Tag Archives: Terrorist Groups

Mali Claims France Funded Terrorists; France Denies

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French soldiers talk to locals in southern Mali in 2016.

French soldiers talk to locals in southern Mali in 2016.

These flagrant violations of Mali’s airspace have served France to collect intelligence for the benefit of terrorist groups active in the Sahel, and to drop arms and ammunition to them.

Tensions between France and Mali continue to mount. As the articles below—one from Mali, one from France—delineate, the junta leaders of Mali recently sent a letter to the UN Security Council accusing France of illegally violating its airspace to aid terrorist groups in the country, which France’s years-long Barkhane counterterrorism mission has been in the country to fight.

The private Malian paper Le Journal du Mali reports that the ruling military junta in Mali, which came to power in May 2021, had sent the UN Security Council a letter claiming that it had proof of French violation of its airspace. It claimed that this occurred more than 50 times to collect intelligence and deliver arms to terrorists in the country.   Malian diplomats went on to request a special meeting of the UN Security Council but ultimately provided no proof. For its part, as detailed in the second article from the private, left-leaning French editorial site L’Opinion, the French embassy in Bamako denied the claim. As the writer of the article pondered: “Is this [letter to the UN] a way for Bamako to designate an external enemy to veil its internal shortcomings?”  Such accusations—unfounded as they appear to be—play out against the backdrop of France’s last nine years in the Sahel leading its Barkhane counterterrorism mission against groups associated with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. While France officially ended its Barkhane mission in August 2022, the ruling Malian junta and large swathes of the Malian population have taken to blaming the French mission not only for failing to stem the tide of jihadist violence, but also for offering support to such groups. Until now, such accusations have percolated in bilateral circles, angering French diplomats and even President Macron. Their elevation to the UN Security Council places them at unprecedented new levels. 

Sources :

Source: “Sécurité : le Mali accuse la France d’aide aux terroristes (Security: Mali accuses France of aiding terrorists),” Le Journal du Mali (private Malian newspaper) 17 August 2022. https://www.journaldumali.com/2022/08/17/securite-mali-accuse-france-daide-aux-terroristes/. 

In a letter dated August 15 and addressed to the UN Security Council, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mali accuses France of repetitive and frequent violations of Malian airspace by French forces. In the letter signed by Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdoulaye Diop, he asserted that the Malian government has several pieces of evidence that these flagrant violations of Malian airspace have been used by France to collect intelligence for the benefit of terrorist groups operating in the Sahel and to drop arms and ammunition to them. The government underscored that it is because of suspicion of destabilization maneuvers by France that Mali firmly opposed France’s request for air support for MINUSMA, so that “France does not use the UN mission as a pretext to carry out subversive operations aimed at further weakening Mali and the Sahel region.” In addition, Mali requests that France immediately cease its acts of aggression against Mali, in the event of persistence, Mali says it reserves the right to use self-defense.

Source: “Le Mali accuse la France d’armer les combattants islamistes (Mali accuses France of arming Islamist militants),” L’Opinion (private French news site), 18 August 2022. https://www.lopinion.fr/international/le-mali-accuse-la-france-darmer-les-combattants-islamistes. 

Is this a way for Bamako to designate an external enemy to veil its shortcomings internally? Mali said in a letter to the president of the United Nations Security Council dated Monday that France violated its airspace and delivered weapons to Islamist fighters in order to destabilize the country. Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop estimated that more than 50 violations of Malian airspace had been observed this year, saying most of them were due to the use by French forces of drones, military helicopters, or fighter planes.

The Malian government claims to be able to demonstrate where and when France would have delivered weapons to Islamist groups, it is added in the letter, without any proof being provided. Bamako requests the holding of an emergency meeting of the Security Council on the issue.“France has obviously never supported, directly or indirectly, these terrorist groups, which remain its designated enemies throughout the planet”, indicated the French embassy in Mali on Twitter, stressing that 53 French soldiers were dead in Mali in the last 9 years. These accusations come as France on Monday completed the withdrawal of French soldiers from Barkhane, a military operation aimed at fighting Islamist movements in the Sahel.

Image Information:

Image: French soldiers talk to locals in southern Mali in 2016. 
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Op%C3%A9ration_Barkhane.jpg
Attribution:  CC BY-SA 4.0

Iranian Authorities Arrest Alleged Deputy Leader of Royalist Terrorist Group

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Jamshid Sharmahd, after his August 2020 arrest.

Jamshid Sharmahd, after his August 2020 arrest.

“Tondar is one of the counterrevolutionary groups in which supporters of the Pahlavi regime are active.”

While the broader Iranian population may not be revolutionary, Iranians have increasingly come out into the streets to protest government abuses and declining living standards.  Although nearly three-quarters of Iran’s current population was born after the Islamic Revolution and has no direct experience with the shah’s regime, photos of pro-monarchy graffiti and videos of pro-shah chants increasingly circulate on social media from inside Iran.

It is against this backdrop that the trial of a suspect called “Masmatos,” accused of being a member of royalist terror group “Tondar,” becomes important.  In the excerpted article from news media outlet Fars News Agency, the Iranian prosecutor announces the arrest and accuses Tondar of responsibility for the 2008 bombing of a popular Shi’ite congregation hall in Shiraz that reportedly killed 14 people and injured more than 200 others.  The article also accuses Tondar of attempted attacks ranging from a bomb plot against the Sivand Dam, trying to use “cyanide bombs” at the Tehran International Book Fair, and an explosion at the shrine of Imam Khomeini, the leader of the Islamic Revolution who died in 1989.

After the Shiraz bombing, Iranian security forces arrested two suspects, Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani and Arash Rahmanipour.  Iran accused them of royalist links and subsequently tried and executed them in 2010.  Iranian security forces claim to have arrested Tondar leader Jamshid Sharmahd in August 2020; he is still in the custody of the Iranian intelligence service.  The Iranian press identifies the mysterious “Masmatos” as the second-in-command of Tondar’s military wing and says he also had knowledge of the assassination plot against Iranian nuclear physicist Massoud Ali Mohammadi, who died in a bombing outside his home in 2010.  At the time, the Iranian government attributed that bombing alternately to Israel and to the Mujahedin al-Khalq, an organization that frequently conducts terrorism inside Iran.

The fact that the Iranian government is now seeking to reattribute past attacks to proponents of the past monarchy may reflect the government’s desire to tarnish the image of the monarchy for a new generation of Iranians.  At the same time, the fact that the late shah’s son, Reza Pahlavi, the most recognizable opposition figure among Iranians, lives in the United States likely means the Iranian government will use “Tondar” to accuse the United States of being a state sponsor of terror in order to negate U.S. accusations of Iranian state terror sponsorship.

Source:

“Nafar-e Devvom Shakheh Nizami Goruhaj-e ‘Tondar’ Dastgir Shod (Number Two Person in the Military Branch of the ‘Tondar’ Gang Arrested),” Fars News Agency (news media outlet with close ties to Iran’s defense and security establishment), 2 February 2022.  https://www.farsnews.ir/news/14001113000785

… The number two member of the military branch of the Tondar [Thunder] group was arrested by anonymous soldiers of Imam al-Zaman [in this context: elite intelligence forces]. The man, identified as “Masmatos” was detained by the intelligence forces. Tondar is one of the opposition and counterrevolutionary groups in which supporters of the Pahlavi regime are active. Some experts believe this group was founded in the first decade of the 21st century or, more specifically, 2005. The more precise name of this group is the Royal Society of Iran. According to available information, Fathollah Manouchehri (also known as Foroud Fouladvand) was the leader of the group in the first years of its establishment up until 2007, after which Jamshid Shahrmad took over the group’s leadership.

On Saturday, 1 August 2020, news broke that the Ministry of Intelligence had arrested Jamshid Shahrmad, the leader of the Tondar terrorist group. Tondar was responsible for many crimes, such as the bombing of the Sayyid al-Shohada Hosseiniyah in Shiraz, a bloody incident in which many innocent people were martyred, as well as the attempt to blow up the Sivand dam in Shiraz. Masmatos was also the first person to publish the news of the assassination of nuclear scientist Martyr Ali Mohammadi.

Image Information:

Image: Jamshid Sharmahd, after his August 2020 arrest.
Source: Islamic Republic News Agency,  https://img9.irna.ir/d/r2/2020/08/02/4/157271087.jpg
Attribution: