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US 'escalates covert Iran missions'
US 'escalates covert Iran missions'
Iranian revolutionary guards have been captured by US forces, the article said [AP]
US congressional leaders have agreed to a presidential request for up to $400 million in funding for covert operations against Iran, according to a report in the New Yorker magazine.
Previous cross-border operations have included the capture of Iranian security officers and the backing of anti-Tehran armed groups, said the report by Seymour Hersh, the investigative reporter.
The operations have been taking place since last year, the article said.
Bush's request, made through a Presidential Finding document, was approved by US congressional leaders, including Democrats, late last year, the report said.
Cross-border US operations against Iran include seizing members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and taking them across the border to Iraq for interrogation, the report said.
But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which include the CIA, have now been significantly expanded, the New Yorker said, citing current and former officials.
Armed Sunni groups
The operations also include providing support to armed Sunni Muslim groups opposed to the Iranian government, which is Shia.
Among groups inside Iran benefiting from US support is the Jundallah, also known as the Iranian People's Resistance Movement, according to Robert Baer, a former CIA officer cited by the article.
Vali Nasr, an Iran analyst, told Hersh that the group was a vicious organisation suspected of links to al-Qaeda.
The article said US support for the dissident groups could prompt a violent crackdown by Iran, which could give the Bush administration a reason to intervene.
US denial
Ryan Crocker, the US amabassador to Iraq, told the CNN news channel that he had not read the article, but denied the allegations of cross-border operations.
"I'll tell you flatly that US forces are not operating across the Iraqi border into Iran, in the south or anywhere else," he said in an interview from Baghdad on Sunday.
Hersh has written previously about possible administration plans to go to war to stop Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
An April 2006 article in the New Yorker that suggested "regime change" in Iran, whether by diplomatic or military means, was Bush's ultimate goal.
Iran maintains that its nuclear activities are for peaceful purposes only.
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