Official denies US plans to attack Iran

THE US ambassador to Azerbaijan denied a Russian press report that the Pentagon plans to use the Caucasus republic as a launching pad for military action against Iran.

“We have no such plans,” ambassador Ross Wilson told reporters in the Azeri capital Baku.

Russia’s Nezavisimaya Gazeya reported yesterday that the Pentagon had readied a plan for military action against Iran, which would include the use of US troops stationed in Azerbaijan and neighbouring Georgia.

“The military action is designed to complete a popular uprising on which the Pentagon is counting,” said the paper. It added that the operation’s launch date would be decided at a meeting to be held yesterday in the White House

The report has also been denied by Azerbaijan and Georgia. A spokesman at Georgia’s embassy in Moscow said it knew nothing about US plans for Iran.

Azeri official Fuad Akhundov told Moscow Echo radio: “Not one word corresponds to reality. This article is aimed at torpedoing relations between Iran and Azerbaijan, which are improving.”

The newspaper report appeared to stem from a recent toughening of Washington’s stance on Iran, which it accuses of harbouring terrorists and having a secret nuclear weapons programme.

A US defence official said on Wednesday that there was serious unhappiness in the administration of President George W Bush about Iran.

Iran yesterday dismissed US charges that it was stirring up trouble in post-war Iraq and said it was determined not to interfere in its neighbour’s affairs.

“We are determined not to interfere in Iraq’s internal affairs and impose a government on the Iraqi people or say what kind and model of government they should have,” foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.

Tehran backs Shi’ite Muslim groups in Iraq, many of whose leaders fled the rule of Saddam Hussein for exile in Iran.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said Washington would not let Tehran try to foster Iranian-style rule in Iraq.

However, Asefi said only the Iraqi people could decide what sort of government they should have.

“It depends on the Iraqi nation and they should choose the model of government they want,” he said on the sidelines of an Islamic conference. “Whatever they choose we will accept it and respect it.”

The United States has stepped up pressure on Tehran after intelligence intercepts suggested that orders for the May 12 Saudi suicide bombings were issued by al-Qaida operatives inside Iran.

The US broke diplomatic ties with Tehran after the 1979 Islamic revolution and brands Iran as part of an “axis of evil”.

Iran says that it has deported around 500 members of al-Qaida who had fled from Afghanistan, but says that it is still questioning others.

US officials say al-Qaida security chief Saif al-Adel, an Egyptian indicted for conspiracy in the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in east Africa, and Saad bin Laden, son of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden , are believed to be in Iran.

“We still don’t know if this Adel is in Iran or not,” said Asefi. “A group of al-Qaida members have been arrested, but we don’t know if he is among them,” he said.

Iran has accused the United States of double standards in fighting terrorism by refusing to hand over Iranian rebels disarmed by US forces in Iraq.

While branded as terrorists by the US State Department, analysts say Pentagon hawks are mulling over whether to use the group against Iran.