Yves here. Although the Iran-Pakinstan dustup last week got a fair bit of press attention laste week, it seems the underlying forces are being overlooked. Larry Johnson, in a recent post, provided additional backstory on the Baluchistan forces that Iran and Pakistan hit….in each other’s country. A key section from his detailed piece:
Iran’s attack on the Baluchi site in Pakistan was a message to the CIA. U.S. intelligence has had relations with Baluchis that date back to at least 1979. Baluchi operatives in the United States and in Pakistan played a key role in the planning and preparation for Operation Eagle Claw, the ill-fated attempt in 1980 to rescue the American hostages in Iran.
Below is a broader look at dynamics in the region, emphasizing how Iran has been consolidating power and its role in fighting terrorist groups (in particular ones the US backs like ISIS).
By Uriel Araujo, a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts. Originally published at InfoBRICS
Iran and Pakistan have struck each other’s territory while targeting a terrorist group that operates on their shared border, thus confusing observers and analysts alike. Are both countries at an undeclared war? What do these developments have to do, if anything, with the overall escalation of violence in the Middle East that has been going on since Hamas operation on October 7 and Israel’s campaign in Gaza? Here is a summarized chronology of the latest events in Southwest Asia and some context.
The Iranian-Pakistani border region known as Balochistan is home to a Baluchi Islamic-nationalist insurgency against both Iran and Pakistan. The Baluch Sunni movement Jaish ul-Adl is known to cooperate with Kurdish separatist groups in Iran; it also denounces the Iranian presence in the Syrian conflict. Iranian authorities in Tehran accuse (Sunni) Saudi Arabia and the US of being the main funders of Jaish ul-Adl. For years, Sunni extremist groups of a Wahabi Salafist persuasion have launched attacks against civilians in both Iran (a Shia Islamic nation) and Pakistan. The latter is a predominantly Sunni country and an Islamic Republic that has been troubled by ethnic and religious divisions and has been the target of jihadist militant groups – including ethnic Baluch separatists.
In December 2023, the Baluchi group Jaish al-Adl group bombed a police station in Rask (Iran), a town close to the border with Pakistan. On January 4, a crowd gathered in the Iranian city of Kerman to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the murder (by a US drone strike) of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard head general Qassem Soleimani. Two bombs exploded near the general’s burial site, taking the life of 84 people and injuring at least 284. It was the deadliest terrorist attack against Iranians since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, The attack was claimed by the so-called “Islamic State” (Daesh) terrorist group, also known as ISIS.
In retaliation, on January 15, Tehran fired ballistic missiles at what it claimed to be Islamic State terrorist targets in Syria and in (Kurdish-controlled) northern Iraq. The next day, on January 16, Iran launched attacks against alleged militant group Jaish al-Adl’s bases in neighboring Pakistan (a nuclear state), thereby triggering heated protests from the Pakistani authorities in Islamabad. India, Pakistan’s main rival, defended the Iranian measure in a statement, describing it as an act of “self-defense”
Two days later, on January 18, Pakistan’s airstrikes in Iran’s Baluchistan province (also targeting alleged Baluchi combatants) killed several people, according to Tehran.
Let us now move from Baluchistan to the Levant. Tehran for years now has been describing the Daesh terrorist group either as a “creation” of the US-led West or as an American proxy group. It is widely known today the US and its allies have armed and funded Syrian rebels in their efforts to overthrow the Syrian government and empowered ISIS terrorism. The same formula applies to Libya, by the way.
Since 2011, amid a civil war, Syria has counted on military aid from its allies Iran and Russia. The hard truth is that, on the ground, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, together with the (Tehran-backed) Lebanese Hezbollah have been the main anti-terrorist actors in the Levant. These forces are largely responsible for wiping out ISIS terrorists and thus guaranteeing the safety of Christians and other minorities in a region where Wahabi extremists were beheading them, kidnapping them (even “an entire convent of Syrian Orthodox nuns”), and selling and abusing women as sexual slaves, as reported Nina Shea, a senior fellow and director of the Center for Religious Freedom at Hudson Institute. Already in 2012, journalist Ariel Zirulnick, writing for the Christian Science Monitor, reported that Christians found safe haven in a Hezbollah’s stronghold, where “images of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah share mantel and wall space with the Virgin Mary.”
There is therefore nothing new about Iran’s recent retaliatory strikes against ISIS/Daesh terrorist bases in the Levant. It has been fighting terrorism in the region for over a decade. Likewise, there is nothing new about Tehran fighting ethnic and religious extremist separatism in its Pakistani border. The Persian and the Pakistani nation did not merely “struck each other” – it would be more accurate to say that both targeted their common enemy across their shared border. What is new in this situation is the Iranian role.
A lot of things have changed in the Middle East and a lot of them made Tehran stronger: a Saudi-Iranian rapprochement has been under discussion (and has now been made much easier by Israel’s widely condemned military campaign in Gaza). Moreover, the failed US neocolonial policies in Iraq have only increased Iran’s importance in the Levant. However, as we can see, Iranian soft and hard power in West Asia today goes way beyond its “oil diplomacy” in the Levant, extending extra-continentally as far as Venezuela – while American naval hegemony declines. In fact, Simon Tisdall, a Guardian US editor, goes as far as to (convincingly) argue that the “biggest power” in the Middle East is no longer Washington, but actually Tehran.
The latest turmoil involving Tehran, Islamabad and their shared separatist enemies does not, therefore, have much directly to do with the long-going formerly “secret” (now escalating) Iranian-Israeli war; it has much more to do with Tehran’s national and border security being threatened by insurgent groups, who are also funded by Western powers, and with Iran reaffirming itself as a rising regional power – one willing to be more proactive in pursuing targets.
However, the rising Pakistani-Iranian tension does have the potential to limit Eurasian integration and further divide the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) – of which both countries and India are members, with India trying to play a “balancing role” as it is also a member of the US-backed Quad. However, no player has an interest in escalating tensions and there is just so much at stake in terms of Eurasian cooperation: for one thing, the Ashgabat agreement between Iran, India, and Pakistan aims to create a transnational transit and transport corridor in order to facilitate the transportation of goods between the Persian Gulf and Central Asia.
One of its goals is enhancing Eurasian connectivity by “synchronizing” it with other transport corridors, such as the North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC), which, by the way, could become a future alternative to the Suez Canal. Both Iran and Pakistan (and also even India) therefore have common interests in Eurasian stability across Central Asia. This is shown by India’s new willingness to diplomatically engage with the Taliban in Afghanistan, for instance. These Eurasian nations will gain from coordinating security actions while maintaining good neighborly relations.
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Is it a coincidence that neither country’s radar or air defense systems were operational during the two attacks, and that the only casualties were the separatists in Balochistan?
From unreliable sources (Twitter): Pakistan suspended diplomatic relations with Iran, but subsequently RESTORED, rather quickly if true. Seems that “escalation of tensions” in this case will not happen.
There are several reasons not to expect the “escalation”, however wished in the West. One is the peculiar status of Baluchistan. While famous for the fossils of the largest terrestrial mammal in geological history, it is marginal for all three countries to which it belongs. I recall a Pakistani adage: “A crisis may be triggered by 5 deaths in Punjab, 50 in Sind and 500 in Baluchistan.” Killing each others Baluchis is less of a crisis trigger than killing Americans that USG does not care about (a well documented non-trigger).
Tariq Ali has a Sidecar piece that goes into the background, drawing on his involvement in late-70s discussions between leftist Baluch organizations. Worth quoting, since one of the most important hidden histories of the region is how secular leftist tendencies were quashed.
You’re right about how secular leftist tendencies were quashed, not just in Baluchistan, but in that other somewhat similar orphan child and simmering hotspot from the Cold War, Kurdistan. While the former is spread out over three countries, including Afghanistan, the latter does one better with a settled population traditionally spread over four nation states. The left elements in the struggle of these people in both cases drew a fine distinction (as your quote above reflects) between a genuine struggle for national self determination and a pure ethnic fight for secession. The former was a “revolutionary right”, the latter was not. And it always depended on the larger geopolitical context.
Some of the Baloch tribal leaders – Bugtis, Marris, Mengals, and others, many of whom were fiercely independent, played footsie with the Soviet Union, as did some of the Barzanis and Talabanis in Kurdistan. Many had genuine left credentials those days. The Soviet collapse greatly reduced their room for maneuver, and usual opportunistic politics took over.
When I heard about the Pakistan counter-attacks and learned that they too were separatists in Balochistan, a vision came into my head. Both countries are very sophisticated and have been neighbours going back to the year dot. So I would imagine that after the Iranians launched their attacks into Pakistan, that you had a major Iranian spook go to visit one of the major Pakistani spooks. The Iranian spook would have given the Pakistani spook a piece of paper with a list of places and their exact latitude and longitude coordinates and demanding that they be not touched at all (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). The Pakistani spook would have then passed that list immediately to the Pakistan Armed Forces via courier and invited that Iranian spook for a pot of tea and some casual shop talk. Turns out that the separatists in Balochistan attacking the Iranians and Pakistanis suddenly does not work when both sides decide to cooperate.
My supposition is that, a few months ago, at some ‘low level’ meeting of the SCO, a Chinese spook introduced an Iranian spook to a Pakistani spook. It was those damned Chinese, meddling in America’s business.
…all in anticipation of escalation by Israel and i’s proxy, the US?
Clear the playing field of all the tossed beer cans: now let’s us all resume the game with renewed vigor!
Likely the other way round. Pakistan military already on egg shells over Kahn and likely trying to distance themselves (at least domestically) from US over Palestine to keep population onside. Pakistanis may have seen the Baluchi group as a way for the US to leverage pressure on the Pakistani leadership to side with Israel. Given there may have been US assets at the site, makes more sense to get Iran to clean up the rats nest for you.
Some more points on the issue:
https://www.indianpunchline.com/regional-opinion-urges-iran-pakistan-amity/