Iran is secretly training Chechen rebels to enable them to carry out more effective attacks against Russian forces.
Teams of Chechen fighters are being trained at the Revolutionary Guards’ Imam Ali training camp, located close to Tajrish Square in Tehran, the Sunday Telegraph cited Western intelligence reports.
In addition to receiving training in the latest terror techniques, the Chechen volunteers undergo ideological and political instruction by hardline Iranian mullahs at Qom.
The paper noted that this information would not “go down well in Moscow, which regards itself as a close ally of the Iranian regime.”
The paper pointed out that Russia had sided with Iran in the diplomatic stand-off over Tehran’s controversial nuclear program. While the British and American governments have accused Iran of having a clandestine nuclear weapons program, the Russians, who are building Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant, back Tehran’s claim that their nuclear intentions are solely peaceful.
A senior intelligence official quoted by the paper said Iran’s hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, could have sanctioned the training of Chechen fighters in Tehran. “Just as they have orchestrated attacks against British troops in Basra to pressure Britain to drop its opposition to Iran’s nuclear program, so they are trying to put pressure on Moscow by backing Chechen fighters,” he said.
