JunDUHllah

In a related story, ABC News reports that we've been secretly supporting Jundullah, an anti-Iranian Baluchi guerrilla/quasi-terrorist group based in Pakistan. I'm not 100% sold on the veracity of this story yet, but it seems fairly well sourced and ABC is usually fairly trustworthy. Among the people who didn't know before ABC News broke the story: Congress. Bush wouldn't have it any other way.

So why would Bush not want Congress (or the rest of us) to know about Administration support for Jundullah? Well, maybe it's because they're a radical Islamic group affiliated with al-Qaeda. Or maybe it's because they have an annoying habit of attacking and killing U.S. diplomats.

Again, if this is true, it's an outrage. Of course, Jundullah denies any affiliation with the CIA or American institutions, so right now this is a story that hinges on the credibility of the "U.S. and Pakistani intelligence officials" cited by ABC News. I see no reason to doubt them, though - there would be nothing too surprising about Bush administration support for this group. And might I point out the obvious: this is reminiscent of our past support for some other unsavory characters.

Update: An Asia Times article from a year ago adds its two cents worth, mentioning Jundullah and Mujahideen-e-Khalq as anti-Iranian rebel groups. It claims the MEK are aided by the U.S. but says nothing of the Jundullah ties, which were presumably not common knowledge a year ago. The MEK are a secularist group that helped the Islamic Republic come into being in '79 but fell out of favor with the ayatollahs. They're currently on the U.S. list of terrorist groups, but since the African National Congress showed up on there at one time that doesn't mean much. Here's an Aussie description that makes for some interesting reading. They're probably on the list unfairly, but the fact still remains that the Bush administration has apparently been secretly supporting two organizations that they identify as "terrorist." Fascinating...