IRAN: In false report of captured American soldiers, a warning to Ahmadinejad?

A war of words over Iran's nuclear program has raised tensions in the Middle East between Tehran and its allies and the West and its partners. For years analysts have been worrying about a misunderstanding or mishap involving Iranian and U.S. warships in the waters of the Persian Gulf or a confrontation between American soldiers and Iranians along borders in Iraq or Afghanistan. 

So when the website of an Iranian newspaper (Persian link) said to be linked to the intelligence branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guard reported on Sunday that Iran had captured seven American soldiers along its eastern border with Pakistan, everyone stopped in their tracks, remembering the crisis that ensued more than three years ago with the capture of British sailors in the gulf. 

"It has been heard that about seven American forces accompanied by two Iranians who wanted to enter the Iranian territories from the Kuhak border in Saravan region [Sistan-Baluchestan province] have been identified and arrested by the vigilant border guards," the report on the news website Javan Online said. "It is said that two Iranians who accompanied the American forces could escape." 

Within minutes the news had been picked up by Iranian and international news organizations, and within hours Javan took down the report and issued a retraction and an apology (Persian link) to readers. 

Iran watchers suspect hard-line elements within the Revolutionary Guard may have been trying to further damage an already battered and politically weakened President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during his ongoing trip to New York, where he is scheduled to address the United Nations General Assembly and give a bunch of interviews to international media, as he does to improve his domestic and international standing every year.   

"The system's enemies and ill-wishers are trying to create an adverse atmosphere against the president and to overshadow his speech at the United Nations," Sistan-Baluchestan Governor-General Ali Mohammad Azad, an appointee of Ahmadinejad, told the official Islamic Republic News Agency. 

But the publication of the report may also have served as a menacing reminder to Ahmadinejad of how boxed in he is on foreign policy. 

Perhaps those powerful figures hiding in the shadows of the security apparatus want to remind Ahmadinejad that any deal he tries to cut over Iran's nuclear program, any attempt he makes to improve ties or even reduce tensions with the U.S., and any gambit he makes to soften Iran's image can be easily undermined with one grand stunt, such as capturing a platoon of U.S. soldiers along the Iranian border. 

-- Borzou Daragahi in Beirut

Photo: Royal Navy sailor Nathan Summers, left foreground, spoke with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in the light-colored jacket, in Tehran on April 4, 2007, when a group of British sailors and Marines were released after a 15-day imprisonment. Credit: Associated Press

Comments

[Joe]

"Other than his immediate entourage and the parasitic Baseej (Zionists) getting fat off free handouts and undeserved government posts"
Lol, White House Chief of Staff, US Treasury Secretary and etc..., come on, 300 mil. US citizens with 98% belonging to different ethnicity don't have a qualified persons to fill these jobs! talking about cronyism and corruption!

[sam]

we fight a constant war against radical terrorist islam and its mad hatters,but
not the honest man in the steet, even-though its hard to tell most of the time,the article will not help the iranian people in any way other than to cause more dislike for them,in countries out-side of their native iran,and will give further excuse to racists,to exploit the article true or not.

[Frederick]

Other than his immediate entourage and the parasitic Baseej getting fat off free handouts and undeserved government posts (like that freak Mohammad Marandi), Ahmadinejad's only defenders appear to be a group of crudgety, embittered proto-Stalinist Iranian exiles living in the West and a clique of colorless former Western officials (the Leveretts et al) who secretly pine for his brand of fascism.

[Iranian woman]

Bandit:
how about not commenting on stuff you know nothing about?
you apparently have no knowledge about the Iranian PEOPLE,all you know is the Iranian government. most people in Iran couldn't care less about Iran's nuclear program.they don't even want the nuclear energy,let alone the nuclear weapons and hoping to ruin other nations with it!!
people in Iran are much more concerned with the current economy,individual freedom and political prisoners than they are with the stuff Ahmadinejad wants the world to believe.

[gedi agustos]

no war in the horizon, both Iran and USA know that, for if there shell be a war both counries will lose

[Joe]

False report!
Lying is a modus operandi in western culture since antiquity, anyone believe in parting the Red Sea or Gulf of Tonkin Incident as a fact, lol!

[Banafsheh]

This is totally mis-analyzed!

[atrayu]

The truth about the hikers

These three have been friends since college and one (Bauer) has been living in Damascus and was ON ASSIGNMENT as a freelance journalist hired by the Pacific News Service to report on elections in northern Kurdistan. The hike was a simple recreational outing by three friends who have hiked all over the world while the one was there to interview local politicians and tribal leaders.

Farhad Lohoni, the leader of the local tribe, said his relatives had witnessed a group of men cross the border using a road that leads to a base used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Marivan, Iran.

He claimed that the local Kurdish security service had records of a call suspected to have been made by an Iranian agent to Iran that is said to have tipped off the IRGC to the Americans' presence in the scenic area.

"This was not a case of the Americans straying into Iran," he said. "They were targeted and captured by a group that came over from Iran, ignoring Iraq's sovereignty. We know this and it means that Iran must have wanted to take Americans hostage at this sensitive time."

[Bandit]

Who do these people think they are? Do they think they run the world? Or are they just stupid? they must be trying to start a war or something, Of course with the prez that we have nothing would happen until the bombs started to fall. These people in iran they are crazy I think most of the masulms over there are crazy. After al they want to destroy every country that does not believe the way they do. so what's new on that front. now they say or claim to have kidnapped seven of our soldiers who do they think they are why don't we kidnap their prez and make a deal all of our people they holding for their prez. that would be fair I think.

[Cyrusix]

In a sense this is Ahmadinejad's own creation. He thought that he was being clever by putting so much in the hands of the Revolutionary Guards. I think he was highly naive when he thought that the top echelon within the Guards shared his revolutionary zeal and messianic visions.

These guys are interested in the same thing they have always been. That is money. For them religion has just become a convenient way to quick riches.

In a funny way Iran has become no different from the US.

Ultra conservative right wing Christian fundamentalists have become filthy rich riding on their so called religious fervour. The same has happened in Iran. First for the clergy and in recent times for the top echelon of the Revolutionary Guard who has been entrusted with protecting the revolution and the ideals of Khomeini.

At the same the military-industrial complex, again dominated by the Revolutionary Guards have added even more to the riches of the top echelons. If anybody think that these guys will give up all this money for the sake of peace with the US, that person is a huge fool.

In the same way that the military-industrial complex in the US will not brook any opposition to their reckless rush to make more and more money, so the Revolutionary Guard will not allow Ahmadininejad or anybody else, including the Supreme Leader, to stand in their way and upset the very full and nice apple cart.

They will rather dump Iran into war than let that happen.

So, in a sense Iran has really become a powerful country, but in a way that Khomeini could never have imagined and Ahmadinejad certainly did not plan for.

[Person]

This article is stupid. Next time a bird falls, it it means Iran is losing. Keep dreaming.