WASHINGTON, May 16 (UPI) -- Iranian authorities are blaming al-Qaida for the murders of 11 people over the weekend.
Police in the capital Tehran said Sunday that 15-20 militants linked to al-Qaida had executed 11 men beside a road in southern Iran and tied a wounded 12-year-old boy to an electricity pylon before fleeing to nearby mountains, Pakistan's News International reported Monday.
According to the report, the attacks took place on Saturday night militants wearing police uniform flagged down four cars on a desert highway between Kerman and Bam in southern Kerman province. The militants fired on another passing car, killing a passenger.
Men from the cars were bound and then killed. State television showed images of the bodies. The sole survivor of the attack was a young boy. He was reportedly bound to a pylon and forced to witness the murders.
Iranian police deputy commander Gen. Eskandar Momeni told reporters, "Terrorist elements named Jundollah, headed by Abdolmalek Rigi, claimed responsibility for the attack."
Iranian officials told journalists that Jundollah commander Rigi was an al-Qaida cell leader in Iran.
Kerman governor general deputy Abolqasem Nasrollahi said, "Six of the attackers were killed in a shootout as they fled east." The remainder of the militants fled to Kerman's Kofout mountains.
Interior Minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi said on state television, "Some of the villains have been arrested and some killed. Those remaining cannot get out of the country as the borders are being strictly controlled."
Armenian and Greek Cypriot lobbying groups have joined forces to persuade the U.S. Congress to prevent the Bush administration from selling cruise missiles to Turkey.
The newspaper Cumhuriyet reported Wednesday that Greek Cypriot and Armenian lobby groups sent a joint letter to the chairman of House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Ca, the chairman of the House International Relations Committee, Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill. and others urging them to use their influence to re-examine the proposed sale.
The lobbyists claim that the proposed $162 million sale of 50 AGM-84K air-to-ground SLAM-ER missile systems would destabilize the military balance on Cyprus, while Turkey could threaten Armenia with the new weapons.
Private security companies are growing in popularity, wealth and power as more citizens become convinced their governments cannot protect them, a security conference in South Africa was told this weekend.
The Cape Argus newspaper reported Monday that the Goethe-Institut conference in Johannesburg, South Africa was told that private security companies were increasingly sought because many governments had already largely abdicated their responsibility for citizens' safety.
The issue is already a hot button one in South Africa. In August 2004, members of South Africa's Scorpions elite investigations unit raided the Cape Town offices of International Intelligence Risk Management and uncovered 2,000 names of people suspected of being in the process of being hired as mercenaries.
South Africa's Foreign Military Assistance Act prohibits South Africans from providing military assistance abroad without governmental approval. However, an estimated 1,500-2,500 South Africans are working for private contractors in Iraq, lured by salaries of up to $25,000 a month for intelligence officers, counter-insurgency specialists, helicopter pilots and combat surgeons.
German security expert Fritz Sack told the conference that he was startled in the tremendous rise in crime in South Africa, "a deliberate indifference by the state towards it" and the emergence of civilian substitutes providing security previously done by the state.
Architect Karina Landman said security villages and gated communities were booming. Residents were even starting to make their own regulations, she said.
Iran's Ambassador to Kazakhstan Ramin Mehmandoost said Sunday that Iran was opposed to laying oil and gas pipelines on the Caspian seabed to handle Kazakhstan's growing energy exports.
In an interview published Sunday by Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency, Mehmandoost said that Iran had repeatedly declared its position on the issue, stating that Tehran opposed the proposals because "no legal regime has been defined for Caspian Sea" by the Caspian's bordering states and Iran's concerns over protecting the sea's environment.
Iran, with tepid Turkmenistan support, believes that the Caspian offshore waters should be divided on the basis of length of coastline. Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan believe that each of the five states bordering the Caspian should receive 20 percent each of the inland sea's offshore waters.
To implement the plan, the legal regime of the Caspian Sea should be drawn up, all five countries sharing common coastline around the sea should agree with the plan and ensure that the plan does not threaten the environment and is in conformity with international standards.
Mehmandoost held recent discussions with Kazakh Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Baktykozha Izmukhambetov, who sought Iranian approval and cooperation to build undersea pipelines to transfer Kazakh oil and natural gas to Europe. The two officials also discussed the possibility of Kazakhstan using newly built facilities in Iran's Caspian Neka port.
