Iran orders US to pay $4bln over Sistan Baluchestan 2009 terror attack
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On October 18, 2009, the Jundallah terrorist organization, supported by the US administration and directed by Abdolmalek Rigi, carried out a suicide bomber assault in Pishin District in Sistan, killing over 45 people and injuring 57 more.
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Iranian lawmakers count the ballot papers following a vote on the president's cabinet in Tehran, undated (AFP)
An Iranian court has ordered that the United States must pay more than $4 billion in damages for its role in a fatal terrorist assault in the country's southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan.
In a ruling released on Wednesday, the 55th branch of the legal court of International Relations of Tehran Justice Department stated that the US government and officials had been condemned to pay $4.130 billion in response to a case filed by 142 survivors of the brutal assault in 2009.
On October 18, 2009, the Jundallah terrorist organization, supported by the US administration and directed by Abdolmalek Rigi, carried out a suicide bomber assault in Pishin District in Sistan, killing over 45 people and injuring 57 more.
The attack is only one of many that have taken place in the country.
The verdict detailed that the group was created and financed by the US government "and all the terrorist acts of this outfit were ordered and approved by the American government against the people of Iran."
The verdict emphasized that Rigi was later arrested and tried by the Islamic Republic while on his way to an American base in Central Asia. It also explained how he presented "several documents stating that the terrorist outfit was under the control of the American government and provided with ample financial, logistical, military, and training support."
The verdict also indicated that the US government has a long history of forming and supporting terrorist groups across the world, the most well-known of which was ISIS, which received full assistance from Washington.
“This group is currently one of the tools of plundering the people of the world, including the oppressed people of Syria. The US government supports any terrorist group that operates against the Iranian people as it harbors hostility towards the Iranian people.”
Sistan and Baluchestan, which borders Pakistan and Afghanistan, has seen a number of terror strikes targeting civilians and security forces in recent years.
The CIA; a covert army of mayhem across the world
At the center of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) lies three major problems that disregard foreign policy and international law, an opinion piece in Common Dreams by Jeffrey Sachs revealed early this year.
According to Sachs, the CIA's aims and tactics, along with its covert methods and deceptive strategies, ensure a lack of accountability.
He calls Congress a "doormat" and notes that the agency's objectives are whatever the CIA and president determine at the time, irrespective of international and domestic law.
Sachs recalls Mike Pompeo's comments when he admitted, as CIA director, that the agency "lied, cheated, and stole."
The CIA, founded in 1947, has two main missions; one is to provide intelligence to the US government, while the other is to undermine whoever is considered an "enemy" by the current president, by a variety of techniques, including assassinations, coups, manufactured disturbances, arming of rebels, and other methods.
CIA creates mayhem, no accountability
Sachs notes that the second objective has had a destructive impact on global stability and the rule of law in the US. He calls the CIA a covert army of the US "capable of creating mayhem across the world with no accountability whatsoever."
He recalls how former President Dwight Eisenhower orchestrated the 1961 assassination of African president Patrice Lumumba of Zaire.
Sachs also details how in its 77-year history, the CIA has only been called to meaningful public account only once: in 1975. That year, Idaho Senator Frank Church led a Senate investigation into the CIA's stunning campaign of killings, coups, instability, monitoring, and Mengele-style torture and medical "experiments".
In December 1974, investigative writer Seymour Hersh revealed an exposé of unlawful CIA spy activities against the US antiwar movement, prompting Mike Mansfield, the Senate Majority leader at the time, to select Church to examine the CIA.
Sachs details the many operations of the CIA in Afghanistan, Serbia, Russia, China, and Syria and how for the last 20 years, it has been "deeply involved in fomenting the growing catastrophe in Ukraine," which is not limited to the overthrowing of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014 that triggered a "decade of bloodshed" leading up to the war with Russia.
The author notes that the little or no accountability and no restraint imposed by Congress has not slowed down the agency, rather it has become "ever-more obsessively secretive, pursuing aggressive legal actions against disclosures of classified information, even when, or especially when, that information describes the illegal actions by the government itself."
