2024-01-18T16:59:07+00:00
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/ The Balochistan region in southeastern Iran, bordering Pakistan, is witnessing armed clashes erupting at different times between security forces and extremist groups, but they may become a reason for the outbreak of war between the two countries after mutual bombing during the past two days.
The Sistan-Baluchestan Province in southeastern Iran, and the Baluchestan Province in western Pakistan, are among the poorest regions in the two countries. They are two vast regions that constantly struggle with drought, in addition to high unemployment rates.
Balochistan is home to the Baloch group, whose total number is estimated at ten million people, the majority of whom live in Pakistan, including the Sindh province, with several million in Iran and a much smaller minority in Afghanistan.
Iran and Pakistan share a border of about a thousand kilometers, which witnesses many smuggling operations, especially of fuel, due to the porous nature of the border.
Tensions have always escalated on both sides of the border, but they rarely flare up as they do now, as both Iran and Pakistan strike what they call “terrorist” targets within the two regions in question.
Iranian official media reported that nine people were killed in Pakistani air strikes on Thursday, two days after Iran carried out strikes against “terrorist” targets in Pakistan, killing at least two children.
There have been attacks inside Iran in recent months carried out by the extremist Sunni separatist organization “Army of Justice”, which Iran has included on the list of terrorist organizations.
The organization claimed a similar attack last December, which resulted in the killing of 11 Iranian police officers.
The “Army of Justice” was established in the first years of the last decade after the disintegration of a similar organization, “Jundallah,” which for years carried out attacks against Iranian security forces, but it declined since Iran executed the organization’s leader, Abdul Malik Rigi, in 2010 after arresting him.
Official Iranian media reports indicate that Abdolmalek Rigi was arrested in an operation in February 2010 when Iranian fighter jets forced a passenger plane on which he was traveling to Kyrgyzstan to land in Iran. He was executed by hanging in June 2010.
On the other side of the border, Pakistani forces have been fighting for nearly two decades the latest Baloch separatist insurgency, which has killed hundreds in attacks targeting security forces, government employees and non-Baloch civilians.
Baloch separatists and human rights groups say the army’s crackdown on the insurgency has included widespread enforced disappearances and arbitrary killings.
Since 2014, separatists have also targeted projects linked to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a $58 billion project that is part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and large parts of which pass through mineral-rich Balochistan.
However, Baloch separatists are not the only group using the vast Pakistani region as a base.
Western governments have previously accused Pakistan of allowing Taliban leaders to use a safe haven in Balochistan, which was also witnessing the activities of a branch allied with ISIS.
The Iranian province of Sistan and Baluchestan faced a state of instability in 2022 when its residents joined protest movements that broke out across Iran against the backdrop of the death of Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini (22 years old) after she was arrested by the morality police for not adhering to the strict dress code in the Islamic Republic.
The protests, which had a special impact, reflected the prevailing anger in the country, while the security forces suppressed the demonstrations.
On September 30, 2022, more than 80 people were killed, according to Amnesty International, when security forces targeted an action in the main city of Zahedan in Sistan and Baluchestan.
Activists have long complained that the region has been subjected to economic and political discrimination from the Iranian authorities, who executed large numbers of Baloch people, on several charges, most notably drug smuggling.
In a reflection of the poverty that prevails in the region, a large number of Baloch work on fuel trucks. They smuggle fuel across the border into Pakistan, where it can be sold at a higher price.
Iranian security forces have killed dozens of Baloch people in recent years, according to activists.
Amnesty International indicated that 19% of executions in 2021 in Iran were against Baloch individuals.
The Baloch on the Pakistani side complain that they are deprived of their rights, and that revenues generated from natural resources are not adequately spent on local administration and social needs.