February 14-2014
The Baluchi rebel band Jaish ul-Adl has succeeded in kidnaping five Iranian border guards and apparently whisked them off to captivity somewhere in Pakistan.
The Foreign Ministry called in the Pakistani ambassador to complain about the incident, in an effort to try to blame Pakistan in the eyes of the Iranian public rather than admit that it is the responsibility of the Iranian Border Guard force to protects its own guards.
News reports in Iran said there did not appear to be any exchange of fire between the border guards and their captors before the border guards were captured, indicating the border guards lacked a perimeter defense to detect their assailants before they got close.
Last October 25, Jaish ul-Adl (Army of Justice) overran a border guard post near Saravan in Sistan va Baluchestan province, killing 14 and wounding another three. That should have served as a warning to all border guard units of the new danger.
Jaish ul-Adl seems to have replaced Jundollah (Soldiers of God) as the main Baluchi rebel group threatening Iranian authority in Baluchi areas. Jundollah has been quiet since December 2010.
Jaish ul-Adl has posted photos of the five abducted guards, proving it is holding them. But it has not yet announced what it expects in ransom from Iran for their release. Usually rebel groups demand the release of group members held by Iran. The Islamic Republic is not known to have ever agreed to such exchanges.
The Jaish ul-Adl website also claimed responsibility for the border guard deaths last October. That announcement said the guards were killed in retaliation for an Iranian “massacre” of Sunnis in Syria and for the “cruel treatment” meted out to Sunnis in Iran.
Brigadier General Hossain Zolfaqari, the chief of the border guard force, said last fall that Jaish ul-Adl was several years old. But actually it appears to have been formed only in 2012. The capture of the guards last week is its fifth claimed action since December 2012.
In that first attack, the group said it ambushed a car near Saravan and killed an “unknown number” of Pasdaran in it. It then ordered the Pasdaran to leave the province of Sistan va Baluchestan.
In February of last year, it claimed it planted a roadside bomb near Saravan that killed “several” Pasdar officers in a car that hit the bomb.
The government did not admit to either of those alleged incidents.
After the October mass killing, the government could no longer ignore the group. But the bulk of the state rhetoric then as now was aimed at Pakistan, with officials lining up at the microphones to demand that Pakistan do a better job of guarding its border and stopping the rebels. This is standard rhetoric. Pakistan has also complained about lax Iranian border control when Pakistani guards have been fired on by rebels using Iran as a sanctuary.
Baluchestan sprawls on both sides of the border and both countries have frequent problems with Baluchi rebels who seek independence and bear little but hatred for both Iran and Pakistan.
Last February, the two countries signed the latest in a series of agreements pledging increased cooperation to stop cross border actions by rebels and smugglers who flourish in the boarder zone.
Baluchis make up about 2 percent of Iran’s population of 75 million.