Posted on 02/25/2007 7:54:43 AM PST by Valin
Unlike Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan, which has been receiving extensive media coverage as a result of its uprising against the central government in recent years, Iran’s vast but sparsely populated southeastern province of Sistan-Balochistan has long been out of media glare. This, however, seems to be changing now with an escalating insurgency led by an obscure Baloch militant organization called Jundollah (Soldiers of God).
Given the absence of accurate demographic data on Iran’s ethnic and religious minorities, it is hard to know the precise number of Iranian Balochis. According to an estimate, there are some 10-15 million Balochis residing in Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan with tribal and family lines traversing all three countries. Iran’s Baloch population may at best be estimated at 4 million. Both Iran and Pakistan have always viewed Baloch national aspirations as a threat to the stability and territorial integrity of their countries. Thus, their successive regimes have not only collaborated in suppressing Baloch nationalism and culture but also neglected their Balochistan provinces in terms of economic development, education, and public services.
Little is known about Jundollah, which is believed to have first emerged on the scene in 2002 and is known for bloody attacks against high-profile Iranian targets including government and security officials. Similarly, available information on its top leader, Abdulmalek Rigi, does not go beyond that he is a 24-year-old bearded Iranian Balochi. Contrary to Tehran’s announcement in 2006 that its troops had killed Rigi in an anti-terrorist operation, the man appeared several days later in a video shown by the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya TV station to deny his death.
What is confirmed, however, is that Iran’s theological Shiite regime is facing a growing challenge in this isolated, backward province where the great majority of the population is Sunni. The February 14 attack on a military bus, in which at least 11 members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were killed and some 30 others were injured, was only the latest in a series of such attacks carried out by Jundollah in the last two years.
In March 2006, the group held up a convoy on the road between Zabol and Zahedan and slaughtered 22 people, including officials in the provincial administration of Sistan-Balochistan. In April, it killed two army officers and injured a Shiite cleric in the province. And one month later, it shot dead 12 Iranians on the Kerman to Bam highway.
Earlier in 2005, Jundollah had claimed the responsibility of the abduction of 9 Iranian security and intelligence officers along the Pakistani border, one of whom was executed by the group in early 2006.
The group justifies its attacks as revenge against Iranian security forces for committing alleged genocide and atrocities towards Sunni Baloch civilians. But the hidden goal is probably to make Balochis’ grievances and national aspirations known to the world, especially at this time when Tehran is pressurized by the West and Sunni-Shiite tensions increasingly overshadow the region as a result of developments in Iraq.
This is despite Rigi’s denial that his organization harbours separatist aspirations. In a rare telephone interview last year with Rooz, an Iranian online newspaper, he declared himself an Iranian and Iran as his home, stressed that his move was only aimed at improving the life of Iranian Balochis and protecting their fundamental rights, and advocated the federation of Iran and sovereign Baluchistan within a democratic state.
Tehran, which does not admit its institutionalized distrust of minorities, including the Baloch, and often denies ethnic and sectarian tensions in the country, has met the emerging uprising in Balochistan with force. It has first blamed the recent unrest on bandits smuggling drugs from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Now it accuses Jundollah of being associated with Al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban and cooperating with the Americans to destabilize Iran, but without presenting any credible evidence apart from the adherence of Baloch people to conservative Sunni Islam. Moreover, how can one believe that the Americans are supporting and assisting a group that is allegedly affiliated with their enemies at the time when Tehran itself uses the same concept to deny Washington’s accusation of Iran of sheltering senior members of Al-Qaeda, including Osama Bin Laden’s son Saad?
Observers, like independent analyst and consultant Chris Zambelis, argue that Iran’s emphasis on the alleged role of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in the Baloch uprising is only aimed at showing itself as one of terrorism’s victims. And by brutally striking against Jundollah and its followers, it may be wishing to curry favour with the United States amidst pressure to concede on its nuclear ambitions and meddling in Iraq and Lebanon.
"Baloch militant organization called Jundollah (Soldiers of God)."
ALL these muslims seem to be soldiers of God, so why is it constantly denied there is a religious war raging?
We should arm these people to keep the Iraninans tied up so they can't keep funneling materials to the Iraqi terrorists.
Jundallah has changed its name to - "The Iranian People Resistance Movement"
Here is a recent statement from them .......
"regarding the February 14th 2007 successful operation against the Islamic Regime Revolutionary Guards in the city of Zahedan:"
"The Resistance declares that the successful Egthedar-2 operations will be followed by Eghtedar-3 in a wider theater of operations and will target other centers of oppression all across Iran.
The Resistance condemns torture, murder and execution of its members by the Islamic Republic regime. Many have been imprisoned and executed without trial.
The Resistance leader, Mr. Abdolmalek Baluch stressed that while Iranian People Resistance Movement believes in peaceful resistance, its demands for equal rights for all Iranian natives and religious minorities have gone unanswered and the regime has resorted to the most barbaric forms of torture and executions. The Resistance, therefore, has no other recourse than to counter the regime militarily.
The world should know that the terrorist Islamic Republic regime has treated the natives of Baluchistan with utmost cruelty and has denied their basic rights. Tribal people are imprisoned and tortured for no reason, other than to terrorize and oppress.
The Iranian People Resistance Movement has no relationships with smugglers, Taliban or Al-Qaida and is a member of the joint tribal resistance, also consisting of Lor, Bakhtiari and Qashqai tribes.
Our demands are rational and legal. Our basic demands are regime observation and respect for our rights and religious freedoms as declared by the UN Human Rights Charter."
http://iransara.info/
Thanks for the update.
We should definitely arm them (if we are not arming them already) but with the knowledge that we will probably be fighting them at some time in the future if we do not lay waste the enemy, ours and theirs, now.
.... a Pakistani province that borders both Afghanistan and Iran. It is a hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism and the purported hiding place of Osama bin Laden. Not only is Yousef from Baluchistan, but so is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was involved with Yousef in the Philippine bombing plot, along with a third Baluchi Pakistani, Abdul Hakam Murad...
http://www.antimedia.us/posts/1123991004.shtml
YUP!
Thanks
To bad we can't get the Sunni terrorists in Iraq to come to the aid of their Iranian brethren. It'd be like killing two birds with one stone.
You are nuts. It is long since past the time that we stopped letting our enemies' enemies wag our political dog.
"I'm just a Balochi from Balochistan..."
If I was thinking conspiracies, I'd be thinking the Iranian secretive special forces are working with the "party of God" people, to create incidents designed to draw Iran's formal military outfits into the region. They will "subdue" the "separatists" there while their military apparatus grows there and makes intelligence, and terrorist alliances with Taliban-style groups in the Baluchistan region of Afghanistan across the border. The Taliban-style groups will be happy to have Iranian help opening a second avenue of terrorist incursions into Afghanistan. The Sunni-Shia fundamentalist divide - in terms of its practical meaning to the west - is no wider than the distance between how much they both hate the west. That distance is zero, and thus they are not divided in their goals against the west - at all.
They a soldiers of Allah, not God.
It's Western Idiotmedia that keeps mistaking "Allah" to mean god. It does not. If they were "Soldiers of god" They would be "jundo'ilah", as ilah is the arbic for 'god'
No we shouldn't. That just makes more islamic nutcases to kill later. They kill and are killed, do what muslims always do, kill. They take each other out fine on their own. They get their weapons from the Iranian Shiite regime they kill, so you see, it's dog eat dog. Best left that way.
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