by Karlos Zurutuza
original Spanish article published by gara.net
The author, whose coverage of the Baloch drama was recognized with an award conferred by the Baloch people, finds that the Zahedan attack illustrates that Jundallah has not been defeated and points instead to a growing cohesion with the Baloch occupied by Pakistan.
Last June marked one year since the controversial last Iranian general elections. The Shiite theocracy that rules the country celebrated the anniversary with the execution of Abdul Malik Rigi, the 28-year-old ringleader of Jundallah, the Sunni Baluch insurgent movement in Iran. Tehran flexed muscles by eliminating its "enemy numer one" whilst launching a warning to Sunni Baluchs, Marxist Kurds and "green" protesters, as well as to the rest of the "mohareb" in the country, those the theocratic government labels as "enemies of god".
"Jundallah beheaded", flashed the headlines of the Shiite regime’s press, the only one allowed in the Islamic Republic. Meanwhile, Abdul Rauf Baloch, a Jundallah spokesman, announced the appointment of Zahid Baloch as the new leader of the "soldiers of God" and promised retaliation for the execution of Rigi. "The governor of Zahedan will soon suffer the same fate as our leader" threatened the two Baloch. The waiting began.
The golden minarets of the grand Shiite mosque in Zahedan had already tumbled in May 2009 after a suicide attack by the "soldiers of God." And Jundallah´s most recent intervention occurred last October, yet another bloody suicide operation that killed 42 members of the Persian military machine in Pishin, a town on the border of Pakistan.
So far it’s still unknown whether the dozens of dead and wounded in Thursday's attack were members of the Iranian security forces, as Jundallah claims. Neither do we know if the threatened governor of Zahedan is among them.
Nonetheless, the recent blasts echo in the streets of Tehran as a reminder of a "problem" in the southeast of the Persian empire, that very region whose control Tehran wants to gain through a scheduled and atrocious underdevelopment plan and political repression parallel to that faced by the Kurds under the Persian boot.
In the east
Last Wednesday the BNP´s secretary general, Habib Jalib Baloch, the political coalition led by Akhtar Mengal, was shot dead in Quetta. According to declarations made by Mengal to this paper last autumn, the Baloch leader was convinced that "the joint crackdown by Islamabad and Tehran on the Baloch will lead to greater cohesion among insurgent movements on both sides of the border."
It’s very likely that the BNP leader had not forgotten those days when the Shah gave military equipment (US-made by that time) and military personnel to Pakistan to quell a Baloch insurgency that threatened to spread across the dusty and porous southern border of both countries. In any case, the recent events seem to corroborate Mengal's predictions. After Rigi's execution last June, the BNF declared a three days of mourning and organized several protests against Iran’s decision. It was an unprecedented move since the markedly secular Baloch movement in Pakistan had always clearly distanced themselves from the Wahhabi "soldiers of God" on the other side of the border.
Needless to say, neither Tehran nor Islamabad contemplate a war scenario against a compact and joint Baloch insurgency. Despite Tehran's official version on Rigi's arrest, it was the Pakistani military who captured and handed the Sunni leader over to Iran last February.
"Good" and "bad" Wahhabis?
Iran insists on seeing the hand of both the CIA and the Mossad behind Thursday's attacks, small wonder here. But what is new today is that Pakistan, a former archenemy of the ayatollahs until recent times due to its support for the Taliban, gets excluded from the conspirators' combo. Other than the historical support for Tajiks and Hazaras in Afghanistan, the gossip points at Tehran providing today's logistical support to the Taliban. Were these rumours true, Persian standards would be making a convenient distinction between "good" Wahhabis (the Afghans) and "bad" Wahhabis (the Baloch).
Such manoeuvres look extremely dangerous when handling the Afghan "pressure cooker". The Americans may still lack a clear agenda for the region, but it's still far from clear whether the Persians already have their own. In fact, does anyone have any?
A Pashtun proverb says that Balochistan is the place where God threw the debris after the creation. In 2010, Central Asia is proving the epicentre of a predicted disaster. In its periphery, the Persian empire is now collecting human remains from the rubble.
Karlos Zurutuza is a freelance correspondent and writes in Basque, Spanish and English. His work has been published in several newspapers and magazines.
http://thebaluch.com/071610_KarlosZurutuza |
