Iran thwarts CIA-backed regime change plot

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:59:49 GMT | Presstv.ir

Tehran has disbanded a CIA-backed network designed to orchestrate a 'Velvet Revolution' in the country, says a senior Iranian official.  Iran's Judiciary Spokesman, Alireza Jamshidi, said on Tuesday that authorities have arrested four Iranian nationals who were plotting a regime change at the behest of the Bush administration.  According to Jamshidi, the four were paid by the White House, the State Department and the CIA, to expand their network and topple the Iranian government -- irrespective of the Algiers Accord.  Under the 1981 treaty signed between the US and Iran, Washington is obliged to refrain from interfering in Iran's 'internal affairs'.  Washington, nevertheless, has not ceased its 'regime change' project in Iran and has reportedly appropriated more than $120 million to fund the initiative.  Investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh, revealed in July that the US Congress had secretly agreed to US President, George W. Bush's $400-million funding request for a major escalation in covert operations inside Iran.  ABC news also exposed that Washington has been secretly funding and directing Jundullah militants to 'stage deadly guerrilla raids inside the Islamic Republic, kidnap Iranian officials and execute them on camera' all as part of a 'programmatic objective to overthrow the Iranian government'.  According to a Sunday article published in the New York Times, Bush favored covert operations against the Islamic Republic instead of a request by the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert to strike Iran's nuclear facilities.  The covert operations, reportedly, included renewed US espionage activities against Iran's nuclear infrastructure and efforts to undermine the country's electrical systems and computer networks.  The revelation that Bush and Olmert have launched covert operations against Iran comes at a time when espionage activities against the Islamic Republic have reached a new height.  Iranian security officials made high profile arrest of a number of Israeli operatives in the country in recent months.