part drug smuggler, part Taliban, part Sunni activist," said Alexis Debat, a senior fellow on counterterrorism at the Nixon Center and an ABC News consultant who recently met with Pakistani officials and tribal members.
Most recently, Jundullah took credit for an attack in February that killed at least 11 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard riding on a bus in the Iranian city of Zahedan.
Last month, Iranian state television broadcast what it said were confessions by those responsible for the bus attack. They reportedly admitted to being members of Jundullah and said they had been trained for the mission at a secret location in Pakistan.
The Iranian TV broadcast is interspersed with the logo of the CIA, which the broadcast blamed for the plot.
According to the report, Pakistani government sources say the secret campaign against Iran by Jundullah was on the agenda when Vice President Dick Cheney met with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in February.
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