According to US and Pakistani intelligence sources interviewed by ABC News, US officials begin encouraging and advising Jundullah, a Pakistani militant group that has been staging attacks against Iran. The group is made up of members of the Baluchi tribe and operates out of the Baluchistan province in Pakistan, just across the border from Iran. [ABC News, 4/3/2007] Iran says the group is linked to al-Qaeda. [Reuters, 5/13/2007] Jundullah’s leader, Abdul Malik Rigi, formerly fought with the Taliban. Alexis Debat, a senior fellow on counterterrorism at the Nixon Center, tells ABC that Rigi “used to fight with the Taliban. He’s part drug smuggler, part Taliban, part Sunni activist.” Rigi commands “a force of several hundred guerrilla fighters that stage attacks across the border into Iran on Iranian military officers, Iranian intelligence officers, kidnapping them, executing them on camera,” Debat explains. According to ABC sources, the US government is not funding the group. [ABC News, 4/3/2007] Rather the group is receiving money and weapons through the Afghan and Pakistani military and Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI. [ABC News, 5/23/2007]
February 26, 2007: Vice President Cheney Travels to Pakistan to Meet with Pakistani President Musharraf
Vice President Dick Cheney flies to Pakistan to meet with President Pervez Musharraf. The White House is tight-lipped about the trip and refuses to provide details about what the two leaders discuss. But media accounts, citing administration officials, suggest that Cheney warns Musharraf that US aid to Pakistan could be in jeopardy if his government does not improve in its efforts to combat al-Qaeda and the Taliban. [New York Times, 2/26/2007] Cheney’s trip comes after the head of US military operations in Afghanistan compiled a dossier of evidence indicating the Pakistani government is secretly supporting the militants attacking US troops in Afghanistan (see Autumn 2006- February 2007). But Cheney is known to be a strong supporter of Musharraf and generally has blocked pressure against him (see June 27, 2007). Pakistani intelligence sources will later tell ABC news that the two leaders discussed a secret operation (see 2005 and After) to support attacks against Iran by the Sunni militant group Jundullah. [ABC News, 4/3/2007]
