Balochis intensify rebellion in Iran

Repoted by Yousuf Baloch


The conflict between Iranian security forces and ethnic Baloch insurgents led bythe Jundullah (Soldiers of God) - an obscure militant group also known as thePeople's Resistance Movement of Iran - that has been raging in Iran'ssoutheastern province of Sistan-Balochistan since 2003 is experiencing anincrease in hostilities.The latest spate of violence was sparked by Iran's refusal to heed Jundullah'sJune 2008 demand that it release Abdulhamid Rigi, the brother of Jundullahfounder and leader Abdulmalak Rigi, along with three other jailed members ofJundullah. Pakistani authorities detained Rigi and his associates in Quetta inneighboringPakistan's Balochistan province for attempting to pass as Pakistani nationals.The men were later transferred into Iranian custody. After the handover,Jundullah ambushed an Iranian police outpost and abducted 16 police officers inSaravan, a town located near the Pakistani border. The OIranian hostages werereportedly then transferred over the Iranian-Pakistan border into PakistaniBalochistan.In another incident, Iranian security officials arrested a prominent Balochcleric in early August 2008, setting off a wave of protests in the province.Iranian authorities then bulldozed the Abu Hanifa mosque and school in Zabol afew weeks later and arrested students and members of the congregation, sparkingfurther outrage among the Baloch. [1]Jundullah later released a video that was aired on al-Arabiya news channelclaiming that they had executed two of the 16 police officers they were holdingand were prepared to kill the rest of the hostages if Iran failed to release 200of its members currently held in Iranian prisons. Jundullah also assassinated anIranian official in Sistan-Balochistan, prompting another crackdown by thesecurity services. While Jundullah is reported to have freed one of the hostagesunder mysterious circumstances sometime in September 2008, a December 5announcement by Iranian authorities claimed that all of the hostages had beenexecuted. The statement also promised "massive retaliation" against Jundullah.Resort to new tacticsTensions in Iranian Balochistan flared again when Jundullah introduced a newtactic in its violent campaign against Tehran by executing a suicide car bombingon December 28, 2008, against the headquarters of Iran's joint police andanti-narcotics unit in Saravan.The attack killed four officers and injured scores more. The bombing was highlyuncharacteristic of Jundullah's previous operations. While suicide car bombingshave been used to great effect by Iraqi insurgents, especially among groupsrepresenting the radical Islamist strain of the Sunni Arab insurgency andincreasingly by militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan, similar attacks areunheard of in Iran.Jundullah's violent track record has generally entailed terrorist attacks andguerilla-style operations against Iranian security forces and other symbols ofthe state across Sistan-Balochistan, as well as abductions and assassinations ofstate officials. The introduction of suicide bombings into the conflict pointsto a new and increasingly violent stage in Jundullah's struggle against Tehran,one that is sure to elicit harsher crackdowns by Iranian security forces andcontribute to wider instability in the region.The identity of the bomber also adds to the significance of Jundullah's attack.By all accounts, the bombing was executed by Abdulghafoor Rigi, the youngerbrother of Jundullah leader Abdulmalak Rigi. According to Baloch activistsources, the attack was intended to serve as an example for others within theBaloch nationalist movement to follow, in Iran and beyond. At the same time, thesame sources also emphasize that suicide bombings are not compatible with Balochvalues, but have become necessary due to the nature of the Baloch struggle andIranian repression. [2]The suicide attack is also being compared to the first and, until recently, onlysuicide bombing by a Baloch militant; in 1974, Abdul Majeed Lango targetedPakistani Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in a suicide bombing in PakistaniBalochistan, but failed to hit his target. [3]While Jundullah's emphasis has been to attack Iranian targets inSistan-Balochistan, the group has threatened to carry out more suicide attacksin other parts of Iran, including in major cities such as Tehran. [4] Despitethis apparent threat, there are no indications that Jundullah has a genuineinterest or ability to expand its violent campaign outside of Sistan-Balochistanin the foreseeable future. Suicide attacks against Iranian targets inSistan-Balochistan, however, especially those targeting Iranian securityservices, may become more common.Roots of the Baloch insurgencyTo understand the roots of the Baloch insurgency, it is important to considerIran's complex ethno-national and sectarian composition. Iran's ethnic Persianand Farsi-speaking population represents only a slight majority of Iran's totalpopulation of approximately 70 million, a population that includes sizeableAzeri, Kurdish, Arab, Turkmen, and Baloch ethnic communities.A large majority of Iranians are Shi'ite Muslims. In contrast, the ethnic Balochminority in Iran numbers between one and four million, nearly all of whom areSunni Muslims. Iranian Balochistan is also one of Iran's poorest and mostunderserved provinces. Tehran has great difficulty administering law and orderin the region, having to rely instead on harsh security crackdowns that alienatethe public. Given its poverty, lawlessness, and porous border with Pakistan,Iranian Balochistan has emerged as a smuggler's paradise, a reputation that hasmade it both a regular target of the Iranian security services and an attractivebase for enterprising criminals.These factors contribute to the belief among many Baloch - and other ethnic andsectarian minorities in Iran - that the highly centralized Shi'ite Muslim andPersian-centric face of the Islamic Republic operates a policy ofstate-sponsored discrimination and cultural subjugation of non-Persian andnon-Shi'ite minorities.Baloch disaffection with the Islamic Republic must also be seen in the contextof the Baloch historical narrative. Iranian Baloch, for instance, identifystrongly with their kin in neighboring Pakistan, which is home to the region'slargest Baloch community, and the Baloch community in Afghanistan. Baloch familyand tribal links also span across the Iranian, Pakistani, and Afghani borders.Iranian Baloch look to their kin in Pakistan, who have been waging a war forself-determination for decades. Baloch nationalists often refer to the landswhere all Baloch reside as "Greater Balochistan", and Iranian Balochistan as"West Balochistan". The Baloch narrative is also shaped by a feeling that thelegacy of colonialism has left the Baloch people divided and without a homeland,much like the predicament facing the Kurds in the Middle East.The Baloch also feel as if they have no allies, as even regional rivals of Iranhave a history of collaborating to curb Baloch nationalist aspirations tofurther their mutual interests. Iran and Pakistan, for instance, have a historyof jointly suppressing Baloch nationalism through harsh measures, as bothcountries perceive Baloch activism as a threat to their territorial integrity.Pakistan's speedy handover of Jundullah members to Iran reflects one aspect ofIranian-Pakistani security cooperation in this area.The politics of energy pipelines also help foster closer cooperation betweenIran and Pakistan in suppressing Baloch nationalism. The greatly covetedIran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline that will carry natural gas from Iran's SouthPars field to Pakistan and India will traverse both Iranian and PakistaniBalochistan on its way to India and possibly even to China down the line.For Iran and other countries with a stake in IPI, the potential for insurgentgroups such as Jundullah to threaten critical energy infrastructure is cause forserious concern. The threat of attacks by Jundullah against regional energyinfrastructure will surely increase if the Baloch feel that they are not reapingany of the benefits of the revenue earned by Tehran from its gas exports via theIPI.Radical Islam and Baloch nationalismGiven the Sunni faith of its members and its violent history, some observerssuggest that the group maintains ties to radical Sunni Islamists. Tehran alsoregularly accuses Jundullah of maintaining ties to Sunni extremists such asal-Qaeda and the Taliban in whatikely amounts to an effort to tarnish Jundullah's image abroad.Iran also happens to accuse Jundullah - among other minority ethno-national andsectarian insurgent groups operating on its territory - of receiving supportfrom US, British, and Saudi intelligence in an effort to destabilize the IslamicRepublic from within by fomenting ethnic and sectarian strife. Jundullahfervently denies any links to radical Sunni Islamists and any suggestion that itoperates at the behest of foreign intelligence services.Despite reports linking Jundullah to radical Sunni Islamists, there is no hardevidence linking Jundullah to radical Sunni extremists such as al-Qaeda or theTaliban. Since its inception, Jundullah has been keen to frame its cause as amission to improve the daily lives of the Baloch in Iran. At the same time,Jundullah has also presented its struggle in sectarian terms, essentially as astruggle between a besieged Sunni minority and an aggressive Shi'ite Islamistorder.While Jundullah's emphasis on sectarian grievances may lend credence to theargument that the group does harbor radical Sunni Islamist leanings akin toal-Qaeda or the Taliban, in reality this approach most likely reflects thegroup's effort to showcase its plight as an ethnic and sectarian minoritycommunity that faces systematic discrimination within Iran.In fact, given that the name Jundullah is imbued with religious overtonestypical of radical Sunni Islamist movements, the group's decision to beginreferring to itself as the People's Resistance Movement of Iran (PRMI) - inaddition to Jundullah - may have represented an attempt to reintroduce itselfinternationally amid growing concerns about the spread of al-Qaeda's brand ofradical Islam.Baloch leader Abdulmalak Rigi has stated that Jundullah and the Iranian Balochare not interested in independence from Iran, but only seek to achieve a betterlife for the Baloch minority, within a state that respects their human rights,culture, and faith. During an October 2008 interview, the Baloch leader alsostated that Jundullah is prepared to lay down its arms and to enter Iranianpolitics: "If we were allowed to practice our rights in full, we are willing todrop weapons and enter political life." [5]Jundullah's stated willingness to enter the political process in Shi'iteIslamist-dominated Iran also suggests that the group's radical activities andviolence are meant to further nationalist objectives as opposed to radicalIslamist objectives.Jundullah's decision to execute a suicide bombing nevertheless raises questionsregarding the potential influence of radical Islamist ideologies on the largerBaloch nationalist movement in Iran, even if only among a fringe minority withinthe larger movement. At the very least, Jundullah's decision to resort tosuicide bombings indicates that tactics used by radical Islamists in Iraq,Afghanistan, and Pakistan are serving as a template for other militant groups toemulate in their own campaigns across the globe.There are also indications that radical Sunni Islamists in Iran and abroad whoare strongly opposed to the Islamic Republic are following events in IranianBalochistan closely, as evidenced by the growing number of extremist websitesand chat room forums appearing in Arabic, Farsi, English and other languagesconcerning the plight of the Baloch and other Sunni minorities in Iran.The radical fringes of Sunni Islam consider Shi'ite Muslims to be heretics andnon-believers. Sunni extremists who subscribe to al-Qaeda's brand of radicalismalso consider Shi'ite Muslims and Iran as secret allies of the United States andpart of a conspiracy to undermine Sunni Islam. Increasing violence andinstability in Iranian Balochistan may eventually attract foreign fighters toIran. Jundullah's threat to expand its violent campaign outside of IranianBalochistan will also highlight the plight of Sunnis in Iran and may thereforeattract radical Sunni Islamists to the Baloch cause.ConclusionWhile concerns regarding the spread of radical Sunni Islamist ideologies withinthe Baloch nationalist movement in Iran will continue to receive attention,there is no conclusive evidence linking Jundullah to al-Qaeda, the Taliban, oraffiliated groups. By all accounts, the trajectory of Jundullah's militancy willcontinue to emphasize the plight of the Baloch as a disaffected minority withinIran.At the same time, the ongoing violence and instability in Iranian Balochistancan potentially draw radical Sunni Islamists to the Baloch cause. There is alsoevidence that radical Sunni Islamists are paying closer attention to events inIran, a trend that is likely to continue due to the widely held belief amongmany Sunni extremists that Iran and Shi'ite Muslims constitute an enemy akin tothe United States.Notes1. For more details regarding these and related incidents in Sistan-Balochistanfrom a radical Sunni Iranian perspective that is staunchly critical of the ShiaIslamic Republic, refer to the official website of the Sons of Sunnah Iran,"Iran's War Against Sunni Muslims," October 20, 2008. The same site carries anextensive list of Sunni Islamist websites opposed to Iran and Shi'ite Muslims.2. Reza Hossein Borr, "The Armed Struggle in the Eastern Parts of Iran Entered aNew Phase When the First Suicide Mission Was Carried Out in a Military Base inSarawan, Baluchistan, on 29 December 08," January 1, 2009.3. See "An Overview of the Baloch Students Organization".4. Reza Hossein Borr, op cit.5. Quoted in Sons of Sunnah Iran, "Iranian Sunni Group Wants to Enter PoliticalLife," October 24, 2008.