Iran-Pakistan Border Incidents Continue
The last time we checked in on the ongoing incidents along the Iran-Pakistan border, fourteen Iranian border guards had been killed on October 25 in an attack and Iran had promptly executed sixteen prisoners the next day in retaliation. A subgroup within Jundallah, Jeish Al-Adl, was credited for the attack, and Iran made veiled accusations about what countries might be backing the group.
A bit later, on November 5, an Iranian legislator (who seems to make mostly hard-liner pronouncements) publicly accused the United States and Pakistan’s ISI of being behind Jeish Al-Adl’s actions:
An Iranian lawmaker says the US and Pakistani intelligence services lead the Pakistan-based Jaish-ul-Adl terrorist group responsible for the recent deadly attack on Iranian border guards.
“The key point in this case is the role that US spy agencies play by means of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in conducting such terrorist attacks. This issue has been confirmed in the meeting between representatives of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and members of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee,” Javad Karimi Qoddousi said on Monday.
He added, “The direct affiliation of these groups to US spy agencies and the ISI’s control over such terrorist outfits have been authenticated.”
The next day, a prosecutor in the border town of Zabol was killed. Jeish Al-Adl quickly claimed responsibility:
The Sunni armed group Jaish-ul Adl has claimed responsibility for the assassination of a public prosecutor in Iran’s southeast, media reports say.
Thursday’s reports came a day after Mousa Nouri – prosecutor of the city of Zabol, which lies near the Afghan border in Sistan-Baluchestan province – was slain in a “terrorist attack,” according to officials.
Jaish-ul Adl, the rebel group formed last year whose name means Army of Justice in Arabic, said in a statement Wednesday night that the killing was carried out in retaliation for a mass hanging last week.
“After the hanging of 16 innocent young Baluchis, the fighters decided to take revenge and kill a judicial official,” read the statement posted on the group’s website, jaishuladl.blogspot.fr.
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Security forces later killed four rebels in a separate clash near Mirjaveh, a town close to the border with Pakistan, officials said last week.
But Iran announced on November 18 that they had captured the prosecutor’s killers. They went to great lengths to point out that the killers were drug smugglers unrelated to Jeish Al-Adl: Read more →