mosque in Chabahar Wednesday, killing 39 worshippers and prompting the government to expend far more effort blaming Israel and America for the bombing than the Baluchi rebel band that claimed responsibility.
The government was clearly very embarrassed by the bombing and fearful that the public would blame the regime more for its inability to protect the public than the Jundollah rebel band for the terrorist act itself.
While that may sound strange, it is what motivates the government to take actions that might seem odd in the West.
The bombing Wednesday was the fourth terrorist action by Jundollah since the group’s founder was executed June 20.
On July 13, Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar proclaimed that the execution had forever ended the threat from Jundollah, which was now beheaded and ineffective.
Forty-eight hours later, Jundollah carried out a double suicide bombing at a Zahedan mosque that killed 28. In August, it stopped a bus and kidnapped six people. In September, it kidnapped a man it described as an employee in Iran’s nuclear industry. Then, last week, it executed the suicide bombing in Chabahar, 500 kilometers (300 miles) south of Zahedan, showing its ability to operate far beyond the Zahedan area.
All of Jundollah’s actions have been in or near Sistan va Baluchestan province, where the Baluchi people of Iran are concentrated.
Initially, officials announced that the Chabahar attack was a double suicide bombing, with the bombs exploding at about 10 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. Within hours, however, officials insisted that Jundollah had sent three suicide bombers but that only one bomb had gone off. Officials boasted that they had foiled the others—killing the second bomber and capturing the third as he was trying to re-cross the border back into Pakistan.
It wasn’t known if the first report of a double bombing had been erroneous or if the government feared it would be cursed even more if it admitted a second bombing had been carried out successfully right under its nose and therefore decided to edit the facts.
The government’s propaganda machine went into overdrive, blaming the bombing chiefly on the intelligence services of Israel and the United States and characterizing Jundollah as simply the local agents of those foreign intelligence agencies.
It is essential for the regime to make Jundollah look like it is puppet of the major powers. For, if Jundollah is not, the government then looks weak, inept and incompetent because it is kept on the run by a mere handful of Baluchi clansmen. It is essential to the regime’s self-image that it be seen battling malevolent global forces rather than a pitiful band of local thugs.
However, it appears that many people in Sistan va Baluchestan province don’t believe that global conspiracy theme. After last July’s bombing, all three Majlis deputies from Zahedan—Abbas-Ali Nura, Hossain-Ali Shahriari and Peyman Foruzesh—submitted their resignations, saying they were doing so to protest the government’s inability to accomplish its basic mission of providing security for the public. None of the three said a word about any global conspiracy.
Nura said he was resigning over “the weak management, lack of unity in decision-making, and absence of managerial authority in Sistan va Baluchestan province.” He said those were the main causes of the bombing.
The resignations showed the deputies as standing up for the concerns of their constituents—and the fact that they blamed the government and not distant powers showed where they understood their constituents were putting the blame.
After the latest bombing, the government reported that the families of the victims had written a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon calling on the UN to do its job and pursue the culprits behind the bombing. The UN has no police function, but the publicity given the letter in the local media helped cement the idea that others, not the Iranian government, are responsible for stopping such bombings that are imposed from abroad.
The government then hanged 11 members of the Jundollah band whom it acknowledged had been arrested three years ago. It appeared to be an act of retribution. But it may have also been intended to show the government as strong and powerful, despite the Chabahar bombing that had made it look stumbling and inept.
Government officials lined up at the microphones to level accusations on foreigners. Mostly they blamed the United States and Israel. But Britain, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were also blamed at times. Martians and Venusians were not blamed.
Two days after the bombing, the regime said it had arrested a total of eight suspects in the bombing. They were not named or otherwise described, leading some to suspect this was a hollow announcement made to make it look the authorities were on top of their jobs.
The message at Friday prayers was that the bombers were trying to incite Sunni-Shia frictions. There was a basis for that accusation since Jundollah is a band of Baluchi Sunnis and it most often has been targeting Shia mosques.
Jundollah boasted that it was behind the bloodshed in a posting on its website. That posting included photos of two men wearing suicide bombing vests.
Within hours of the Chabahar bombing, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a strong condemnation of the bombing as a terrorist act and expressed condolences for the families of the victims. Hours later, President Obama issued a similar statement.
Clinton and Obama generally make statements about terrorist actions only when they are very major, like the Mumbai attacks. The statements appeared geared to counter the charges by Iran that the Americans don’t condemn terrorist acts in Iran and that that proves the Americans are behind the attacks.