nuclear staffer and will spill all his secrets if Iran does not quickly free all the Jundollah members Iran has jailed.
The Islamic Republic acknowledges that Jundollah has kidnapped a man, but says he was a welder at a nuclear site, not a nuclear scientist, and has no secrets to spill.
The kidnapping is the third action against Iran conducted since the Islamic Republic executed Jundollah leader Abdolmalek Rigi in June and proclaimed that Jundollah had ceased to exist.
Jundollah (Soldiers of God) said on its website, junbish.blogspot.com, late Saturday that it was holding hostage Amir-Hossain Shirani, an “employee at a nuclear plant” in Iran’s central province of Esfahan.
“Shirani has important information, especially about senior Iranian nuclear experts,… and release of his confessions will cost the Iranian regime dearly,” Jundollah said. It did not say when Shirani was abducted.
Jundollah demanded that Tehran free what it said was more than 200 Sunni and Baluchi political prisoners and members of the group held in Iranian jails, the statement added.
It warned that failure to do so “within a week” (by October 16) would lead to “releasing to the public the information gathered from Amir-Hossain Shirani, so the world finds out more about the Iranian regime’s secret nuclear activities.”
Iranian officials confirmed the kidnapping but downplayed it. “Amir-Hossain Shirani worked as a welder for a short period and then as a driver for one of the contractors” working for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said Hamid-Khadem Qaemi, a spokesman for the nuclear body.
Qaemi told the daily Farhang-e Ashti Sunday that Shirani no longer worked at any nuclear site. He also said the abduction was a “personal matter and not linked to the nuclear issue.” He did not explain what he meant by that. But Gholam-Reza Ansari, the judiciary chief in Esfahan, said the “abduction was related to a financial dispute with a drug cartel in Sistan va Baluchestan province.”
Jundollah founder and leader Abdolmalek Rigi was captured February 23 and executed June 20. In the four months between his capture and hanging, Jundollah carried out no actions.
On July 13, Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar proclaimed that Jundollah had been wiped out and no longer posed any threat to Iran. Two days later, two suicide bombers dispatched by Jundollah walked up to a mosque in Zahedan and detonated their vests, killing 28 people.
Then on September 16, Jundollah stopped a bus and kidnapped six passengers. The government said it mounted a rescue mission that freed five of the hostages but resulted in the death of one.
In the third Jundollah action since Rigi’s death, the group announced the kidnapping of Shirani October 9.