Iran arrests Sunni rebel accused of links with U.S.

TEHRAN -- Iranian authorities have arrested the fugitive leader of the country's main Sunni Muslim insurgent group, Iran's minister of interior told reporters Tuesday.

Iran accused the United States of having supported the insurgent leader, while his group issued a statement claiming that the CIA was involved in his arrest. The United States denied both assertions Tuesday.

"These claims are just plain garbage," a senior U.S. intelligence official said in Washington.

Abdul Malik Rigi, 27, was captured in an unspecified third country, Iranian Interior Minister Mohammad Najjar said. Iran accuses Rigi of being the mastermind of numerous terrorist attacks that have killed dozens of people. Rigi, who for years has been Iran's top fugitive, heads the Jundallah (Soldiers of God, or God's Brigade) group, which says it supports the rights of a Sunni Muslim minority in Iran and operates in Iran's southeastern border region.

Iranian authorities say the United States gives financial and organizational support to the group, which often posts al-Qaeda-like execution videos on the Internet.

Iran's intelligence minister, Heidar Moslehi, accused U.S. authorities of providing Rigi with a false Afghan passport, which he allegedly used to travel to several European countries. In a news conference Tuesday, the minister also showed a photograph that he said proved the insurgent leader spent time on a U.S. military base 24 hours before he was arrested.

"The actions of this individual during his criminal life, which were directed by the intelligence services of America, Britain, European countries and [Israel's] Mossad, included an attack on a bus, indiscriminate killing of innocent people, blasts in a mosque and similar barbaric actions," said Moslehi.

However, a Web site connected to Jundallah asserted that Rigi was arrested by the intelligence services of the United States, Pakistan and Afghanistan, then handed over to Iran.

"The eminent leader of the resistance has been arrested in a terrorist operation with the assistance of Western intelligence, including the CIA, Afghanistan intelligence and Pakistani intelligence, and handed over to the criminal Velayat-e Faqih regime," said a statement posted on the site, referring to Iran's Shiite Muslim system of clerical governance.

The statement said Iran was too weak to conduct such an operation, adding, "Very soon, we will produce documents proving American, British and regional intelligence services' cooperation with the Velayat-e Faqih regime."

The statement warned that Rigi had trained hundreds of young people who would continue the struggle against the Islamic Republic "in ways the Iranian government will not be able to imagine."

A British spokesman told Iran's state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) that London welcomes the arrest.