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Sistan and Baluchestan insurgency | |||||||
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Part of the Balochistan conflict | |||||||
Map of Iran with Sistan and Baluchestan province highlighted | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Iran |
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Commanders and leaders | |||||||
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Units involved | |||||||
Border Guard Army Revolutionary Guard Ministry of Intelligence | Unknown |
The Sistan and Baluchestan insurgency is an ongoing low-intensity [1] asymmetric conflict [2] in Sistan and Baluchestan Province between Iran and several Baloch Sunni militant organizations [3] designated as terrorist organizations by the Iranian government. [4] It began in 2004 and is part of the wider Balochistan conflict. [5]
Analysts believe that the aim of insurgents may differ from separatism to religious motivations, but they are not entirely clear. The leaders of the groups have maintained different positions: [5] from Baloch nationalism to Salafi jihadism.
Pakistan is Iran's neighbour, sharing the borders of its Balochistan with Sistan and Baluchestan. Pakistan's Balochistan province is also suffering from low-level insurgency waged by terrorist and separatist militants against the government of Pakistan. These Pakistani Baloch terrorist and separatist militant groups are allied with Iranian Baloch groups. Iran and Pakistan historically have a strategic alliance fighting these groups. In February 2014 the two states signed a pact sharing responsibility for combating militants operating across the border. [5] According to a former U.S. intelligence officer, Jundallah leader Abdolmalek Rigi was captured by Pakistani officials and delivered to Iran with U.S. support: "It doesn't matter what they say. They know the truth." [38]
Iran has long accused foreign states supporting insurgency in Sistan and Baluchestan. Several sources such as the ABC News , The New York Times , Daily Telegraph and Seymour Hersh have reported that Jundallah has received support from the United States. [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] Israel, [38] Saudi Arabia, [44] United Kingdom [45] and Sweden [46] are other states allegedly sponsoring the group.
Claims of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) support were debunked by a subsequent investigation showing that the CIA "had barred even the most incidental contact with Jundallah." The rumors originated in an Israeli Mossad "false flag" operation; Mossad agents posing as CIA officers met with and recruited members of Jundullah in cities such as London to carry out attacks against Iran. President George W. Bush "went absolutely ballistic" when he learned of Israel's actions, but the situation was not resolved until President Barack Obama's administration "drastically scaled back joint U.S.-Israel intelligence programs targeting Iran" and ultimately designated Jundallah a terrorist organization in November 2010. [38] Although the CIA cut all ties with Jundallah after the 2007 Zahedan bombings, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and United States Department of Defense continued to gather intelligence on Jundallah through assets cultivated by "FBI counterterrorism task force officer" Thomas McHale; the CIA co-authorized a 2008 trip McHale made to meet his informants in Afghanistan. According to The New York Times : "Current and former officials say the American government never directed or approved any Jundallah operations. And they say there was never a case when the United States was told the timing and target of a terrorist attack yet took no action to prevent it." [43] Mashregh News , which has close ties to the IRGC, has accused Qatar of supporting both Jaish ul-Adl and Harakat Ansar Iran, alongside Saudi Arabia. [47] Harakat Ansar Iran has made an appeal on Saudi Arabian websites for funding. [48]
Ferdowsi University of Mashhad is a public university in Mashhad, the capital city of the Iranian province of Razavi Khorasan. FUM is named after Abul-Qâsem Ferdowsi Tusi, who is considered to be the national epic poet of Greater Iran. Having been established in 1949, FUM is the third-oldest modern university in Iran.
Jundallah, also known as the People's Resistance Movement of Iran (PRMI), was a Sunni Salafi militant organization based in Sistan and Baluchestan, a province in southeast Iran. The group shared its name with another Baloch group active in Pakistani Balochistan as part of the same insurgency, that claims to be fighting for the "equal rights of Sunni Muslims in Iran".
The Insurgency in Balochistan is an insurgency or revolt by Baloch separatist insurgents and various Islamist militant groups against the governments of Pakistan and Iran in the Balochistan region, which covers the Pakistani province of Balochistan, Iranian province of Sistan and Baluchestan, and Balochistan of southern Afghanistan. Rich in natural resources, this is the largest, least populated and least developed province in Pakistan and Iran, and armed groups demand greater control of the province's natural resources and political autonomy. Baloch separatists have attacked civilians from other ethnicities throughout the province. In the 2010s, attacks against the Shia community by sectarian groups—though not always directly related to the political struggle—have risen, contributing to tensions in Balochistan. In Pakistan, the ethnic separatist insurgency is low-scale but ongoing mainly in southern Balochistan, as well as sectarian and religiously motivated militancy concentrated mainly in northern and central Balochistan.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy is the naval warfare service of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps founded in 1985, and one of the two maritime forces of Iran, parallel to the conventional Islamic Republic of Iran Navy. The IRGC has been designated as a terrorist organization by the governments of Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United States. IRGC's Navy has steadily improved its capabilities to support unconventional warfare and defend Iran's offshore facilities, coastlines, and islands in the Persian Gulf.
Khash County is in Sistan and Baluchestan province, Iran. Its capital is the city of Khash.
The 2007 Zahedan bombings occurred from 14–17 February in Zahedan, Sistan-Baluchestan Province, Iran. The first bombing occurred at 6:30 a.m. on February 14 when a car filled with explosives stopped in front of a bus carrying Revolutionary Guards in Ahmadabad district. The car exploded, killing 18 and injuring 31 members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Jundallah claimed responsibility.
Khash is a city in the Central District of Khash County, Sistan and Baluchestan province, Iran, serving as capital of both the county and the district.
The 2009 Zahedan bombing was an explosion on May 28, 2009 that occurred during Maghrib prayers in Zahedan killing 30 people and wounding 60. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. The governor of Sistan and Baluchestan reported that "a group of terrorists were arrested as they were trying to escape from the province".
The 2009 Pishin bombing occurred on October 18, 2009, when a suicide bomber detonated explosives at a meeting in the southeastern Iranian town of Pishin in Sistan and Baluchestan Province. The attack killed at least 43 people including several notable Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders, and injured a further 150.
Jaish ul-Adl, or Jaish al-Adl, is a Sunni Islamic group and Baluchi separatist organization that operates mainly in the Sistan and Baluchestan province in Iran, where there is a substantial Baloch population and a porous border with Pakistan.
Harakat Ansar Iran was a Sunni militant organization active from 2012 to 2013 in the Sistan and Baluchestan insurgency. It is a designated terrorist organization by Iran and Japan. It was one of two militant groups, along with its ally Jaish ul-Adl, which split from Jundallah after the arrest of its leader in 2010.
Ansar Al-Furqan is a Sunni Baloch militant organization active in Sistan and Baluchestan insurgency and a designated terrorist organization by Iran. The group was established in December 2013 by a merger of Harakat al-Ansar and Hizbul-Furqan.
Operation Fath 1, or Operation Wahdat, was a joint Iranian and Iraqi Kurdish special operation conducted by Iran's IRGC special forces and Iraqi Kurdish partisans of Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in 11 and 12 October 1986 in Kirkuk area of northern Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War. The Iranian and Kurdish forces infiltrated into the area and successfully attacked economic and military targets with minimal losses of their own.
On February 13, 2019, a suicide bombing on the Khash–Zahedan road in Sistan and Baluchestan Province of Iran killed at least 27 Revolutionary Guards and wounded another 13. It was one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in Iran in years. The Salafi jihadist militant organization Jaish ul-Adl said it carried out the bombing.
Ali-Akbar Raefipour is an Iranian social media personality. He is the founder and the head of Masaf Institute, a well-known Iranian nationalism movement think tank with a fan base of youth supporters.
Events in the year 2023 in Iran.
Events in the year 2024 in Iran.
On 16 January 2024, Iran carried out a series of missile and drone strikes within Pakistan's Balochistan province, claiming that it had targeted the Iranian Baloch militant group Jaish ul-Adl. The incident occurred one day after Iran carried out a similar series of aerial and drone strikes within Iraq and Syria, claiming that it had targeted the regional headquarters of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad and several strongholds of terrorist groups in response to the Kerman bombings on 3 January, for which the Islamic State took responsibility. The Pakistani government condemned the attack, stating that Iran had killed two children and calling it an "unprovoked violation" of Pakistan's airspace.
On 16 January 2024, Iran conducted a series of missile strikes in Pakistan, asserting that it had targeted militants of the Baloch separatist group Jaish ul-Adl in the Pakistani province of Balochistan. This attack occurred one day after a similar series of Iranian missile strikes in Iraq and Syria, which the Iranian government had stated were in response to the Kerman bombings by the Islamic State on 3 January. Pakistan's government condemned the strikes as an "unprovoked violation" of Pakistani airspace and stated that two children had been killed.
In the southeastern border province of Sistan and Balochistan, an attack on an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) headquarters happened on the night of 4 April 2024. At least 11 Iranian security force members were killed in this attack. The clashes occurred in the towns of Chabahar, Rask and Sarbaz. Jaish ul-Adl, a Sunni armed group, was involved in the attack and lost at least 16 members during the clashes. This incident is one of the deadliest attacks carried out by Jaish ul-Adl. The region has a predominantly Sunni Muslim population and has witnessed frequent clashes between Iranian security forces and militants. The attack took place following an Israeli missile strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria that killed Quds Force Brigadier-General Mohammad Reza Zahedi and his deputy, General Mohammad Hadi Hajriahimi.
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