Tehran accuses US, British and Pakistani intelligence services of fomenting trouble
In one of the worst ever terror attacks to have taken
place in Iran in the past two decades, suicide bombers targeted a delegation of Revolutionary Guard leaders. At the time of the attack the Guards were on a tour of Pishin district — bordering Pakistan — to facilitate a meeting with tribal leaders in the region.
The state-run media reported that a Sunni terrorist outfit Jundallah had claimed responsibility. The deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ ground force, General Noor Ali Shooshtari, and its chief provincial commander, Rajab Ali Mohammadzadeh, were among six officials killed.
Jundallah (the Army of God) has been involved in a long-drawn uprising in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan region. Many Iran watchers maintain that the group may have close ties with either the Taliban or al-Qaeda or both. But western analysts disagree, and say that the group has informal ties with ethnic Balochs in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with whom they have close kinship ties.
Besides, the insurgents have also links with drug peddlers and bootleggers in Kabul, who regularly smuggle drugs from Afghanistan to Western Europe and then further across the Atlantic. The group provides protection to these smugglers, charging lucrative cuts from their illegal earnings.
Such is the fear of Jundallah that foreign diplomats who visit these areas to witness the progress in Iran’s war on drugs are always taken through unidentified routes, and that too in heavily fortified vehicles. In May this year, Iran hanged a few recruits of this separatist group, blamed for a major attack on a Shia mosque in Zahedan. The sibling of the group’s leader, Abdolmalek Rigi, was due to be hanged, but was kept behind bars for further interrogation. Reacting to the grisly attack, Aboumohammad Asgar Khani, an expert at Tehran University told TSI: “The attack was an attempt to show that even Revolutionary Guards are vulnerable. Clearly there has been a lapse in the security arrangements.”
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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009
In one of the worst ever terror attacks to have taken
place in Iran in the past two decades, suicide bombers targeted a delegation of Revolutionary Guard leaders. At the time of the attack the Guards were on a tour of Pishin district — bordering Pakistan — to facilitate a meeting with tribal leaders in the region.The state-run media reported that a Sunni terrorist outfit Jundallah had claimed responsibility. The deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ ground force, General Noor Ali Shooshtari, and its chief provincial commander, Rajab Ali Mohammadzadeh, were among six officials killed.
Jundallah (the Army of God) has been involved in a long-drawn uprising in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan region. Many Iran watchers maintain that the group may have close ties with either the Taliban or al-Qaeda or both. But western analysts disagree, and say that the group has informal ties with ethnic Balochs in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with whom they have close kinship ties.
Besides, the insurgents have also links with drug peddlers and bootleggers in Kabul, who regularly smuggle drugs from Afghanistan to Western Europe and then further across the Atlantic. The group provides protection to these smugglers, charging lucrative cuts from their illegal earnings.
Such is the fear of Jundallah that foreign diplomats who visit these areas to witness the progress in Iran’s war on drugs are always taken through unidentified routes, and that too in heavily fortified vehicles. In May this year, Iran hanged a few recruits of this separatist group, blamed for a major attack on a Shia mosque in Zahedan. The sibling of the group’s leader, Abdolmalek Rigi, was due to be hanged, but was kept behind bars for further interrogation. Reacting to the grisly attack, Aboumohammad Asgar Khani, an expert at Tehran University told TSI: “The attack was an attempt to show that even Revolutionary Guards are vulnerable. Clearly there has been a lapse in the security arrangements.”
For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009
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