Roundup: Iran's intelligence ministry claims to identify, dismantle U.S.-linked spying network

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TEHRAN, May 21 The Iranian Intelligence Ministry announced Saturday that it has identified and dismantled a large spy network linked to the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), reports China Daily.

The elite and faithful forces of the Intelligence Ministry were able to arrest a number of 30 American-linked spies in their confrontation with the CIA agents and through numerous intelligence and counter-intelligence operations, the statement said.

Also, 42 CIA operatives linked to the network have been identified in various parts of the world, the ministry said in the statement.

It said that not only did the Intelligence Ministry defuse the CIA's heavy aggressive operations but the intelligence ministry's agents have succeeded in feeding false information to the CIA through a number of double-agents.

The ministry's Public Relations Office added in the statement that the U.S.-related spy network was operating under the cover of the so-called job-finding centers to attract Iranian citizens to cooperate with them, by promising them jobs and education opportunities, and deceiving them with visa and entry permission to the United States.

The network was "established by a number of the leading CIA operatives" in some countries, and due to the massive intelligence and counter-intelligence work, the Iranian intelligence agents succeeded in discovering and completely dismantling the network, said the statement.

"The network used a wide range of data bases and U.S. embassies and consulates in several countries, specially in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Malaysia and Turkey, to collect information on Iran's scientific, research and academic institutions in the fields of nuclear energy, air and defense industries and biotechnology," the Iranian Intelligence Ministry said.

The statement further pointed out that the U.S. network also spied on Iran's oil and gas pipelines, power and telecommunication grids, airports, customs departments, network security and banks for future sabotage operations.

In the past years, Iranian authorities have been accusing the United States and Israeli intelligence services of spying on Iran' s military and nuclear programs.

In January, Iran said it had dismantled an Israeli spying network and arrested a group of its terrorist- spies who were linked to the assassination of its nuclear scientist.

An Iran's Intelligence Ministry announcement said then that, " In order to carry out its non-human, anti-Islamic and anti-Iranian wills, the Mossad (Israeli intelligence agency) has used its bases in some European, non- European and some neighboring states of the Islamic Republic to conduct the terror attack against Dr. Massoud Ali-Mohammadi."

In January 2010, Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, the nuclear scientist from Tehran University, was killed by a remote-controlled bomb attached to a motorbike parked near his house.

In November 2010, another Iranian nuclear scientist Majid Shahriar was also killed by a bomb attached to his car on the way to his work.  

Also, Iranian nuclear officials have accused the United States and Israel of cyber-attacks on Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant computers but they have denied any serious damage to the facilities.

16 killed in NATO fuel truck blast in Pakistan

LANDIKOTAL, Pakistan - May 21:  At least 16 people were killed in northwest Pakistan on Saturday after a bomb attack claimed by a militant group hit a truck carrying fuel supplies for NATO forces in Afghanistan, the latest attack in an upsurge in violence since Osama bin Laden was killed, reports Agencies/AIP.
People walk around a burnt tanker, part of a NATO convoy that was attacked in Landikotal near the Afghanistan border, in this still image from a May 21, 2011.

It took place near the Torkham border crossing in the Khyber region, the main route for moving supplies to NATO and American forces in Afghanistan.

"The tanker was on fire because of a blast late in the night. There was another blast early in the morning in the same tanker and 16 people who gathered near it to collect oil were killed," a senior local administration official in Khyber told Reuters.

In another attack in the same region, a bomb struck 16 NATO fuel trucks late on Friday, setting them on fire. No one was hurt. 

Militants have stepped up attacks in Pakistan, an unstable US ally, since US special forces killed al Qaeda leader bin Laden in the garrison town of Abbottabad this month.

Abdullah Azzam Brigade, a militant group affiliated with Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for both attacks on the NATO trucks.

"It is our jihad against Americans. We want to stop supplies for NATO from our territory," Abu Musa'ab, a spokesman for the group, told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.

The attacks on the NATO trucks in Khyber came hours after the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for a bomb attack on a US consulate convoy in the city of Peshawar. 

One Pakistani was killed and 12 people were injured, including two lightly wounded US nationals.   

Routes through Pakistan bring in 40 percent of supplies for NATO forces in Afghanistan, according to the United States Transportation Command. Of the remainder, 40 percent come through Afghanistan's neighbours in the north and 20 percent by air.

The Pakistani Taliban are pressing ahead with their campaign of suicide bombings designed to de-stabilise the unpopular government, despite several army offensives against their strongholds along the lawless border region with Afghanistan.

Eight suspected militants were killed on Saturday when army gunship helicopters attacked their hideouts in Orakzai region, adjoining Khyber, local officials said.

China sees a role amid Pakistan-U.S. rift : China for global support to Pakistan

BEIJING, May 8: Renewed strains in relations between Pakistan and the United States following last week's killing of Osama bin Laden have been seen in China as opening the door for closer engagement with Islamabad, reports The Hindu.

According to officials and analysts here, China is keen to further tighten its already close relationship with its long-term strategic ally, driven by the view that the country is going to play a crucial, even defining, role in Afghanistan, amid declining U.S. influence there.

With the expected withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan from July, coupled with widely-held perceptions that the death of the al-

Qaeda leader will inevitably see a toning down of the so-called “war on terror”, officials and analysts here see Pakistan as providing a crucial foothold for China in the region. Even if the U.S. decides to scale back assistance to Pakistan, they said, China would be prepared to step up financial and economic assistance to back its strategic ally.

“We see that Pakistan is going to play a very important role in Afghanistan, going forward,” said Zhao Gancheng, director of South Asia Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies. “If Pakistan does not cooperate with the Afghan government, or with the U.S. for that matter, a political solution is not going to be achieved,” he told The Hindu.

Even before bin Laden's death, U.S. media reports claimed that Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had called on Afghan officials to engage with China more, with increasing criticism of U.S.-led efforts for a military solution. Now, while Chinese officials publicly say they expect the U.S. and Pakistan to tide over current differences, they are also growing increasingly critical of Washington's pressure on Islamabad.

“Cooperation between the United States intelligence and Pakistan has often led to a lot of disputes over the last couple of years,” said Mr. Zhao. “The U.S. accuses Pakistan of taking irresponsible actions, and not fully devoting itself to the U.S. campaign against terror.”

In recent days, Chinese officials have made clear they are fully backing Pakistan amid its differences with Washington, rejecting criticism from the West — and India — of its failure to crack down on terrorist groups operating on its soil.

While other Chinese analysts have downplayed the current strains between Pakistan and the U.S., they have also pointed to the contrasting solidity of Sino-Pakistan ties. “I don't think Pakistan-U.S. relations will be troubled so much,” said Hu Shisheng, a South Asia scholar at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR). “The Americans still need Pakistan, for regional stabilisation and counterterrorism.”

But China, he said, did not carry suspicions about the Pakistani military. “We believe fully the Pakistani military's positions,” he said. “But what the Americans believe is a different question altogether.”