US:THE BUSH administration has significantly increased covert military operations inside Iran aimed at destabilising the country's government, according to a US report published yesterday.
The report, in the New Yorker magazine, quotes military, intelligence and congressional sources as saying that CIA and special forces operations were ordered by US president George Bush in a "presidential finding" in the past few months. It said Mr Bush sought - and congressional leaders from both parties approved - $400m (€250m) for the secret war, which includes abductions and assassinations.
According to the report's author Seymour Hersh, the operations inside Iran have been under way since last year but have recently been "significantly expanded".
However, Mr Hersh - who broke several stories on the intelligence fiasco before the Iraq war - reported that there was considerable resistance from US generals and the defence secretary Robert Gates to White House pressure for an all-out attack.
The operations described by Mr Hersh involve support for Baluchi and Arab separatist groups in Iran, "seizing members of al-Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of 'high-value targets' in the president's war on terror, who may be captured or killed".
There have been reports from Iran of assassinations of military officers, which Tehran has sometimes blamed on US and British operations. The US and Britain insist they are focused on diplomatic means to convince the Iranian government to suspend uranium enrichment.
Iran insists its nuclear programme is purely peaceful, while western governments believe it is being used as a front for developing weapons. - (Guardian service)