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Iran and Pakistan have carried out air attacks on each other’s territories, along their 909 km-long border. Both countries have claimed that the strikes were carried out against “terrorist” groups sheltered in the neighbouring country, and were meant to protect national security.
Here is a brief account of the outfits that were targeted.
The ongoing situation between Iran and Pakistan was triggered late night on Tuesday, when Iranian missiles and drones hit targets in Panjgur in Pakistan’s Balochistan province. Their purported target: two strongholds of the Jaish al-Adl (JAA), one of many Sunni Salafist militant groups fighting for independence in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province.
Literally “the Army of Justice”, JAA emerged in 2012, out of the older Jundallah organisation after its leader Abdolmalek Rigi was captured and executed by Iran, a couple of years earlier.
It has the stated objective of securing recognition of Baluchi cultural, economic, and political rights from the Iranian government. Tehran, however, considers it a terrorist group due to repeated deadly assaults on Iranian outposts and security forces near the border since 2013 — officials, thus call it Jaish al-Zulm or “the Army of Injustice”.
Iran’s Tasnim News Agency reported that in mid-December, JAA had “stormed a police station in Sistan and Baluchestan province’s city of Rask, southeast of Iran, which resulted in the martyrdom of 11 Iranian Police forces”.
The JAA primarily targets Iranian security personnel, but has also attacked Iranian government officials and Shia civilians with ambushes, assassinations, assaults, hit-and-run raids, kidnappings, and suicide bombings.
Abdolrahim Mullahzadeh is reportedly the current leader of JAA, though not much is publicly known about him.
Pakistan responded to Iran’s strike on Thursday morning, targeting Iran-based hideouts of two Baloch militant groups — the Baloch Liberation Front (BLF) and the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) — both deemed as “terrorist organisations” by Pakistan.
The BLF was founded by Jumma Khan Marri in Damascus, Syria in 1964. It was at the forefront of the Baloch insurgency in Iran in 1968-73 then in Pakistan in 1973-78. However, after being decimated in both the countries, it fell off the map by 1980, with its founder moving to Afghanistan.
BLF re-emerged in 2004 under the leadership of Allah Nazar Baloch. Since then it has claimed responsibility for attacks on civilians, journalists, government officials and military personnel in Pakistan, within Balochistan and beyond.
BLF is known to work closely with the BLA, which was founded around 2000,and began a violent struggle for Baloch self-determination in Pakistan in 2004. It is currently led by Basheer Zeb, and like BLF, has carried out various attacks over the years.
Notably, both these Baloch militant groups are known to target Chinese gas and infrastructure projects in Pakistan, and occasionally kill Chinese workers. For instance, in 2022, Shari Baloch, a 30-year old science teacher, detonated explosives in the University of Karachi, killing three Chinese teachers. BLA claimed responsibility for the incident.
Pakistan has previously alleged that both BLF and BLA share close ties with India, which provides arms, training, and financial aid. Both India and the militant organisations have rejected this claim.
