An Iranian physicist has been killed by a bomb blast in the middle of one of the world's most populous cities. The Islamic Republic of Iran claims that Masoud Ali Mohammadi was targeted by the United States and Israel using a remote-controlled bomb.
There are two problems with this story.
- Mohammadi is tied to Mir Hossein Mousavi's moderate movement.
- Despite Iran's flimsy charge in the Mohammadi killing, the US may well be funding terrorism against Iran anyway.
The BBC describes Mohammadi, the blast and the response:
Reports in the Iranian media described Mr Mohammadi as a nuclear physicist, but it appears that his field of study was quantum theory.
There was also confusion as to whether the attack had any political overtones.
One university official said Mr Mohammadi was not a political figure. But other reports said his name appeared on a list of academics backing opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi before the 2009 presidential election.
Tensions have been high in Iran since the disputed election led to mass protests against the government.
Mr Mohammadi, who worked at Tehran University, "was killed in a booby-trapped motorbike blast" in the city's northern Qeytariyeh district, state-run Press TV reported earlier.
It showed pictures from the scene of the blast, saying windows in the nearby buildings had been shattered by the force of the explosion.
What do the US' opponents say?
Some conservatives have suggested that the People's Mujahideen Organisation - a banned militant group opposed to the Tehran government - was involved. The group denied the accusation.
Not especially likely that the US was after Mr. Mohammadi, is it? But this raises more questions than why the life of a physicist.
To what extent is it true that the United States aids terrorist groups attacking Iranian targets?
Mariana van Zeller of Current TV recently visited greater Kurdistan. The region is laden with mines, ethnically tense and split along the political entities of Turkey, Iran and Iraq. Traversing the volatile desert mountains, van Zeller investigates whether or not the US funds a breadbasket of ethnic separatists, Marxist and religiously fundamentalist auxillaries--terrorists--to sow turmoil in Iran.
The unveilled hair of khaki-dressed female revolutionaries. Communist Muslims drinking whiskey. Right-wing paramilitaries against the Islamic Republic.
The complexity of the situation merits a brief if inadequate summary. Van Zeller met with a band of Iranian Kurdish Marxists called PJAK. PJAK operates their paramilitary organization mere miles from the Islamic Republic's borders. They are the Iranian equivalent of Iraq's People's Kurdish Party (PKK) in ideology and ethnicity. But the PKK fights America's puppet regime, and PJAK fights America's enemy du jour. Van Zeller explains:
All of this, of course, was a lead up to a meeting with a recently formed Kurdish militant group known as the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan, or PJAK. Over the last couple of years, PJAK has been launching deadly raids against Iran. They claim to have killed scores of Iranian troops. Many, including the Iranian government, believe PJAK is receiving support from the U.S.
In theory, the US does not fund violent revolutionaries. Van Zeller also interviewed ex-CIA agent Bob Baer, who argues that's not the case at all. Even further, he claims the US is at war with Iran via these "terrorist" proxies. This is a great video, but long:
(LINK.)
Compromised by its heavy hand, belied by its dishonesty and mutable policies in the region, it's hard to dismiss the real possibility that the US is not behaving the way she claims.
As the bombs drop on Yemen, those beyond the reach of US opinion-control will wonder who stands truly supporting freedom or oppression and terror in the region.