Iran: Five Kidnapped Security Personnel Freed
The IRGC announced that five of the 14 Iranian guards abducted by the Jaish al-Adl group at a border post in the city of Mirjaveh have been released from captivity
Dr. Shaul Shay
| 25/11/2018
Archive photo: AP
Militants abducted 14 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards near the Pakistan border on October 16, 2018. Two of those abducted are members of the Revolutionary Guard’s intelligence department. The rest include seven members of the Basij force, as well as regular Iranian border guards.
Iran has been in talks with a Pakistani militant group through officials in Islamabad to secure the release of the Iranian soldiers. Gen. Ramezan Sharif of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps said the militants had agreed to release the prisoners and would start with freeing five of them. Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Faisal said on November 15, 2018, that Islamabad has secured the release of five of the Iranian guards.
The Abduction
The abduction took place under the cover of darkness near the Loukdan crossing point between Iran and Pakistan. Loukdan village is located 150 kilometers southeast of Zahedan, capital of Sistan-Baluchistan province.
Sistan-Baluchistan, which is home to many Sunni Baluch and Sistani Persians, is one of the most underdeveloped and poverty-stricken areas in Iran. The minority Sunnis in Iran are highly underprivileged and have been deprived of political and economic opportunities.
Most militant groups in Baluchistan are based on tribal connections. These tribes have a tradition of helping and harboring members of allied tribes and many tribes in Pakistani Baluchistan support their oppressed brothers in Iran. Local tribes control large swaths of the region and neither Iranian nor Pakistani security forces have a permanent presence in the region.
The area, which lies on a major opium trafficking route, has seen occasional clashes between Iranian forces and Baluch separatists, as well as drug traffickers.
The 14 soldiers were “made unconscious” by a “single infiltrator” and then kidnapped and taken to bases inside Pakistan, Iran’s official news agency IRNA reported, citing Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari.
A militant group, Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice in Arabic) has claimed responsibility for the abduction. The group has posted two photos, claiming that those in it are the abducted soldiers. The photos show seven members of the Revolutionary Guards force and five police commandos, all in combat gear, according to IRNA. The photos also show a haul of automatic weapons and sniper rifles, rocket launchers, machine-guns, grenades and ammunition, apparently seized from the Iranian forces.
The spokesman of Jaish al-Adl told Al-Arabiya that the group “may kill some soldiers if they prove their involvement against Baluchistan people.” He said the group considers them as “prisoners of war” and at the same time suggested the group could release them in a prisoner exchange. The group denied it has moved the soldiers into Pakistani territory and says they are at its headquarters on the Iranian side of the rugged Balouchestan Mountains.
The Iranian Response
Iranian Revolutionary Guards Commander, Mohammad Ali Jafari, said what he called “enemies” had tried unsuccessfully in the past to occupy Iranian turrets or border posts. “They were sure that as long as the fighters and defenders are alert, they cannot achieve their goal, so they were able to kidnap these individuals by making them unconscious. This time they were able to carry out their operation by bringing in an infiltrating force,” he stressed, adding that his forces would respond toughly to the abduction of the soldiers.
Following the abduction, Iran’s top military commander Maj. Gen. Mohammad Hossein Bagheri had phoned Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa and requested him to intensify efforts for search and rescue of the kidnapped Iranian border guards.
A delegation led by the Revolutionary Guards’ ground forces commander Mohammad Pakpour visited Pakistan on October 22, 2018, to follow up on efforts to free the Iranians.
Iran’s Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli called for immediate joint operation with Pakistan to secure the release of the Iranian soldiers. In a letter to his Pakistani counterpart, Fazli urged Islamabad to fully honor its obligations under bilateral security agreements which require Pakistan to prevent attacks targeting Iranian border posts from the Pakistani side. Fazli’s letter came after consultations between Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi on the fate of the kidnapped soldiers.
Zarif stressed the need for strengthening security at common borders and urged Islamabad to take immediate and serious action to ensure the safety of the abductees as well as identify and arrest those behind the kidnappings.
The Pakistani Response
Pakistan said it had launched “active” efforts to locate the missing men. Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has blamed the kidnapping on “our common enemies unhappy with the existing close, friendly relations between Pakistan and Iran.”
In a statement, the Embassy of Pakistan to Iran voiced deep regret over the abduction, saying “Pakistan condemns all incidents of terrorism and is committed to cooperation with Iran in retrieving its guards.”
The Jaish al-Adl Group
Jaish al-Adl (known as JA) is a Sunni insurgent group which operates in Iran's southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province and fights Iranian security forces in the region.
The group was founded in April 2012 by Abdul Rahim Mollazehi, a Baluch militant, after the Iranian regime captured and executed Abdul Malek Rigi, former leader of the insurgent Jundullah group that claimed to be fighting for “equal rights of Sunni Muslims in Iran,” in June 2010. JA was first comprised of members of the weakened Jundullah.
JA operates primarily in the Sistan-Baluchistan province, but it also operates from bases in neighboring Baluchistan province in Pakistan where it receives support from local Baluch tribes.
The group describes itself as a "political-military" movement and claims to be fighting to achieve justice for the “oppressed Sunni Baluch” people. JA says it must fight the Shi'ite-dominated regime in Iran because it persecutes the Sunni minority. “Since this regime only uses the language of force and humiliation, we have no other means but to fight back,” JA said in a video statement in late 2012.
JA also said it opposes Iran's military involvement in Syria where Iranian forces and the Lebanese Shi'ite militia Hezbollah are supporting the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria's civil war.
According to a statement on the group's website, JA is “composed of young Iranian Sunnis who have come together to defend the oppressed to the divine command.”
The exact number of JA members is unknown, but according to some reports, it has over 500 members and followers. The number of active fighters is said to be over 100. Some of its fighters are seasonal, including some from Pakistan, who are called upon for occasional operations against Iranian security forces.
Past JA Attacks
Since 2012, JA has claimed responsibility for conducting more than 200 attacks and killing and abducting more than 150 Iranian security forces members. JA's first attack killed at least ten members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Forces (IRGC), days after the group was formed. Iranian authorities have confirmed some of the JA claims.
On March 13, 2018, four “terrorists” were killed after infiltrating Iran and attacking a military checkpoint near the city of Saravan, located about 50 km from the Pakistani border, in the province of Sistan-Balochistan. IRGC troops fought off the attack. Two members of the Basiji paramilitary force were wounded in the fight, during which one of the attackers was killed after detonating an explosive vest.
On April 27, 2017, militants ambushed and killed ten Iranian border guards and took another back to hideouts in the sparsely populated Pakistani province of Baluchistan. The Jaish al-Adl group claimed responsibility for the attack. The incident fueled bilateral tensions and Iranian authorities threatened to conduct cross-border raids to rescue the hostage and punish the assailants if Islamabad failed to do so.
On April 17, 2018, three Iranian security personnel were killed by militants in a cross-border attack on the border with Pakistan. An Iranian police officer was killed in an ambush on a border post in the city of Mirjaveh in Sistan-Baluchistan province, and two soldiers died when their vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device (IED). An IRGC statement, posted on state media, said three people it described as terrorists were killed by Iranian security in a “firm and timely response.”
JA claimed responsibility for attacks that killed eight border guards in April 2015 and 14 in October 2013 near the Pakistani border. In its attacks, JA has taken credit for shooting down a military helicopter and destroying dozens of army vehicles.
Summary
Iran shares more than 900 kilometers of largely porous border with Pakistan. Traditionally deep cultural, economic, and religious bilateral relations have come under pressure in recent years in the wake of an increase in deadly cross-border attacks, particularly in poverty-stricken Iranian Sistan-Baluchistan province, next to the Pakistani border. The southeastern Iranian region of predominantly Sunni Muslims has long been plagued by drug smuggling gangs and separatists.
Jaish al-Adl, or the Army of Justice, has claimed responsibility for the majority of recent attacks on Iranian soil. Tehran has long alleged that anti-Iranian Sunni extremists use hideouts in the Pakistani border province of Baluchistan for plotting terrorism against Iran, a country of mostly Shi'ite Muslims.
Both countries have lately beefed up security on their respective sides. The Pakistani military has recently deployed about 12,000 troops and established new outposts along the border, while the Iranians are building a fence on their side.
[Sources: AP, The New Arab, Arab News, ISNA, Asharq Al Awsat, Dawn, VOA, The Gulf Times]
The IRGC announced that five of the 14 Iranian guards abducted by the Jaish al-Adl group at a border post in the city of Mirjaveh have been released from captivity
Archive photo: AP
Militants abducted 14 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards near the Pakistan border on October 16, 2018. Two of those abducted are members of the Revolutionary Guard’s intelligence department. The rest include seven members of the Basij force, as well as regular Iranian border guards.
Iran has been in talks with a Pakistani militant group through officials in Islamabad to secure the release of the Iranian soldiers. Gen. Ramezan Sharif of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps said the militants had agreed to release the prisoners and would start with freeing five of them. Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Faisal said on November 15, 2018, that Islamabad has secured the release of five of the Iranian guards.
The Abduction
The abduction took place under the cover of darkness near the Loukdan crossing point between Iran and Pakistan. Loukdan village is located 150 kilometers southeast of Zahedan, capital of Sistan-Baluchistan province.
Sistan-Baluchistan, which is home to many Sunni Baluch and Sistani Persians, is one of the most underdeveloped and poverty-stricken areas in Iran. The minority Sunnis in Iran are highly underprivileged and have been deprived of political and economic opportunities.
Most militant groups in Baluchistan are based on tribal connections. These tribes have a tradition of helping and harboring members of allied tribes and many tribes in Pakistani Baluchistan support their oppressed brothers in Iran. Local tribes control large swaths of the region and neither Iranian nor Pakistani security forces have a permanent presence in the region.
The area, which lies on a major opium trafficking route, has seen occasional clashes between Iranian forces and Baluch separatists, as well as drug traffickers.
The 14 soldiers were “made unconscious” by a “single infiltrator” and then kidnapped and taken to bases inside Pakistan, Iran’s official news agency IRNA reported, citing Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari.
A militant group, Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice in Arabic) has claimed responsibility for the abduction. The group has posted two photos, claiming that those in it are the abducted soldiers. The photos show seven members of the Revolutionary Guards force and five police commandos, all in combat gear, according to IRNA. The photos also show a haul of automatic weapons and sniper rifles, rocket launchers, machine-guns, grenades and ammunition, apparently seized from the Iranian forces.
The spokesman of Jaish al-Adl told Al-Arabiya that the group “may kill some soldiers if they prove their involvement against Baluchistan people.” He said the group considers them as “prisoners of war” and at the same time suggested the group could release them in a prisoner exchange. The group denied it has moved the soldiers into Pakistani territory and says they are at its headquarters on the Iranian side of the rugged Balouchestan Mountains.
The Iranian Response
Iranian Revolutionary Guards Commander, Mohammad Ali Jafari, said what he called “enemies” had tried unsuccessfully in the past to occupy Iranian turrets or border posts. “They were sure that as long as the fighters and defenders are alert, they cannot achieve their goal, so they were able to kidnap these individuals by making them unconscious. This time they were able to carry out their operation by bringing in an infiltrating force,” he stressed, adding that his forces would respond toughly to the abduction of the soldiers.
Following the abduction, Iran’s top military commander Maj. Gen. Mohammad Hossein Bagheri had phoned Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa and requested him to intensify efforts for search and rescue of the kidnapped Iranian border guards.
A delegation led by the Revolutionary Guards’ ground forces commander Mohammad Pakpour visited Pakistan on October 22, 2018, to follow up on efforts to free the Iranians.
Iran’s Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli called for immediate joint operation with Pakistan to secure the release of the Iranian soldiers. In a letter to his Pakistani counterpart, Fazli urged Islamabad to fully honor its obligations under bilateral security agreements which require Pakistan to prevent attacks targeting Iranian border posts from the Pakistani side. Fazli’s letter came after consultations between Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi on the fate of the kidnapped soldiers.
Zarif stressed the need for strengthening security at common borders and urged Islamabad to take immediate and serious action to ensure the safety of the abductees as well as identify and arrest those behind the kidnappings.
The Pakistani Response
Pakistan said it had launched “active” efforts to locate the missing men. Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has blamed the kidnapping on “our common enemies unhappy with the existing close, friendly relations between Pakistan and Iran.”
In a statement, the Embassy of Pakistan to Iran voiced deep regret over the abduction, saying “Pakistan condemns all incidents of terrorism and is committed to cooperation with Iran in retrieving its guards.”
The Jaish al-Adl Group
Jaish al-Adl (known as JA) is a Sunni insurgent group which operates in Iran's southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province and fights Iranian security forces in the region.
The group was founded in April 2012 by Abdul Rahim Mollazehi, a Baluch militant, after the Iranian regime captured and executed Abdul Malek Rigi, former leader of the insurgent Jundullah group that claimed to be fighting for “equal rights of Sunni Muslims in Iran,” in June 2010. JA was first comprised of members of the weakened Jundullah.
JA operates primarily in the Sistan-Baluchistan province, but it also operates from bases in neighboring Baluchistan province in Pakistan where it receives support from local Baluch tribes.
The group describes itself as a "political-military" movement and claims to be fighting to achieve justice for the “oppressed Sunni Baluch” people. JA says it must fight the Shi'ite-dominated regime in Iran because it persecutes the Sunni minority. “Since this regime only uses the language of force and humiliation, we have no other means but to fight back,” JA said in a video statement in late 2012.
JA also said it opposes Iran's military involvement in Syria where Iranian forces and the Lebanese Shi'ite militia Hezbollah are supporting the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria's civil war.
According to a statement on the group's website, JA is “composed of young Iranian Sunnis who have come together to defend the oppressed to the divine command.”
The exact number of JA members is unknown, but according to some reports, it has over 500 members and followers. The number of active fighters is said to be over 100. Some of its fighters are seasonal, including some from Pakistan, who are called upon for occasional operations against Iranian security forces.
Past JA Attacks
Since 2012, JA has claimed responsibility for conducting more than 200 attacks and killing and abducting more than 150 Iranian security forces members. JA's first attack killed at least ten members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Forces (IRGC), days after the group was formed. Iranian authorities have confirmed some of the JA claims.
On March 13, 2018, four “terrorists” were killed after infiltrating Iran and attacking a military checkpoint near the city of Saravan, located about 50 km from the Pakistani border, in the province of Sistan-Balochistan. IRGC troops fought off the attack. Two members of the Basiji paramilitary force were wounded in the fight, during which one of the attackers was killed after detonating an explosive vest.
On April 27, 2017, militants ambushed and killed ten Iranian border guards and took another back to hideouts in the sparsely populated Pakistani province of Baluchistan. The Jaish al-Adl group claimed responsibility for the attack. The incident fueled bilateral tensions and Iranian authorities threatened to conduct cross-border raids to rescue the hostage and punish the assailants if Islamabad failed to do so.
On April 17, 2018, three Iranian security personnel were killed by militants in a cross-border attack on the border with Pakistan. An Iranian police officer was killed in an ambush on a border post in the city of Mirjaveh in Sistan-Baluchistan province, and two soldiers died when their vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device (IED). An IRGC statement, posted on state media, said three people it described as terrorists were killed by Iranian security in a “firm and timely response.”
JA claimed responsibility for attacks that killed eight border guards in April 2015 and 14 in October 2013 near the Pakistani border. In its attacks, JA has taken credit for shooting down a military helicopter and destroying dozens of army vehicles.
Summary
Iran shares more than 900 kilometers of largely porous border with Pakistan. Traditionally deep cultural, economic, and religious bilateral relations have come under pressure in recent years in the wake of an increase in deadly cross-border attacks, particularly in poverty-stricken Iranian Sistan-Baluchistan province, next to the Pakistani border. The southeastern Iranian region of predominantly Sunni Muslims has long been plagued by drug smuggling gangs and separatists.
Jaish al-Adl, or the Army of Justice, has claimed responsibility for the majority of recent attacks on Iranian soil. Tehran has long alleged that anti-Iranian Sunni extremists use hideouts in the Pakistani border province of Baluchistan for plotting terrorism against Iran, a country of mostly Shi'ite Muslims.
Both countries have lately beefed up security on their respective sides. The Pakistani military has recently deployed about 12,000 troops and established new outposts along the border, while the Iranians are building a fence on their side.
[Sources: AP, The New Arab, Arab News, ISNA, Asharq Al Awsat, Dawn, VOA, The Gulf Times]
