TEHRAN, Feb. 24 (UPI) -- Jundallah leader Abdolmalek Rigi had ties to U.S. and Israeli intelligence officials as well as NATO commanders before his arrest, Iranian ministers said.
Iranian authorities announced they took custody of Rigi after his arrest Tuesday on a flight from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan.
Iranian Information Minister Heydar Moslehi said Rigi had contacts with the CIA and Israel's Mossad. The Jundallah leader even met with NATO military chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer in Afghanistan in 2008, the reformist-leaning Iranian Labor News Agency reports.
Iran in 2009 said it had evidence to suggest Rigi had direct contact with U.S. intelligence officials. The Washington Post cited U.S. intelligence officials who said Tuesday that the allegations were "garbage."
The U.S. State Department does not include Jundallah on its list of foreign terrorist organizations.
The arrest comes as Washington expresses deep concern over Iranian nuclear activity and its regional ambitions. Christopher Hill, the U.S. envoy to Baghdad, said recently he was troubled by allegations that Iran was interfering in the Iraqi election process.
Jundallah called recently for regional ethnic groups to join their fight against Tehran. The group claimed responsibility for an Oct. 19 bombing at a tribal conference in southeastern Iran that left several senior commanders of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps dead.
