The Persian question in Pakistan
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In the euphemistic parlance of our authorities, when a ‘neighboring country’ is blamed for sponsoring terrorism in Pakistan, the implicit reference is to India or perhaps Afghanistan. Rarely, if ever, are fingers pointed towards Pakistan’s southwestern neighbor, Iran. That is now changing.
On May 12, a planted explosive device detonated in Karachi’s Saddar area, killing one person and wounding several others. The attack was quickly claimed by the Sindhudesh Revolutionary army, a separatist group that has modeled itself after similar Baloch groups such as the Balochistan Liberation Front and the Balochistan Revolutionary army. This group, which was banned in May 2020 along with the Sindhudesh Liberation Army (SLA) and the Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz-Arisar, has been blamed for the target killings of Punjabis and Pashtuns in the Sindh province and also claimed responsibility for the November 2021 murder of PTI leader Rana Sakhawat Rajput in the Kamber-Shadadkot district. In its message, the SRA warned “all settlers to leave Sindh”, in what is a mirror image of the murderous strategy used by the Balochistan Liberation Army in the past.
Following the blast, authorities zeroed in on three SRA militants they said were responsible for the attack and killed two of them in an encounter, including one Allah Dino whom officials claim was an expert bomb-maker and had engineered the device used in the Saddar attack. The counter-terrorism department also claims he was involved in the bombings of train tracks and electricity pylons.
The DIG of the counter-terrorism department said that while they suspect that the training and financing of this terrorist group ultimately come from RAW, their leaders and bases were located in Iran, as is SRA leader Syed Asghar Shah who was allegedly in contact with Allah Dino during this operation.
This naming of Iran as, if not sponsoring then at least hosting, anti-Pakistan terror groups is part of a pattern that dates back at least to April 2019 when 14 people were killed on the Balochistan coastal highway near Ormara in an attack claimed by the Baloch Raaji Aajoi Sangh (BRAS), an umbrella organization comprising three Baloch separatist groups. Following this attack, then foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi openly stated that the training and logistical camps of these organizations were located in Iran.
Qureshi also said that the location of the camps had been identified and strongly called upon Iran to take action. Interestingly, less than a month later Iran also accused Pakistan of ‘inaction’ against Jaish-al-Adl, a militant group that claimed responsibility for killing ten Iranian border guards that very month.
The spate of attacks from groups based in Iran and the arrests of persons linked to Iran are worrying indeed, and the overall strategy of using sectarian militias as a low-cost power projection tool is very much a stated and standard Iranian policy across the Middle-East.
Zarrar Khuhro
Qureshi’s statement was possibly the first time Iran had been directly accused by an official of this rank as previously such calls would be made indirectly, such as in 2006 when it was reported via ‘sources’ that Pakistan had conveyed concerns to Iran about the Indian consulate in Zahedan’s involvement in terror attacks in Pakistan. Even when the full magnitude of the Kulbushan Yadav terror network emerged, Pakistani authorities were careful to not directly indict Iran, which was Yadav’s base of operations for carrying out attacks in Pakistan. Then in January this year, the Baloch Liberation Front militants armed with sophisticated weaponry and equipped with night-vision, crossed the Pak-Iran border and killed 10 Pakistani soldiers at an outpost in Kech. Once again, fingers were pointed at Iran, where the BLF is said to be operating with impunity.
Just three days after the Kech attack, came another revelation: The Federal Investigation Agency uncovered a money-laundering network allegedly involved in transferring a ‘colossal amount’ of funds to Iran with one of the recipients was said to be none other than Abolfazl Bahauddini, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s former representative to Pakistan. How did authorities get on this trail? Investigations began after the arrest and interrogation of two members of the Iran-sponsored Zainabiyoun Brigade in Karachi, both of whom, according to CTD official Omar Shahid Hamid, had received training in Iran and, as per the investigation, were involved in the killings of clerics Yousuf Ludhianvi and Nizammudin Shamzai in Karachi. The Zainabiyoun Brigade is a militia armed and trained by Iran’s revolutionary guards and Quds force and comprised of Pakistanis with a membership estimated to be between 2,000 and 5,000 people. Sometimes working in tandem with the Fatemiyoun brigade (which is comprised of Afghans) this militia has seen deployment in Syria, and perhaps also Iraq, where it has fought alongside the forces of Bashar Al-Assad, often engaging in conflicts with Daesh as well.
With those wars winding down there are fears that this battle-hardened militia may well be redeployed in Pakistan for other purposes. Does that seem alarmist? Perhaps. But the spate of attacks from groups based in Iran and the arrests of persons linked to Iran is worrying indeed, and the overall strategy of using sectarian militias as a low-cost power projection tool is very much a stated and standard Iranian policy across the Middle East.
But here the Iranian regime is playing with fire; it is true that fears of a domestic backlash loom large in the minds of Pakistani policy-makers when they consider the Iranian question. It is also true that Pakistan’s security forces are overstretched and bogged down dealing with the hydra-headed menace of terrorism. But patience has its limits, and it would be best for the region if this nascent proxy war ends before it truly begins.
- Zarrar Khuhro is a Pakistani journalist who has worked extensively in both the print and electronic media industry. He is currently hosting a talk show on Dawn News. Twitter: @ZarrarKhuhro
