Iran agents entering US, says Pentagon academic

A US Muslim civil liberties organisation has called on the Pentagon to sack a lecturer at one of their academies who claimed Iranian agents were entering the US and were coordinating operations out of American-based mosques.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has called on the US Department of Defence to drop a lecturer named Reza Kahlili, a former CIA operative in Iran who teaches at the Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy in Maryland.

Reza Kahili, who delivers his lectures by audio only, uses a pseudonym to protect his identity.

Described by The Los Angeles Times newspaper as “one of the most influential and outspoken voices in the US advocating the overthrow of the Iranian government,” Kahili has allegedly claimed Iranian agents had entered the US through the Muslim Students Association, a religious organisation dedicated to establishing and maintaining Islamic societies on college campuses in Canada and the United States.

He further claimed that Iranian agents were "coordinating operations out of [American] mosques and Islamic centers."

"This is yet another unfortunate example of our nation's military and counterterrorism personnel being trained by individuals who weaken America's security by promoting their own religious and political agendas," CAIR national Executive Director Nihad Awad said in a letter sent to US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.

Last month, the US military announced it would stop using a target depicting a Muslim woman wearing a religious head scarf and verses from the Quran at a training facility for Navy SEALs.

CAIR also recently called on the Department of Defence to dismiss an instructor at the Joint Forces Staff College in Virginia, who taught fellow officers that only a "total war" on Islam would protect America. He also allegedly told officers they should use "Hiroshima" tactics, target civilian populations, and abandon the Geneva Conventions. The instructor of that course was later relieved of his teaching duties.