Kurds and Baluchis join riots that kill dozens on Pakistan border, including a Revolutionary Guards commander
Tehran authorities are stepping up their efforts to quell the riots, warning that “riots give terrorists the best chance of wreaking havoc in Iran,” government spokesman Ali Bahadori Jahromi said. After a week marked by suicide rockets and drone strikes on the strongholds of Iranian Kurdish groups in northern Iraq, killing at least 13, violence erupted in Sistan-Baluchistan.
After a Friday of serious mobilizations in this southwestern province of the country, the government reported the deaths of 19 people, including Revolutionary Guards commander Hamid-Reza Hashemi and three other key members of this all-powerful paramilitary group in the Republic of Islamic Action Groups. from Baluch brought the death toll to 58.
Jahroni explained that “some rioters affiliated with terrorist and separatist groups, well known to the security forces, hid among the faithful during Friday’s sermon and attacked security centers at the end of prayer.” The streets of Zahedan, the capital of the province, became a battleground with clashes that have little to do with the images that come in daily from other cities in the country where there is fighting but no armed clashes.
Bordering the border with Pakistan, Sistan-Baluchistan is a predominantly Sunni province in a Shia-ruled country. In this border region, since 2012, the Jaish al-Adl group (Arabic name meaning ‘army of justice’) has been active, a Sunni radical group that has been challenging the authorities of Tehran for seven years with attacks and kidnappings. Jaish al-Adl took over 11 years ago from Jondolá (Army of God) at the head of the Baluchi minority insurgency and carried out his bloodiest action in 2019, killing 40 members of the Revolutionary Guards in a suicide attack on the bus they continued their journey.
The authorities of the Islamic Republic are currently watching with particular concern the instability on its borders, where armed militias from the Kurdish, Baluchi and Arab minorities have threatened the government for decades and are now joining the mobilizations for the death of young woman Mahsa Amini at the hands of the vice squad on September 16.
After two weeks of protests that have spread to the country’s 31 provinces, the silence of the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, is striking. Lacking his words on the situation, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrala, who gave a speech in support of the Islamic Republic, spoke. “The death of an Iranian woman in a situation that is not clear has been used by the West to get involved, but Iran is too strong to be shocked by events like this,” the Lebanese cleric said.
In addition to cracking down on the streets and shutting down the internet to hinder communication and information abroad, the Tehran regime has honored the threat to arrest public figures who have shown support for the mobilizations. Among the figures arrested in recent hours are football players such as Hossein Mahini, a former Persepolis player, singer Shervin Hajipour, author of “For…”, a song that was viewed 34 million times in just 48 hours, the poet Sara Borzuei or the journalist Elaheh Mohammadi, whose crime it was to cover Amini’s funeral in the city of Saqqez, in Kurdistan.
The protests don’t stop, but they lack leadership. Mir Hussein Mousavi, former prime minister and one of the leaders of the so-called ‘green revolution’ of 2009, has broken his silence. Mousavi wrote to the armed forces requesting that they join the nation, not the oppressors, and remind them that it is their duty to “protect the people, not fight them.”
Source: La Verdad
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