FFI-rapport 2009/01265

Islamist opposition in the Islamic Republic

Jundullah and the spread of extremist Deobandism in Iran

Audun Kolstad Wiig

Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI)

2 July 2009
FFI-rapport 2009/01265

1067

P: ISBN 978-82-464-1644-1
E: ISBN 978-82-464-1645-8

Emneord

Terrorisme

Islamisme

Iran

Sikkerhetspolitikk

Midtøsten

Approved by

Brynjar Lia Research Manager

Tore Nyhamar Project Manager

Espen Skjelland Director

2 FFI-rapport 2009/01265
English summary
This report examines the Iranian Jundullah movement, a Sunni Muslim terrorist group waging a
small-scale war against the Iranian government and operating in the Sistan va Baluchestan region
of south-eastern Iran. Created in 2004-5, the group has, during the recent years, intensified its
violent campaign against the Iranian authorities, a recent phenomenon being suicide bombings.

The great paradox is that Iran, who has been active in support of different Islamist movements
outside her own territory after the revolution, is now faced with serious armed opposition within
her own borders. Tehran claims Jundullah enjoys an intimate relationship with the Pakistani
Taliban. Although plausible regarding the shift in tactics to suicide operations, the group
vehemently denies any connection with regional terrorist networks.

Jundullah is surrounded by secrecy and very little written literature exists about the group.
Moreover, Sistan va Baluchestan is virtually closed to foreigners. This report is mostly based on
the myriad of internet blogs connected to the group and media reports. While it is not – and it
probably never will be – possible to verify most of the information about Jundullah, the
phenomenon is interesting as it highlights violent religious tensions inside the Islamic Republic.
The group is waging an armed jihad against an Islamic government.

Tehran is anxious to quell information about the group’s activities. Not only does the existence of
the group highlight the precarious state of security in the region with feeble governmental control
over the “wild” south-east of Iran, but it also shows the limits to Islamic unity within the Islamic
Republic itself. This deals a blow to the credentials of the revolution and the international
revolutionary aspects of the Khomeinist doctrine.

Interestingly, Jundullah challenges the government on two levels. It is a Deobandi movement

following Hanifa jurisprudence, opposing the Shi’a Ja’fari School of law. It therefore questions
the very pillar of the Iranian government and undermines the principle of Islamic unity, and its
central importance in the Iranian state since the Revolution. Secondly, Jundullah is an expression
of Baluchi nationalism, thus questioning the territorial integrity of the Islamic Republic. The
group operates under two names, namely Jundullah (Soldiers of God), and “jonbesh-e
moqavemat-e mardomi-ye Iran” (the popular resistance front of Iran). The dual face of the group
thus highlights the fact that the Iranian government is dealing with opposition on two fronts,
ethnic and religious.

This report not only describes a violent opposition group within the borders of the Iranian state,
but also touches upon a phenomenon which is found in the core of contemporary discussions of
modern Islamist terrorism: the transformation of Sunni Islam through the growth and success of
the austere Deobandi current, which underlies sectarian strife in a number of Muslim countries,
and the displacement of the “heart” of radical Islamism from the Arabian Peninsula to the Indian
Subcontinent.

FFI-rapport 2009/01265 3
Sammendrag
Denne rapporten omhandler Jundullah, en sunnimuslimsk terrorgruppe som opererer i Sistan
Baluchistan, en region i det sørøstlige hjørnet av Iran. Siden opprettelsen i 2004-5 har gruppen
ført en stadig mer intens småskalakrig mot iranske myndigheter – nylig har gruppen også utført
selvmordsaksjoner.

Det store paradokset er at Iran, som etter revolusjonen direkte og indirekte har støttet muslimske
opprørsgrupper med ulik agenda, nå må hanskes med væpnet, islamistisk opposisjon innenfor
sine egne grenser. Teheran påstår at Jundullah har tette bånd til det pakistanske Taliban. Selv om
dette er mulig med tanke på at gruppen nylig har begynt å utføre selvmordsaksjoner, benekter
Jundullah ethvert bånd til regionale terroristnettverk.

Lite er kjent om gruppen og mangelen på litteratur er stor. I tillegg er Sistan og Baluchistan så

godt som avstengt for utlendinger. Denne rapporten er derfor i stor grad basert på ulike
internettblogger som kan knyttes til gruppen, i tillegg til intervjuer og artikler i iransk og
internasjonal presse. Det er – og vil sannsynligvis fortsette å være – umulig å bekrefte det meste
av informasjonen om Jundullah. Gruppen er imidlertid interessant fordi den tar del i en voldelig
religiøs konflikt som er under utvikling i Iran. Gruppen kjemper en væpnet ”Jihad” mot en
islamsk stat.

Ikke overraskende sensurerer Teheran det meste av informasjonen om Jundullahs aktiviteter.

Gruppens eksistens synes imidlertid å bekrefte at sikkerhetssituasjonen i regionen er prekær og at
myndighetene har problemer med å hanskes med trafikken over den porøse grensen til Pakistan
og Afghanistan; Jundullah bekrefter også at ideen om Islamsk enhet, en av de ideologiske søylene
i den revolusjonære iranske staten, er dårlig fundert. Gruppens ”Jihad” mot den Islamske staten
utgjør dermed en ideologisk trussel mot det indre politiske og religiøse samholdet i Iran.

Jundullah utfordrer myndighetene på to nivåer. Som en Deobandi-bevegelse basert på Hanifa-

retningen i tolkningen av Shari’a utfordrer den selve grunnmuren i den iranske konstitusjonen.
I tillegg, som en nasjonalistisk, etnisk bevegelse, utfordrer den Irans territoriale enhet. Gruppen
opererer under to navn, ”Jundullah” (Guds soldater) og “jonbesh-e moqavemat-e mardomi-ye
Iran” (Irans folkelige motstandsfront). Gruppens to ansikter viser at Iran dermed må hanskes med
opposisjon på to fronter; den ene er etnisk, den andre er religiøs.

Denne rapporten omhandler ikke bare en voldelig opposjonsgruppe innen Irans grenser, men
berører også et fenomen i kjerneområdet i studier av moderne islamsk terrorisme: fremveksten av
nye voldelige retninger i i Sunni-Islam via veksten i den fundamentalistiske Deobandi-retningen.
Denne retningen er sentral i den sekteriske volden som de siste årene har oppstått i flere
muslimske land. Et viktig element i dette fenomenet er at det indiske subkontinentet i større grad
overtar plassen til den arabiske halvøya som arnestedet til radikale Islamske strømninger.

4 FFI-rapport 2009/01265
Contents

Acknowledgements 6

1 Introduction 7

2 The region divided 9

2.1 Tribes versus state 9
2.2 The Sunni question 12

3 Baluchistan: No country for old men 14

3.1 The wild southeast 14
3.2 Paramilitary country 16

4 Deobandi developments 17
4.1 “Deobandization” of Pakistani Baluchistan 18
4.2 Networks without boundaries: the spread of Deobandism 20
4.3 Drugs and Deobandism: the role of the Shahbakhsh 21

5 Jundullah: Ethnic opposition turns religious 23

5.1 A family affair? 24
5.2 Weapons, training and financing 25
5.3 Capabilities and operations 27

6 Fitnah in Baluchistan? 30
6.1 Shahbakhsh revisited: new extremist elements in Jundullah? 30
6.2 A sectarian strife 32

7 An Islamic awakening – consequences and conclusions 34

Bibliography and sources 37

FFI-rapport 2009/01265 5
Acknowledgements
I would like to highlight the work of the French historian Stéphane A. Dudoignon on the Sunni
question in Iran, and to thank him for very valuable conversations and tips related to the work on
Jundullah. Mr. Dudoignon is, to my knowledge, one of a very few with extensive insight in the
political and religious realities in Iranian Baluchistan as well as the history of Sunni minorities in
the country.

6 FFI-rapport 2009/01265
1 Introduction
On a cold day in late December 2008, the destitute and poverty stricken Iranian town of Saravan,
close to the Pakistani border, was rocked by an explosion. A yellow pickup drove up to the gates
of the town’s police headquarters, and before entering the courtyard, the driver detonated a bomb
that tore the pickup apart.

The driver, Abdolghafur Rigi, a man in his twenties, killed two police officers and injured scores
more that day.

We are God’s army. We are the ones who give deliverance (…) O’ye, children of Islam, rise
up in revolution. O’ye righteous community, get ready for self-sacrifice.

The text is the introduction to a series of ten short videos that appeared on an Iranian Sunni
activist website a few days later 1 . The videos, posted by the Jundullah 2 , a shadowy armed
opposition group in the Baluchistan region of Iran, show how Abdolghafur Rigi prepares himself
for martyrdom. He says goodbye to what apparently are his parents; his father, white-bearded, his
mother in a black chador.

A song, a lone male voice in sentimental minor, begins:

I am Muslim. I am filled by the Qor’an. I am going to the battlefield, to a lonely goodbye.

I am going the way of the Qor’an, to a lonely goodbye.

The videos that follow picture the last hours of Abdolghafur Rigi’s life: in a small prayer ring,
dressed in military fatigue, in an open-air interview while the sound of machine guns shatters the
silence in the Baluchistan mountainous landscape, and Rigi posing with guns, and with masked
soldiers, while white confetti rains upon him, accompanied by a combat song in Arabic calling for
Jihad and martyrdom.

And then, Rigi all dressed in white, smiling shy in a cloud of white confetti. In the next picture, a
close-up of a yellow pickup, where a detonator is attached to a gas tank in the passenger seat. Rigi
gets into the car, and waves to the camera.

Rigi’s suicide operation against the police headquarters was followed by a second Jundullah
attack in March 2009, when Abdolhamid Esfandaki blew himself up in an operation targeting a
bus full of Revolutionary Guards, the Regime’s elite military force and vanguards of the status
quo. The operations mark a new era in the political and religious opposition within the Islamic

1
Ajans-e khabari-e taftan website, “Taftan news agency”, at www.taftanb.blogspot.com, (presumably a
forum for Sunni opposition forces, written in Farsi).
2
The series of ten videos is posted by “The Cultural Branch of Jundullah” and is also available on
YouTube.

FFI-rapport 2009/01265 7
Republic. Even though Iran has a long history of political violence, this is the first time
opposition forces have used suicide operations on Iranian soil.

And then, a short time before the contested Iranian presidential elections in June, Jundullah
claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that took more than 25 lives in the Ali Ibn Abu
Taleb Mosque in Zahedan, one of the largest Shi’a mosques in the city 3 . The symbolic value of
this last operation cannot be underestimated.

What explains such actions within the Islamic Republic? Abdolghafur Rigi’s and Abdolhamid
Esfandaki’s martyrdoms cannot be seen as isolated incidents – Islamist adversaries to the
government in Tehran are probably learning from extremist groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The sectarian violence which has rocked the Indian Subcontinent during the last decades, the
fitnah between Sunnis and Shi’as, has apparently spread to the Islamic Republic of Iran. In order
to understand why and how Islamist opposition groups like Jundullah have surfaced within the
Islamic Republic, it is important to trace two different historic patterns.

The first illustrates how the Islamic Revolution in 1979 actually came at the expense of Islamic
Unity and Iranian nationalism. The Revolution has created a strong polarity between the Persian-
speaking Shi’a majority and Sunni minorities, living at the edges of Iran. The Sunni provinces in
the country are the most neglected and underdeveloped, a situation with destabilizing
repercussions. As ethnicity, tribal traditions, and sectarianism have become overlapping and
mutually reinforcing cleavages in these regions, the opposition to the government in Tehran is
often expressed in religious terms.

The second pattern to trace illustrates how religious life among Sunnis in Iran has transformed
during the last decades. Deobandism 4 , an austere current in Sunni Islam, being a component in
the sectarian blood-bath between Sunnis and Shi’as that has stricken Pakistan, and has spread
over the border to Iran to become the main religious current among the Baluch. The rise of
Deobandism has added fuel to ethnic and sectarian fire in Iranian Baluchistan and become a
factor in the downward spiral of sectarian rife that is unfolding in the region.

3
Message in Arabic posted on the Jundullah blog 29 May 2009., http://junbish.blogspot.com/
4
Deobandism, a revivalism movement, adheres to the Hanafi School of Islamic jurisprudence, and has
evolved around the theology of Abu Mansur Maturidi (853-944), who refuted Shi’a Imamism. Deobandis
state strong belief in the oneness (tawhid) of God as well as following the prophet’s Sunna (practices) and
those of his companions, opposing innovating religious practices. The preservation of the religion is a
central aim in Deobandism, as the current evolved in British India and sought to create a “Muslim
community” that could exist within, but separated from, the larger British-dominated society. The main
centre for Deobandi thought is the Darululoom seminary in Deoband, India. See website:
www.darululoom-deoband.com

8 FFI-rapport 2009/01265
2 The region divided
There are perpetual tensions between the centre and the periphery in Iran. Whilst the Persian
plateau in the middle of the country and Tehran are home to the Shi’a, Persian-speaking political
elite, the border regions are all habitated by distinct ethnic communities, many of whom are
Sunnis. Baluchistan is no exception. Situated in the periphery of Iran, the region is home to some
1.5 million Baluchis, a particular ethno linguistic group of Sunni confession and nomadic
descendant. The same ethnic group is found over the borders into Pakistan and Afghanistan, and
Baluchi people circulate across the porous borders between the three countries.

Throughout history, the region has proved largely ungovernable to the civil authorities in Tehran,
as traditional Baluch patterns of authority are radically different from the institutionalized
government. These differences have translated into historic enmities between the central
government and traditional Baluch leaders – but as the latter have been marginalized through
external control, violent suppression and forced political change, and as civil authorities have
proved incapable of bringing the region into the central government’s fold, new and mutually
opposing networks of influence are surfacing.

Figur 2.1 The Baluch homeland (approximate graphics)

2.1 Tribes versus state

Even though the successive Iranian empires have tried to exercise central control over the Baluchi
province, the projects have largely failed. The tribes, each one normally numbering a few
thousand members 5 had historically, and until the first half of the 20th century, existed as
autonomous political units led by the Sardar, the tribal leader with vested authority in his status
as warrior leader, resisting every external pressure.

5
Philip C. Salzman, Black tents of Baluchistan. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 2000, p. 355.

FFI-rapport 2009/01265 9
The four main tribes in Baluchistan, the Rigi, the Yarahmadzai, the Gamshadzai and the
Ismailzai, each of which is further organized into large clans, have throughout history managed to
slice up the region into their respective zones of influence, although they frequently turned upon
each other. Blood-feuds and violent clashes were common among the tribes; the tribal leaders
also took opposite views on larger, political questions, and sometimes forged coalitions with
forces external to Baluchistan. When British forces in Southern Persia engaged in a campaign
against the Yarahmadzai in 1916, the Gamshadzais and Ismailzais engaged against the intruders
in a tribal coalition – while the Rigi were on the side of the British, in a bid to undermine
Yarahmadzai influence 6 .

If the different tribes were often on bad terms internally, the Baluch had also posed a real security
threat to the Persian dynasties for centuries. Tribal militias frequently raided and looted Persian
villages in the neighbouring regions. Nevertheless, the process of centralization of Iran under the
Pahlavi regime transformed political life in the Baluch community. The tribes were, to a large
extent, pacified from the mid-1930s, as the government sought to bring their raids to a halt by
undertaking military intrusions into Baluchistan. The policy of the government in Tehran became
thereafter control through indirect rule, paying the Sardar an annual and substantial stipend. The
tribal leader thus became a client of the government, as well as a broker and negotiator between
the tribe and the national administration 7 . Nevertheless, the Sardar continued to function as the
representative of the tribe as a corporate body, thereby granting the Baluchi population a large
degree of political autonomy 8 .

As the country became increasingly centralized under Tehran, the supremacy of the Persian-
speaking shi’as a political and financial elite at the expense of minority communities became
more and more evident. The regime of Reza Shah forcibly settled pastoral nomads and tribal
people; his son Mohammad Reza Shah placed the tribes under military control and restricted their
movements and land use. On several occasions, the monarch ordered the imprisonment as well as
execution of opposing tribal leaders in order to keep the region in check, depriving the tribes of
their traditional centres of authority 9 . An intense process of “Persanification” was initiated, and
high-speed social and economic reforms were launched. But even if the traditional patterns of
political authority in the Baluch homeland changed and the country underwent rapid economic
and infrastructural change, socio-economic development came late to the region. The first tractor
arrived in Iranian Baluchistan in 1968 10 ; the region remained underdeveloped and politically
dominated by forces perceived as external.

6
Philip C. Salzman, “Adaption and Political Organization in Iranian Baluchestan”, Ethnology, Vol. 10,
no.4, (October 1971), pp. 433-444.
7
Phillip C. Salzman, “Continuity and Change in Baluchi Tribal Leadership”, International Journal of
Middle East Studies, Vol. 4, No. 4 (October 1973), pp. 428-439.
8
Phillip C. Salzman, “Tribal Chiefs as Middlemen: The Politics of Encapsulation in the Middle East”,
Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 47, No.2 (April 1974), pp. 203-210.
9
Lois Beck, “Revolutionary Iran and its Tribal People”, MERIP Reports No. 87: Iran’s Revolution: The
Rural Dimension (May 1980), pp. 14-20.
10
Phillip C. Salzman, “Continuity and Change in Baluchi Tribal Leadership”, International Journal of
Middle East Studies, Vol. 4, No. 4 (October 1973), pp. 428-439.

10 FFI-rapport 2009/01265
The enmity between centre and periphery translated into a strong resentment of the Pahlavi
regime in the Baluch communities, and these joined in the revolutionary euphoria that rocked the
country in 1978-1979. But after the fall of the Kingdom and the creation of the Islamic Republic
through an uneasy alliance between the Shi’a clergy in Qom, traditional financial elites such as
the bazaaris and leftist Islamist forces from poor urban neighbourhoods, the patterns of external
control from Tehran continued, albeit by other means. As the country was on the edge of
disintegration after the implosion of the old regime, Khomeini attempted to reinstate central
domination over the regions through the creation of two new institutions under the aegis of the
Revolutionary Council in Tehran; the Komitehs and the Revolutionary Guards. The former, semi-
autonomous groups that functioned like local security committees, were usually headed by clerics
closely aligned with Qom and known for arbitrary law enforcement and religious zealotry.
Wherever the degree of tribal representation was low, the Komitehs quickly took over important
governmental functions, such as that of the local gendarmerie. The members also assumed
responsibility for enforcing Islamic regulation on social behaviour, with broad powers of arrest
and imprisonment 11 .

Under this new political situation, resentment between tribal authorities and the central
government continued; many tribal communities reportedly voted against the creation of an
Islamic Republic in the 1979 referendum 12 . The Revolutionary Guards found a central role in the
running of the Islamic State in the early years after the revolution, often functioning like veritable
death squads implementing the orders from Tehran. Guard units engaged in an assassination
campaign against Baluch leaders 13 , thus continuing the pattern of forced political transformation
of the Baluch community as initiated during the Pahlavi regime.

After the revolution, political life in Iran was thus Islamized – but on the premises of the Persian-
speaking Shi’a political elite in Tehran and the new regime’s zealot vanguards. The state, Persian
nationalism and Shi’a Islam are supposed to be unifying factors. However, as this unity is
imposed through force when necessary 14 , it has created deep conflicts within the country itself.
The creation of the Islamic Republic has therefore added another feature to the uneasy
relationship between the centre and the periphery in Iran. Sectarianism 15 suddenly became
introduced as an overlapping cleavage to tribalism and ethnicity. The tensions created by these
overlapping and mutually reinforcing cleavages have mounted in intensity during the decades

11
The Komiteh became in 1991 merged into the national police. See for example Sami Zubaida, “An
Islamic State? The Case of Iran”, Middle East Report, No. 153 (July/ August 1988).
12
Lois Beck, Op.cit. Also Maulawi ‘Abd al-‘Aziz in Baluchistan, who as we later will see has played a
central role in religious developments in the region, voted against the constitution, rejecting the principle of
Velayat-e Faqih. Stéphane A. Dudoignon, “Un Maulawi contre les Pasdaran?”, Actes Sud, Pensée de Midi,
2009/1: No.27, pp. 92-100.
13
Selig L. Harrison, “Baluch Nationalism and Superpower Rivalry”, International Security, Vol.5 No.3,
Winter 1980-1981.
14
Abbas William Samii, “The nation and its minorities: ethnicity, unity and state policy in Iran”,
Comparative studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Vol. XX, No. 1&2, 2000.
15
Understood as hatred and discrimination that arise when importance is attached to a perceived difference
between subdivisions within the larger community of believers.

FFI-rapport 2009/01265 11
since the revolution. During recent years, the level of sectarian violence seems to have been
heightened.

2.2 The Sunni question

Whilst Shi’a Islam is the official religion in Iran, many of the tribal communities and ethnic
minorities living at the edge of Iranian territory are of Sunni confession (an estimated 10% of the
Iranian population, thus roughly 7 million people, is Sunni). The main current among the Baluch
tribes is the Hanafi branch 16 . Even if one of the main pillars of the Islamic government in Iran is
Islamic universialism and unity regardless of sectarian belonging, the discrimination of
confessional and ethnic minorities has, to a large degree, become institutionalized. After the
revolution, some ethnic groups – including Baluchi tribal leaders – made demands for a
decentralized state with semi-autonomous regions and provinces, demands rejected by
Khomeini 17 . The current constitution of Iran bears no reference to regional autonomy or self-
determinism – on the contrary, regional governors are appointed by the Ministry of Interior.

As the secular regime of the Pahlavis was replaced with an Islamic government, discriminatory
practices against the ethnic and religious minorities have been reinforced in another sense. Whilst
minority groups such as Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians have constitutional representation in
the Parliament, the Sunnis are not granted the right to representation, as the Islamic Republic, in
its very nature, is supposed to be above sectarian differences. Nevertheless, the Iranian state is in
its outermost sense a Shi’a state. The constitution states that only an Iranian who is a follower of
the Khomeinist Velayat-e Faqih doctrine 18 and the Shi’a Ja’fari school of jurisprudence may take
up high offices, something that effectively excludes the Sunni population from any high-level
political participation. In addition, the revolution was followed with direct attacks on Sunni
religious symbols, as several Sunni mosques in the country were destroyed, and others closed
down. In addition, the revolutionary government embarked on a strategy of “persification” and
“shi’ification” of Baluchistan, forcibly relocating Baluch people to remote areas while
encouraging non-Baluchis from other provinces to replace them throughout the province, using
incentives such as free land, government jobs and subsidized housing 19 – a situation that is
echoed in Pakistani Baluchistan. The dual Persian and Shi’a monopoly over public life has
therefore lead to an increasing polarization between the Shi’a majority and Sunni minorities such
as the Baluch.

Observers note that this has been an ongoing historical process during much of the 20th century,
beginning even well before the Islamic Revolution:

16
Pakistan: The worsening conflict in Baluchistan. Brussels: International Crisis Group, Asia Report No.
119, 14 September 2006. The French historian Mr. Stéphane Dudoignon, who organized a series of
university lectures in 2009 on the Sunni question in Iran, has in various works tracked down the
development of Hanafi and Deobandi currents in Iran.
17
Beck, Lois: Op.cit.
18
Which state that in the absence of the 12th Shi’a imam, a cleric with perfect insight into the Shi’a Ja’fari
School of law shall be the highest political authority in the country.
19
Abbas William Samii, “The nation and its minorities: ethnicity, unity and state policy in Iran”,
Comparative studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Vol. XX No. 1&2, 2000.

12 FFI-rapport 2009/01265
 Since the pacification campaign mounted against the Baluchi tribes in the 1930s, interest in
religion and participation in religious practices have greatly increased amongst the tribal
members. Many of the tribesmen have been trained as mullahs, and the mullahs have
obtained an increasing influence over various activities, resulting in an increase of orthodox
practices at the expense of traditional ones. There are large collective prayer meetings on the
major holidays, large collective religious propaganda and education meetings, and numbers
of individual sacral behaviours such as prayer and animal sacrifice, and life-style ceremonies
presided over by mullahs. Religious matters have an increasingly high status, and are
regarded as having priority over other matters, and deference is paid towards those of
religious stature 20 .

The French historian Stéphane A. Dudoignon argues that the maulawis, the Sunni religious
scholars educated in seminaries, were supported by the Reza Shah regime, as in opposition to the
Sardar leaders of the Baluch tribes they did not advocate ethnic and nationalistic sentiments.
With this support, they were able to dispute the influence of the Sardars 21 . The process of Islamic
“awakening” among the Baluchi tribes intensified during the 1960s and the 1970s, as Dudoignon
points out in his studies 22 . Philip Salzman, an American anthropologist who has lived among the
Yarahmadzai tribe over longer periods, explains that since the tribes have lost military, economic
and political independence to the Persians, a vacuum was created in the Baluch identity – a
vacuum filled by religion. During the 1960s, senior leaders of the Yarahmadzai undertook Hajj
for the first time; the sardars also began to financially support maulawis. The tribal leaders built
madrasas connected to their headquarters and recruited students for the maulawis. Large prayer
congregations were led by prayer leaders from outside the tribe on an increasing scale. In
addition, many young men were sent to Pakistan for religious education. The growing Islamic
awareness led to changes in social life; playing music and listening to the radio became viewed
with increasing severity 23 .

As the central government clamped down on rebelling Baluch, several of the tribal leaders went
into exile in Quetta, the capital of the Pakistani Baluchistan, for a few years 24 . The tribal Baluchi
leaders were not the only ones who sought refugee in Quetta and the surrounding regions at the
time. A huge influx of Afghans, fleeing the disintegrating neighbouring country, followed by a
growth in extremist networks, has profoundly marked the religious landscape in Pakistani
Baluchistan, as we will see a little later.

20
Phillip C. Salzman, “Continuity and Change in Baluchi Tribal Leadership”, International Journal of
Middle East Studies, Vol. 4, No. 4 (October 1973), pp. 428-439.
21
Stéphane A. Dudoignon,, “Un Maulawi contre les Pasdaran?”, Actes Sud, Pensée de Midi, 2009/1: No.27,
pp. 92-100.
22
See for example Stéphane A. Dudoignon, Voyage aux pays des Balouches (Voyage to the Baluch
homeland) Paris: Éditions Cartouche, 2009.
23
Philip C. Salzman, “Politics and Change among the Baluch in Iran”, Middle East Papers – Harvard
Centre for Middle East strategy, June 2008, p. 7.
24
Salzman, Philip C.: Black tents of Baluchistan Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 2000, p. 147.

FFI-rapport 2009/01265 13
3 Baluchistan: No country for old men
The discriminatory practices against ethnic and religious minorities in Iran are reflected in the
low level of economic and political development in the border regions. Baluchistan is today the
poorest of all Iranian regions, taking the bottom score on nearly all indexes of economic and
human development. Sistan va Baluchistan province is the least literate, least professionally
active, as well as having the highest mortality rate of all the Iranian regions 25 , a sad record it
shares with the Baluch province in neighbouring Pakistan, where the literacy rate is almost half
the national average, and 47% of the population are living under the poverty line 26 .

The social hardship is inevitably a factor behind the increase in militant activism in the region, as
a call for justice as well as criminal activities merge with Islamist elements, as we will see in this
chapter.

3.1 The wild southeast

The generally appalling level of development in Iranian Baluchistan has given a boost to a huge
criminal economy. Baluchi tribes have for centuries enjoyed income from smuggling of consumer
goods from Oman (the country has a large Baluch population), where the trading communities in
some of the cities are almost entirely Baluch. Nevertheless, the porous borders between Iran,
Pakistan and Afghanistan and the free circulation of tribal people between the countries have
facilitated another traffic that is far more lucrative: the trade in heroin and weapons. Today,
million-dollar villas are popping up in the outskirts of traditionally poor cities such as Saravan.
Observers allege that local, Baluch authorities are not even trying to hide where the sudden
richness is coming from – drug smuggling over the border 27 . The region has become one of the
world’s main routes for heroin trade; in 2005, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)
reported that 60% of all opiates produced in Afghanistan reached markets trough Iranian
territory 28 .

The presence of a highly lucrative criminal sector has led to a deterioration of the general security
in the region, and clashes between security forces and drug smuggling gangs are common.
According to Iranian press, some 3,300 military and police personnel have been killed in clashes
with armed smugglers since the revolution in 1979 29 . The drug smuggling gangs are heavily
armed and sometimes function like veritable militias; UN reports tell of sophisticated weapons
and equipment such as rocket launchers and night-vision goggles among the gangs 30 , and that the

25
United Nations Common Country Assessment for the Islamic Republic of Iran 2003.
26
Senate of Pakistan: Report of Parliamentary Committee on Baluchistan, November 2005, pp. 10.
27
Conversations with Mr. Stéphane A. Dudoignon, who has carried out several field studies in Iranian
Baluchistan. March and April 2009.
28
“Iran: Iran’s Drug Problem Goes Beyond Afghan Deluge”, RFE/RL Iran Report, 07 December 2006.
29
“Drug Smugglers Kill 11 Iranians in Elite Corps”, The New York Times, 23 July 2007.
30
IRIN (UN Office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs), Bitter-Sweet Harvest: Afghanistan’s New
War. July 2004. Accessible at
http://www.irinnews.org/InDepthMain.aspx?InDepthId=21&ReportId=63032&Country=Yes.

14 FFI-rapport 2009/01265
convoys are followed by “armies” of up to 30 men 31 . Drug smugglers operating in this “Golden
triangle” between the three countries tell of smuggling convoys of up to 18 S.U.Vs, run by
Afghan commanders and equipped with Iranian and Afghan Baluchi fighters. The equipment is
often on loan from the Afghan Taliban 32 , something that indicates a merging of the criminal
economy in Baluchistan with Islamist networks over the border, assisted by the widespread tribal
networks running across the whole region.

According to observers, a loose alliance of Baluchi tribes, based in Quetta, controls most of the
drug traffic through the region. Tribesmen based in Quetta are further cooperating with Afghan
Taliban in the trafficking; two of the tribes are mentioned as Rigi and Shahbakhsh 33 . The latter,
one of the larger and most powerful tribes in Iranian Baluchistan, is also implicated in another
highly lucrative business: kidnapping. Both Iranian nationals and foreigners alike have fallen into
the hands of members of the tribe – at least six foreigners have been kidnapped in the region
between 1999 and 2008 34 . The Shahbakhsh have further kidnapped Iranian officials, such as the
Friday prayer leader in the town of Fahraj, Hojjat ol-Islam Javad Taheri, in the Kerman province,
who in 2008 was abducted alongside a Japanese tourist 35 . The two were liberated on Pakistani
territory by Pakistani police, after eight months in detention being held by members of both the
Rigi and Shahbakhsh tribes. 36 One of the kidnappers, Esma’il Shahbakhsh, is believed to be the
mastermind of the abduction of two Belgian tourists who travelled in the region in August 2007 37 .
As early as 1999, members of the group kidnapped three Italian engineers and later three
Spaniard tourists, and sought to trade the hostages for the release of two members of the group 38 .
At the time, there were reports that Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan gave support to the
Shahbakhsh group in order to put pressure on Iranian authorities to ease the combat against drug
trafficking in the region 39 .

It is unclear if the Iranian or foreign governments have paid ransom for the abductees, but another
rationale behind the spate of kidnappings in the region is apparently to force the Iranian
government to liberate detained militants and criminals of the tribes. Esma’il Shahbakhsh

31
UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) in undated document: Integrated Border Control
in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Accessible at http://www.unodc.org/iran/en/i50.html.
32
“In the Land of Taliban”, The New York Times, 22 October 2006 The journalist, Elizabeth Rubin, used
local drug smugglers as the source.
33
Christopher D. Kondaki, “Taliban, the primer”, Defence and Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, October
2001, p. 6.
34
Kuwait Times 15 June 2008.
35
“Emam-e Jame’e Fahraj va tabe’e-ye Japon az dast-e ashrar-e maslah azad shodand” (Fahraj Friday
prayer leader and Japanese tourist liberated from armed insurgents), Fars News Agency, 14 May 2008.
36
Fars News Agency reports that one of the kidnappers, “Hamid Rigi, brother of Sharvar Malek Rigi (…)
was arrested by Pakistani police” (See ibid) while Iranian and foreign press earlier has reported that Esma’il
Shahbakhsh has negotiated with the Iranian government on behalf of the group. “Japan Foreign Minister
scolds freed backpacker”, Agence France Presse, 23 June 2008.
37
“Iran says rebels freed kidnapped Japanese tourist”, Agence France Presse, 14 June 2008. Kerman is the
region neighbouring Baluchistan.
38
“Bureaucratic fights slow kidnapping solution”, RFE/RL Iran Report, 6 September 1999
39
Ibid; RFE/RL cites Italian News Agency ANSA 17.08.1999.

FFI-rapport 2009/01265 15
reportedly tried to trade the abducted Friday prayer leader and the Japanese tourist for his
imprisoned son and other gang members 40 .

3.2 Paramilitary country

The borders between Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan are nearly impossible to control, as they run
through hundreds of kilometres of empty deserts and unhabited mountains. In addition to drugs
and abductees, weapons flow freely across the border area. In Iranian Baluchistan, divine laws
have been replaced with the law of the gun.

Faced with this situation, Iranian law enforcers are withdrawing from Baluchistan. On 6 April
2009, Iran’s police chief announced that civilian police will pull entirely out of the region 41 . The
void will thereafter be filled with Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and poorly trained members of
the Basij, a paramilitiary militia under the command of the IRGC and infamous for their religious
zealotry. The Basij, which nationally numbers some 11 million members, are acting as extra-legal
law enforcement troops echoing the role of the earlier mentioned Komitehs, with the military base
Rasul-i Akram functioning as the seat for policing efforts in Baluchistan 42 , coordinating the
activities of military forces and the militia. In the province, Basij militia members are deployed
against drug smugglers 43 . There is further evidence that the militia is used as a conventional
police force in house searches and detentions of suspected Sunni militants 44 . After the election of
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005, himself close to the militia, Basij members that had undergone
training were given the right to arrest suspects 45 .

As the Basijis and the IRGC become more omnipresent in the region, taking upon civilian tasks,
clashes between Tehran’s forces and rebels grow in intensity and frequency. Tehran is showing
muscle and clamping mercilessly down on rebellion; the Revolutionary Guards were reportedly
given the task of liberating the above-mentioned abducted Friday prayer leader, and raided
suspected rebel hideouts with military helicopter gunships. Scores were killed, and hospitals in
Zahedan, capital of Iranian Baluchistan, reported more than 200 wounded 46 .

40
“Freed Japanese hostage returns, wants mother’s cooking”, Agence France Presse, 17 June 2008.
41
Press TV, 06 April 2008. Accessible at
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=90601&sectionid=351020101.
42
“Iran’s Drug Problem Goes Beyond the Afghan Deluge”, RFE/RL, 07 September 2006.
43
“Iran’s Basij – the mainstay of domestic security”, RFE/RL, 07 December 2008.
44
Rooz Online,
http://www.roozonline.com/english/archives/2007/02/violence_erupts_in_sistan_and_1.html, quoting
“Violence erupts in Sistan and Baluchistan”, Fars News Agency, 21 February 2007.
45
“Mo’aven-e dadsetan-e tehran: niruha-ye basij dar radif-e zabet-e ‘amm qarar migirad” (The vice-
procurator of Tehran: the Basij get the right to arrest), ISNA, 20 August 2005. The commander of the Basij
forces, Esma’il Ahmadi Moghadam, was at the same time appointed chief of the national police force.
46
“Iran’s wild east is on the boil”, Gulf News, 07 May 2008. Equally, governmental projects to stop drugs
smuggling and militancy are directly touching upon the Baluch people’s traditional free movement within
the Baluch region, as Tehran reportedly is making a fence to close off large parts of the border with
Pakistan. “Iran erecting wall along the border with Pakistan”, The Hindu, 02 March 2007. Accessible at
http://www.zeenews.com/South-Asia/2007-03-02/357668news.html.

16 FFI-rapport 2009/01265
With the Basijis and Revolutionary Guards taking law enforcement into their own hands, tensions
are running high in the overwhelmingly Sunni Baluchistan. The militia and their commanders in
the Revolutionary Guard are by many – including Jundullah – perceived as a primary example of
Shi’a Muslim and Persian chauvinism. The situation is echoed in neighbouring Pakistan, where
Baluch dissident and separatist groups have waged a low intensity war with the Pakistani
government for decades. In Pakistani Baluchistan, provincial security is provided by the Frontier
Corps, operating hundreds of checkpoints all over the region, being engaged in anti-drug
trafficking, and having the mandate to meddle in sectarian strife 47 . The Frontier Corps, a
paramilitary group whose members are recruited from regions outside Baluchistan operates under
the auspices of the central government and is accused of severe human rights abuses 48 .

As we will see, the escalating tensions between governmental Iranian forces and Baluch rebels
are increasingly expressed in religious terms, but socioeconomic grievances and conflicts
between the centre and the periphery do not alone explain the rise of militant Sunni Muslim
groups in the Islamic Republic. A look across the border to neighbouring Pakistan is essential to
understand how deeply the religious environment in Iranian Baluchistan has transformed, a
transformation that has created propitious conditions for a downward spiral of sectarian violence
and the rise of Jundullah.

4 Deobandi developments
Sectarian strife is a well-known feature of political life in Pakistan, where the cleavages between
Sunni and Shi’a Muslims run deep. The military coup of general Zia ul Haq in 1977 was followed
by a thorough Islamizing process of all aspects of public life in the country, such as the
imposition of Islamic taxes. The general advocated Deobandism, an austere reformist branch of
Sunni Islam based on Hanafi fiqh originating in British India, and which has proved immensely
popular in Pakistan. Among the ideological pillars in the branch is the oneness of God, in
opposition to the Imamism of Shi’a Islam, as well as rejection of innovation 49 – thus antagonistic
to the perpetual itjihad (independent interpretation of legal sources), central in the Shi’a clerical
hierarchy.

With the support of Zia ul Haq, and in a multi-sectarian environment such as that of Pakistan, the
Deobandi branch has for various reasons become radicalized. Early on the branch adopted a
firebrand anti-Shi’a stance. A fatwa from 1940 issued from Darul Uloom in Deoband, the
“mother seminary” in Uttar Pradesh, India, declared Shi’a Muslims as kafir, infidels. Pakistani
Sunni clerics later endorsed the fatwa 50 . Several groups have since engaged in violent sectarian

47
Senate of Pakistan, Report of the Parliamentary Committee on Baluchistan. November 2005, pp. 11.
48
“In Remote Pakistan Province, a Civil War Festers”, The New York Times, 02 April 2006.
49
“The Tack”, article posted on the Darul Uloom webpage, http://darululoom-
deoband.com/english/aboutdarululoom/the_tack.htm. Accessed 14.04.09.
50
S.V.R. Nasr, “The Rise of Sunni Militancy in Pakistan: The Changing Role of Islamism and the Ulama in
Society and Politics”, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 34, No.1 (February 2000), pp. 139-180. Citing
Muhammad Munir, From Jinnah to Zia. Lahore: Vanguard Books, 1979, p. 46.

FFI-rapport 2009/01265 17
strife, with Shi’a Muslims being the main target – many are equally active supporters of, not to
mention recruiters to, the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Jihadism and anti-Shi’a violence have thus merged 51 . Sipah-e Sahaba, one of the main Deobandi
and anti-Shi’a movements in Pakistan, has since its creation in 1985 targeted Iranian interests in
Pakistan and Afghanistan 52 – with connections to main Deobandi madrasas in Pakistani
Baluchistan, it might seem as if the movement has had an impact on developments in Iran as well.

4.1 “Deobandization” of Pakistani Baluchistan

Even though the Baluch people sometimes are pictured as liberal in religious terms and alienated
by extremist currents in Pakistan 53 , radical Islamism has also taken deep roots in the Pakistani
Baluch community. Due to the instability in Afghanistan, which shares a long border with the
Pakistani province of Baluchistan, the frontier parts of the region have, during the last decades,
become “Pashtonized” – at the time due to the influx of Afghan nationals, and as the consequence
of a process of intended “Pashtonization” by the Pakistani government to counter Baluch
nationalism and separatism 54 . As the demographic situation in the region has changed, so has the
political arena. Jamiat-e Ulema-e Islam (Fazlur Rehman), the main Deobandi party in Pakistan, is
one of the strongest parties in the province, and has for years led the provincial government. With
a Deobandi party in power, the number of Deobandi madrasas has grown steadily, with financial
support from the provincial government.

Other forces, sometimes opposite, have also contributed to the rise of Deobandi extremism in the
Baluchistan province. Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city situated on the edges of Baluchistan and
mainly a Baluch city, has become a hotbed of radical Deobandi religious institutions. Karachi has
during recent years been one of the main stages for sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shi’a
as well as bloody clashes between Deobandis and the Barelvi branch of Pakistani Sunnism. In
Karachi alone, there were in 2004 an estimated 1,500 Deobandi madrasas, and some of the largest
have close ties with extremist anti-Shia movements such as Sipah-e Sahaba 55 . Large urban
madrasa networks are again sponsoring the construction and running of like-minded madrasas in
rural provinces, often with former students of larger madrasas founding their own teaching
institutions in their local environments 56 . Some of the largest Deobandi institutions also run

51
Maryam Abou Zahab and Olivier Roy, Réseaux islamistes – La connexion afghano-pakistanaise. Paris:
Hachette Litterature, 2004, pp. 29.
52
Animesh Roul, “Sipah-e Sahaba: Fomenting sectarian violence in Pakistan”, Terrorism Monitor (The
Jamestown Foundation), Volume 3, Issue 2, 26 January 2005.
53
See for example “Pakistan: the worsening conflict in Baluchistan”, Brussels: International Crisis Group,
Report, 14 September 2006.
54
The government has for example given Pakistani identity cards to Afghan Pashtuns, allowing them to
vote in Pakistani elections. “Pakistan: The Forgotten Conflict on Baluchistan”. Brussels: International
Crisis Group, Asia Briefing No. 69, 22 October 2007.
55
International Crisis Group citing Wafaq al-Madaris (the Madrasa federation): “Pakistan: Karachi’s
Madrasas and Violent Extremism”. Brussels: International Crisis Group, Asia Report No. 130, 29 March
2007.
56
Muhammad Qasim Zaman, “Sectarianism in Pakistan: the Radicalization of Shi’i and Sunni Identities”,
Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 32, No.3, July 1998.

18 FFI-rapport 2009/01265
outlets in Baluchistan, with huge popularity. One of the largest Darul Oloom madrasas in the
region enrols annually 1,500 boarders and another 1,000 day-boys 57 .

The region also became caught in the middle of the eight-year long war between Iraq and Iran
(1980-88). During this period Iraq sponsored a large number of anti-Iranian madrasas in Pakistan.
At the same time, the Iranians embarked on a “Shi’a empowerment” strategy in Pakistan,
something that triggered harsh Sunni responses. During the process, extremist Sunni Ulema were
able to reach out to a region so far untouched by sectarian tensions. "If you look at where the
most [Sunni] madrasas were constructed [in Baluchistan], you will realise that they form a wall
blocking off Iran from Pakistan", a Pakistani Baluch politician states in an interview with the
International Crisis Group 58 .

The growth in the extremist network has not only fuelled sectarian violence in the region – it has
also proved to be a crucial factor in the regrouping and renewed strength of Taliban, which
launches attacks into Afghanistan from its Quetta headquarters 59 . Local sources estimate that as
many as 10,000 Taliban fighters are present in the Baluchistan province 60 , while the local
population reportedly serve as a pool of recruits 61 . With the region becoming increasingly volatile
under the grip of Deobandi networks, the religious sentiments among the Baluch population are
also transforming. Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the leader of the extremist Lal Masjid mosque, a religious
complex in Islamabad stormed by military forces in mid-2007, was for example of Baluch
descent. 62 Also, many students enrolled in the madrasas connected to the mosque were drawn
from the tribal areas in North West Frontier Province and the Baluch regions of Pakistan.
Observers today tell of Pashto recruiters, bussing Baluchi youths to “centers of religious learning”
(probably camps of indoctrination and / or training) outside Baluchistan. 63

57
William Dalrymple, “Inside Islam’s “Terror Schools””, New Statesman, 28 March 2005.
58
“The State of Sectarianism in Pakistan”. Brussels: International Crisis Group, Asia Report No. 95, 18
April 2005.
59
Ibid. The Crisis Group here cites an official in the Human Rights Corps of Pakistan, and K. Alan
Kronstadt, “Pakistan-US Relations”, US Congressional Research Service Report, 06 June 2007.
60
“In the land of the Taliban”, The New York Times, 22 October 2006. The journalist cites Maulawi
Mohammadin, a cleric from the Afghan Helmand province, operating in Quetta.
61
“Baluchistan feeds Taliban’s growing power”, San Francisco Chronicle, 31 May 2006. Accessible at
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/05/31/MNGT1J4ULI1.DTL
62
Qandeel Siddique, The Red Mosque operation and its impact on the growth of the Pakistani Taliban.
Kjeller: FFI, FFI Research Report No.2008/01915. Accessible on
http://www.mil.no/multimedia/archive/00115/Qandeel_Siddique_-__115418a.pdf. The first leader of the
mosque, Abdul Rashid Ghazi’s father Maulana Muhammad Abdullah, had the support of Zia ul-Haq as he
mobilized popular sentiments against the government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. (Bhutto was executed under
President Zia ul-Haq’s regime.) Maulana Abdullah later became involved in sectarian politics with Sipah-e
Sahaba, a hard-line and vehemently anti-Shiite Deobandi movement, and motivated thousands of people for
Jihad in Afghanistan. See also “The Road to Lal Masjid and its Aftermath”, Terrorism Monitor (Jamestown
Foundation), Volume 5, Issue 14 (19 July 2007).
63
French anthropologist Jean During in a presentation at La Maison de Sciences de l’Homme, Paris, 02
April 2009, in a seminary organized and led by Stéphane A. Dudoignon.

FFI-rapport 2009/01265 19
Equally important; several of the madrasas stress that the students engage in tablighi
(proselytizing missions) for which the students receive a special stipend 64 , thereby bypassing the
institutionalized clergy and the boundaries determined by the mosques, seemingly also a central
feature in Jundullah. Not only has the Deobandi movement developed solid roots in Pakistani
Baluchistan – but also in neighboring Iran the current is today the main branch of Sunni Islam. As
the tribal networks are crucial to the trafficking of arms and drugs between the three countries,
they transit and diffuse religious ideas and ideologies over borders as well.

4.2 Networks without boundaries: the spread of Deobandism

As shown above, Sunni orthodoxy and Deobandi extremism surfaced gradually among the Iranian
Baluch during the 20th century as a reaction to the aggressive “persianization” and later
“Shi’ification” by the Iranian regime. Religiosity became an important identity maker and a
political factor in the deteriorating relationship between Baluch society and succeeding
governments in Iran, reinforced by ethnicity and the uncompromising challenges the central
government posed to tribal traditions.

The tribal networks running across the border have been essential in exporting religious ideas
from Pakistan to Iran. The mullahs of the Baluchi tribes in Pakistan and Iran 65 were historically
almost exclusively trained in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India, and thus exposed to radical ideas
and sectarian strife that has unfolded in those countries during the last century. Equally, Iranian
Baluch leaders sought refugee in Pakistani Quetta during the violent struggle that followed the
Iranian Revolution – a period when Deobandism increasingly dominated the religious
environment in Pakistan and a wave of Afghan refugees, many of whom advocated Pashto
regionalism and ultraconservative Islamism, tipped the demographic balance in the region.

It is thus not surprising that the religious developments in Iranian Baluchistan largely echo those
of neighboring countries. New elements in Baluch religiosity have rather recently been
introduced; the concept of Tabligh appeared for the first time in the late 1960s, when large
gatherings for the purpose of teaching Islamic rituals and ideas were organized. The proselytizing
movement Tablighi-e Jama’at, urging a return to the life of the Prophet and his diciples, rapidly
became very popular among the Baluch, with an important centre in Saravan, close to the
Pakistani border 66 . At the same time, prayers in Arabic were introduced among Baluch tribesmen
as foreign-trained mullahs deemed the Baluchi language as not suitable for prayers 67 . As the
sectarian tensions unfolded in Pakistan, and as the new revolutionary regime in Iran embarked on
an aggressive Shi’a advocacy campaign in all spheres of the society, a growing anti-Shi’a
sentiment took roots among the Iranian Baluchs. As writes Philip Salzman:

64
“Pakistan: Karachi’s Madrasas and Violent Extremism”, op. cit.
65
Stéphane A. Dudoignon, “Un Maulawi contre les Pasdaran?”, Actes Sud, Pensée de Midi, 2009/1: No.27,
pp. 92-100.
66
Stéphane A. Dudoignon, Voyage aux pays des Balouches (Voyage to the Baluch homeland). Paris:
Éditions Cartouche, 2009.
67
Salzman, “Black tents of Baluchistan”. Op cit. pp. 342-343

20 FFI-rapport 2009/01265
 The Sunni Sarhadi (northern) Baluch did not think much of the deviant and mistaken Shi’a
Islam of the Persians. The Sarhadi tent dwellers were not really sure that they wanted to grant
the Shi’a Persians status as real Muslims. (They) even expressed doubts that the Shi’a
Persians would be admitted to heaven 68 .

Baluchistan has historically been a patchwork of different currents within Sunni Islam, with Sufi
brotherhoods centered on pirs 69 being one of the main elements in popular Baluch religion. But as
the Sufi-influenced Barelvi current in Pakistan 70 has lost ground to the Deobandi branch, the
same evolution has taken place in Iranian Baluchistan; Deobandism is today the main religious
branch of the Sunnis in this volatile eastern corner of Iran.

Deobandism was originally created in British India, in order to establish a religious and legal
framework for the Indian Muslims within which the Muslim identity and belief could be
preserved, at the same time as living in an “infidel” state 71 . This rationale finds an echo in Iranian
Baluchistan where the Sunnis are under pressure from the Shi’a political elite, and where
Deobandism provides a way to cope with life within an “infidel” state. Interestingly enough, the
Shahbakhsh tribe is once again playing a leading role.

4.3 Drugs and Deobandism: the role of the Shahbakhsh

As noted above, members of the Shahbakhsh tribe are highly active in the criminal economy of
Baluchistan, being heavily engaged in both drugs and kidnapping. Nevertheless, the tribe has also
been profoundly involved in the spread of Deobandi ideas amongst the Sunnis.

The religious identity amongst the Shahbakhsh seems to be strong, as the tribe has on a number of
occasions mounted rebellions with the Koran in their hands. Having a history of revolt against
British influence in the region, the Shahbakhsh tribe has also been engaged in Islamist militancy
against other local religious customs since the 1930s. During this period, tribal leaders declared
Jihad on the Dhikri sect of Sufis, a jihad inspired by the then religious head of the tribe, Maulana
Abd al-Aziz Mullazada. The Shahbakhsh were thus a crucial component in a process of
homogenization of religious life in Baluchistan 72 . From then on, the tribe has further played a
central role in the transformation of Sunni religiosity in the region, being the major proponents of

68
Ibid, p. 347.
69
A Pir is the leader of a Sufi Tariqa (religious order), who initiates the followers to the gnosis of Islam,
i.e. the esoteric and mystical sides of the religion.
70
The Barelvi movement is a Sufi Tariqa (religious order) that evolved around Maulana Ahmad Rida Khan
in the 19th century. An important feature in the movement is the belief in saints, as well as rites associated
with worshipping the dead. The movement is accused of innovation of new religious beliefs by the
Deobandi as well as by Wahhabis – Saudi Arabia’s Permanent Committee for Islamic Research and Fatawa
has for example declared that Muslims should not pray behind the Barelwis, the reason being the perceived
innovation and disbelief advocated by the group. The committee’s Fatwa concerning the movement state
that Barelwism is based on Kufr (disbelief) and Bid’ah (innovation). See fatwa online: www.fatwa-
online.com/fataawa/creed/deviants/0010517_5.htm.
71
Gilles Kepel, Jihad: the trail of political Islam. London, I.B.Tauris Publishers, 2002.
72
Stéphane A. Dudoignon, Voyage aux pays des Balouches (Voyage to the Baluch homeland) Paris:
Éditions Cartouche, 2009.

FFI-rapport 2009/01265 21
the spread of the Deobandi thought in Baluchistan. Maulana Abd al-Aziz Mullahzada succeeded
in imposing himself as the religious authority of the Baluch, and gradually as a religious authority
over all the ethnically diverse Sunni communities in the whole country. In 1971 he founded the
Darul Uloom in Zahedan 73 , and became the motor behind a wave of construction of Deobandi
madrasas all over the region 74 .

The Shahbakhsh are also leading other madrasas in the region. Maulavi Hafez Mohammad Ali,
the head of the Abu Hanifa madrasa in the outskirts of Zabol, an ethnically diverse city with a
large Pashto population in a lawless corner close to the Afghan border, is a member of the
Shahbakhsh tribe 75 .

Maulana Abd al-Aziz Mullahzada in Iran took an increasingly political role after the Islamic
Revolution, when he took the leadership of a clerically-oriented political faction that primarily
sought to safeguard the religious rights of the Baluch 76 . The religious influence of the
Shahbakhsh lineage has ever since translated into political influence. After the death of Maulana
Mullahzada in 1987, his son Maulavi Abdul Hamid took over the reins of the Darul Oloom and is
today the Sheikh ol-Islam of Zahedan, the “Sunni Capital” of Iran. He is the de facto religious
head of a huge network of Sunni institutions in the region, which today numbers more than 4,000
mosques, 70 Sunni seminaries and 120 madrasas 77 . 40 of the seminaries are directly under the
auspices of Zahedan Darul Oloom 78 ; today the main Sunni mosque in Iran, drawing students from
all over Central Asia 79 . Huge annual gatherings are attracting thousands of Sunni scholars from
Iran and the neighboring countries. It has seemingly tight connections with the Darul Oloom in
Karachi, the president of which is also the chief Deobandi mufti of Pakistan, and who encourages
the students to engage in tablighi 80 . The Iranian “twin”, who directly runs a network of madrasas
within and outside Zahedan, draws foreign guest lecturers, such as the previous principal of the
Islamic University in Islamabad, doctor Mahmood Ahmad Ghazi 81 , ex-minister of religious

73
The name itself implies the Deobandi nature of the madrasa, as it is the same as the “original” Deobandi
learning complex in Deoband, India, where the branch was founded.
74
Stéphane A. Dudoignon, “Zahedan vs. Qom? Les sunnites d'Iran et l'émergence du Baloutchistan comme
foyer de droit hanafite, sous la monarchie Pahlavi”, in Denise Aigle, Isabelle Charleux, Vincent Goossaert,
Roberte Hamayon, eds., Hommages à Françoise Aubin, St. Augustin : Monumenta Serica Institute, 2009.
(Not yet published).
75
“Dastgiri-ye barkhi az bastegan-e modir-e masjed-e emam abuhanifa” (Detention of some of the relatives
of the Emam Abuhanifa mosque principal), SunniOnline 09 August 2008. SunniOnline is the information
service of the Zahedan Dar ol-Oloom complex.
76
Selig S. Harrison, “Baluch Nationalism and Superpower Rivalry”, International Security, Vol. 5, No.3,
Winter 1980-1981.
77
“Profile: Southern Iranian Sunni seminaries, Mowlavi Abdolhamid”, BBC Monitoring Middle East –
Political, 14 November 2007.
78
“Daruloloom-e Zahedan”, article posted on www.sunnionline.net.
79
Stéphane A. Dudoignon, “Un Maulawi contre les Pasdaran?”, Actes Sud, Pensée de Midi, 2009/1: No.27,
pp. 92-100.
80
“Pakistan: Karachi’s Madrasas and Violent Extremism”. Op. cit. SunniOnline, run by the madrasa, has
links to Darul Uloom in Karachi as well as several other Deobandi institutions.
81
“Doktor Mahmood Ahmad Ghazi mehman-e darololoom-e Zahedan” (Doctor Mahmood Ahmad Ghazi is
the guest of Zahedan Darul Uloom), www.sunnionline.net, 24 March 2009.

22 FFI-rapport 2009/01265
affairs in Pakistan. 82 Ghazi, who has published a number of books on Deobandi history, has on a
number of occasions taken controversial positions, such as supporting Palestinian suicide
attacks 83 and strongly supporting the declaration of the Ahmadiyya sect as non-Muslims 84 .
Maulana Fazlur Rahman, the pro-Taliban leader of the JUI, has also been guest in graduation
ceremonies at the Zahedan Darul Uloom 85 .

The school principal and Sheikh ol-Eslam of Zahedan, Maulavi Abdul Hamid is a frequent critic
of the provincial and central authorities, which he criticizes for poor management. The messages
of groups such as Jundullah are further echoed in the message of the Sheikh, as he demands a
fairer share of Sunni representation in the running of Iran 86 . Nevertheless, Iranian Sunni mosques
and madrasas are funded by the Iranian government and dependent on Tehran for their survival.
Sunni scholars in Iran can therefore not be too vocal in their opposition to Tehran, and not overtly
supportive of radical groups such as Jundullah. As the BBC writes:

On many occasions Abdolhamid has been under pressure from both the government and the
anti-government Baluchi ethnic armed groups to distance himself from the other side 87 .

The Sunni clergy must therefore watch their steps carefully. Nevertheless, with recent
clampdowns on other Sunni communities in other provinces and a violent escalation between
Basijis and rebels in Iranian Baluchistan 88 , the clergy is under pressure.

In this political and religious environment, extremist groups such as Jundullah are surfacing.

5 Jundullah: Ethnic opposition turns religious

There is a myriad of small armed opposition groups operating in Baluchistan – most of whom are
hard to distinguish from criminal gangs. But following the evolution in Jundullah’s blogs, it
seems as if the movement is capable of absorbing other groups in the region. As Jundullah
mergers with other groups, its profile is transforming – from that of a largely ethnic and
nationalist movement confined to the tribe of the leadership, to an intertribal movement with a
more overtly sectarian profile.

82
“Vested interests twisted my statement about Qadianis – Mahmood Ghazi”, Pakistan Press International,
12 September 2009.
83
“Pakistan minister says no further role in Government”, BBC Monitoring South Asia, 10 July 2002.
84
“Vested interests twisted my statement about Qadianis – Mahmood Ghazi”, Pakistan Press International,
12 September 2009.
85
“Thousands of Muslims Stress Solidarity”, Iran Daily, 12 August 2007. Accessible on http://www.iran-
daily.com/1386/2914/html/index.htm.
86
“Profile: Southern Iranian Sunni seminaries, Mowlavi Abdolhamid”, op.cit.
87
Ibid.
88
In 2008 there were clampdowns and detentions of Sunni followers in Kurdistan, Zanjan province and
Baluchistan, respectively. See www.sunnionline.net.

FFI-rapport 2009/01265 23
5.1 A family affair?
At the outset, the Jundullah group seemed to be a phenomenon mostly confined to the Rigi tribe,
one of the large Baluchi tribes, and apparently deeply implicated in the criminal economy in the
region, as shown above. The founder and the leader of the group is Abdolmalek Rigi, also known
under the nom de guerre Abdolmalek Baluch. The 27-year-old is also titled “Rahbar-e Enghelab-
e Baluch”, the leader of the Baluch revolution, a play on the title of the Supreme leader of Iran -
the leader of the Islamic Revolution 89 . In other postings on the group’s blog, the leader takes the
title “Emir” 90 , thus picturing himself as the leader of a community of believers. According to The
Guardian, citing Rigi’s brother, the young man created the group after another brother and an
uncle were killed in separate encounters with Iranian police 91 . From the outset, Jundullah thus
bore the features of being a personal vendetta against the authorities, operating according to the
Baluch tradition of blood revenge. Several of the other central members of the group seem to be
close relatives of Rigi, at least within the same tribe. His brother Abdolghafur Rigi, who became
the group’s first suicide bomber, appears in videos to have had a central role. Another brother and
earlier spokesman of the group, Abdolhamid Rigi, was arrested in Quetta in 2007 as he tried to
cross the border to Afghanistan with false identity papers. Rigi was later handed over to Iranian
authorities 92 . Also, during an apparent shootout in the Chahjamal seminary in Iranshahr between
security forces and reported Jundullah members, two Rigis were reportedly killed 93 . If the victims
in the shootout were indeed Jundullah members as claimed by the official press, it could indicate
ties between the lay extremist movement and Sunni clerics.

Little is known about the leader, other than that he was born into a middle-class family 94 , and
may have been born in Gasht, a small town between Saravan and Zahedan in an area which has
traditionally been pastoral land of the Rigi tribe 95 . In the same town he attended a Sunni
Seminary from which he dropped out – according to Iranian press expelled due to his extremist
views – after only a year 96 . The Jundullah leader has therefore low religious credentials.
However, Abdolmalek Rigi tells in an interview with the Pakistani news magazine Herald that
he, during his youth, was active in the Deobandi movement of Tablighi Jamaat and that he

89
From a blog run by a group called “Fedayan-e Baluch”, that fights for the “Sunni rights and practices and
Baluch people”. See http://fedaeiyan.blogfa.com/87092.aspx.
90
For example, in a posting dated 15.03.09: http://junbish.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html.
91
“We will cut them until Iran begs for mercy”, The Guardian 17 January 2006,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/1507890/We-will-cut-them-until-Iran-asks-
for-mercy.html.
92
“Action against Jundullah soon”, The Nation, 24 July 2008. Abdolhamid Rigi had earlier given
interviews regarding Jundullah’s mission, the only time someone from the group except Abdolmalek Rigi
has given interviews. The Guardian (17.01.06) refer in the interview to Abdolhamid as the “group’s chief
spokesman”.
93
Report by Sistan va Baluchistan Hamun TV, 06 April 2008. Transcription by BBC Monitoring Trans
Caucasus unit, 07 April 2008.
94
“We want a government in Iran that guarantees equal rights for every citizen”, The Herald (Pakistan),
September 2008.
95
In the early 1900s the American geographer C.P Skrine visited the area, and described Gwarkuh, a
mountain close to Gasht, as an important camping place for the Rigi tribe. C.P. Skrine, “The Highlands of
Persian Baluchistan”, The Geographical Journal, Vol. 78, No. 4, October 1931.
96
“Iran MP warns Pakistan against “Terrorist group’s” activities”, Fars News Agency, 08 December 2008.

24 FFI-rapport 2009/01265
enjoyed preaching – an activity he undertook also outside Baluchistan, as Rigi was briefly jailed
in Iranian Kurdistan for preaching activities 97 . It seems probable that several members of the Rigi
tribe were engaged in proselytizing. In a curious but illustrating story, the Turkish newspaper
Milliyet reported in 2000 that five Iranians had been detained in the town of Dolutepe for
“activism aimed at supporting the Shari’a order”. The Iranians had reportedly addressed several
mosques in the area prior to their detention. Three of the arrested men were Rigis 98 .

Not only confined to the Rigi tribe, the Tabligh seems to be an important feature in the internal
organization of Jundullah. In several videos posted on the Internet, Rigi play an active role in
discussion groups centred on Holy Scriptures. In another video, Rigi leads the Morning Prayer
before an attack on a military convoy, praying before the other members of the group 99 , even
though his poor religious training normally would prescribe a more passive role.

As for the internal organization of the group, little is known. Jundullah has established its own
media arm, a “political office” 100 , as well as an intelligence division 101 . The group rarely
mentions specific Sunni clergymen apart from one, a defunct, militant cleric called Mulana
Mohammad ‘Amr Sarbazi (Jundullah accuses the Iranian government of having orchestrated his
murder) who seems to have had a strong influence on the group. Jundullah mentions that he often
diffused Fatwas calling for Jihad against the Iranian regime, and that his “(bullet) magazine was
never empty” 102 . Jundullah says in a message dated 14.05.07 that it operates from a houze, a term
often used for religious seminaries, some 85 kilometers from Saravan 103 , something that could
indicate that the group indeed follows the guidelines of radical Sunni clerics.

5.2 Weapons, training and financing

Even though Rigi denies using Pakistani territory to stage operations in Iran, this is probably not
the case. It is telling that the group’s leader meets with journalists inside Pakistani territory. The
fact that the brother Abdolhamid Rigi was arrested in Quetta also suggests that Jundullah moves
across the borders. According to Baluchi sources, members of the group have received training in
Waziristan, the Pakistani tribal areas 104 . Arrested alleged Jundullah members shown in
“confessions” on Iranian TV have also stated that the group has been trained in Pakistan by either
“English-speaking” or “Arabic-speaking” individuals 105 .

97
Rigi in an October 17. 2008 interview with the Dubai-based Al Arabiyya TV. Interview cited in “Baluchi
rebel boss says he’s ready for peace”, International Iran Times (Washington), 07 November 2008.
98
Milliyet (Turkey) Ankara edition, 22 April 2000, translation by BBC world services.
99
All videos posted on www.taftanb.blogspot.com. Accessed several times in the period 10 February to 10
April 2009.
100
As told on the blog in a message dated 24 Bahman 1385, and the videos of the preparations of
Abdulghafour Rigi’s suicide operation.
101
Undated message, September 2007: http://jonbeshmardom.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html.
102
Ibid.
103
http://jonbeshmardom.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html.
104
According to Willem Marx, American-Dutch journalist. Conversations and emails in March 2009.
105
As these “confessions” are not a reliable source of information, this is impossible to verify.

FFI-rapport 2009/01265 25
Rigi has, in interviews with foreign press, denied that the group enjoys ties with other movements
across the border. 106 Certain elements may nevertheless tell us that this might be untrue. The
group has on several occasions used improvised explosive devices in their attacks, a method
frequently used by militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Indeed, the group mentions in the blog
that it had its own bomb-maker expert, a certain “Uthman”, which is an unusual name in
Baluchistan, but more common in the Sindh region of Pakistan and amongst the Pakistani
Mohajirs (Muslim settlers from India) 107 . The man, called “Ostad-e Uthman” (Professor Uthman)
was killed by Iranian forces in October 2008 108 . In the blog he is referred to as one of the
“isatedza” (plural of Arabic istadz; master or professor), something that could indicate that the
person had a certain ideological influence over the group. There is also a possibility that he was
Iranian of other ethnic origin, possibly Kurd 109 , as Rigi has never denied that the group attracts
fighters from other regions of Iran 110 . What is nevertheless clear is that the Rigi have moral
supporters in other regions of the country. On the Taftan website, rebels from the Ahwaz area
close to the Iraqi border post greetings to the group, praising the success of Jundullah operations.
It might further be significant that many of the members of the group seemingly use noms de
guerre, another common feature in other jihadist organizations.

The group makes use of heavy weaponry and sophisticated equipment, and even claims to have
shot down a governmental Cobra helicopter 111 . Videos posted on the internet show how members
of the group train with rocket launchers – in newspaper articles it is further mentioned that the
group use satellite phones in communications 112 . It is unknown from where the group gets the
weapons and the financial means to equip 600 fighters – even though it claims to frequently raid
military installations and convoys to take the weaponry.

106
The Jundullah strategy thus differs considerably from that of Pakistani Baluch nationalists and
separatists, who have teamed up with Islamist rebels from the Chinese Xinjiang province to coordinate
attacks on Chinese workers engaged by the Pakistani government in Baluchistan. See for example Niazi,
Tarique, “The Ongoing Baluch Insurgency in Pakistan”, Terrorism Monitor (Jamestown Foundation), Vol.
3, Issue 11.
107
According to Stéphane Dudoignon the name is also common amongst Pakistani clergy. Email dated 09
April 2009.
108
Communiqué posted on Jundullah website 10.10.08.
109
Stéphane Dudoignon writes that Deobandi madrasas became heavily present in Kurdistan during the
1970s. See Stéphane A. Dudoignon, “Un Maulawi contre les Pasdaran?”, Actes Sud, Pensée de Midi,
2009/1, No.27, pp. 92-100. Deobandism is present in larger cities in northern Iran such as in Urmia, a city
with an important Kurdish Sunni community. Link found on Sunni Online, Zahedan Darul Uloom:
http://www.sunnionline.us/farsi/54765/%d9%85%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b1%d8%b3_%d9%88_%d9%85%
d8%b1%d8%a7%da%a9%d8%b2_%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85%db%8c/. There have also been incidents of
sectarian strife in Kurdistan – the Friday prayer leader in one of the Sunni mosques in the city of Mahabad
was killed by unknown assailants last year. See “Teror-e nafarjam-e dadsetan-e Khahsh-e Iran”
(unsuccessful attempt on the public prosecutor in Khahsh in Iran), BBC Persian, 29 September 2008.
110
Rigi was asked by Al Arabiyya in an interview if non-Baluchis were active in the group. Rigi answered:
“We have our brother Sunnis from Khorasan, Kordestan, and from all over the country. They fight for the
causes that are of concern to the Sunnis”, Al Arabiyya, 17 October 2008. Transcription by BBC Monitoring
Middle East, 23 October 2008.
111
Communiqué posted on Jundullah website 26 December 2008.
112
“We will cut them until Iran begs for mercy”, The Telegraph, 17 January 2006.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/1507890/We-will-cut-them-until-Iran-asks-
for-mercy.html.

26 FFI-rapport 2009/01265
Rigi claims that the men in the group are never paid, but supported by their families 113 – while
Tabnak, an Iranian news agency that often seems unusually well informed, has claimed that local
petrol station owners are funding the group as payment for protection of fuel smuggling from
Iranian Baluchistan to Pakistan and Afghanistan 114 . The Iranian authorities further point an
accusing finger at Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and USA, as well as at the Iranian Diaspora. While
some of these allegations seem highly improbable (especially as Iran usually claims that “foreign
powers” are guilty whenever there is instability in the country), others are difficult to verify.

5.3 Capabilities and operations

From its inception, Jundullah seems to have been able to develop significant firepower as well as
a large organization. Rigi says he started with a group of only 30 armed men. If true, the size of
the group must have increased more than 20 times since its inception in 2004/5. Jundullah now
claims to have some 600 fighters, and Rigi alleges that the group has trained 2000 men 115 . He
boasts that the group enjoys such a huge popularity that he has to turn down would-be fighters
due to a lack of arms and training capabilities 116 .

Attacks and clashes with military forces have occurred virtually over the whole eastern part of the
Iranian Baluchistan region, as illustrated in the map on the next page. This highlights the fact that
the group is capable of moving freely over longer distances and that its operations are not
confined to the immediate border regions. The spate of kidnappings on the road between Bam and
Zahedan during recent years shows that Baluch militants are not only operating within the Sistan
va Baluchistan region. There have also been attacks outside the region; including one on a
mourning procession for killed Revolutionary Guards as far north as in Torbat-e Jam, a city close
to Mashhad in the northeastern corner of the country and on the road to Herat in Afghanistan 117 .
Jundullah may have been the perpetrator of the attack. The group may also have been involved in
an attack on a convoy of cars carrying the region’s governor in Tasuki outside Zabol in 2006
where 22 people including civilians were killed, an operation for which the group first claimed
and then denied responsibility 118 . Nevertheless, on the Taftan News webpage, a video is posted
under the heading “’amaliat-e eftekhar-e afarin-e Tasuki” (the successful, honorable operation at

113
Rigi in an interview with a Pakistani monthly magazine. See “We want a government in Iran that
guarantees equal rights for every citizen”, The Herald, September 2008.
114
“Khashaf-e bozorgtarin manba’-e mali-e abdolmalik rigi dar Iran!” (The most important means of
finance for Abdolmalek Rigi in Iran discovered!), Tabnak, 15 October 2007, Accessible at
http://www.tabnak.ir/pages/?cid=42. As there is a steady, very important stream of illegal smuggling of fuel
out of Iran, where the price is among the world’s lowest, the claim seems probable.
115
“Iran Sunni Jundollah leader vows to mount operations in Tehran”, Al Arabiyya, 17 October 2008.
Transcription by BBC Monitoring Middle East, 23 October 2008.
116
Rigi in an interview with a Pakistani monthly magazine. See “We want a government in Iran that
guarantees equal rights for every citizen”, The Herald, September 2008.
117
“Intelligence minister comments on BBC activities in Iran”, Islamic Student’s News Agency, 14 January
2009. Transcription by BBC Monitoring World Media 14 January 2009.
118
TV programme showing “confessions” of alleged Jundullah members, Sistan va Baluchistan TV, 16
March 2007. Transcription by BBC Monitoring Middle East, 20 March 2007.

FFI-rapport 2009/01265 27
Tasuki), clearly showing how the group prepares an operation, while Rigi leads a prayer in front
of his men 119 .

Figur 5.1 Jundullah attacks and clashes with Iranian military forces
So far, it seems as if Baluchistan is the main battleground in Jundullah’s small-scale war against
the Iranian authorities. Rigi nevertheless claims that the group plans operations in the Iranian
capital Tehran:
We are trying hard to expand our area of operations to include the whole of Iran and we pray
to God to make us successful in carrying out operations in Tehran itself 120 .

If it is true that the group steadily attracts new recruits, it seems plausible that Rigi and his men
may be in a position to target cities outside Baluchistan. The timeline of operations shows that the
group is becoming more daring – targeting both military convoys and casernes.

Timeline of operations

ƒ Jundullah become known to the outside world for the first time on 20th of June 2005, when the Dubai
TV channel Al Arabiyya reports that “an unknown organization calling itself Jundullah” gives them a
video of an Iranian officer, Shahab Mansouri, taken hostage by the group. Jundullah gives the Iranian
government three weeks to release members of the group from prison, otherwise Mansouri will be
killed.
ƒ A bit more than three weeks later, on the 12th of July, the TV channel reports says it has received a
videotape showing the execution of Shahab Mansouri, and that Rigi appears in an earlier tape,
interrogating the hostage.

119
http://www.taftanb.blogspot.com/.
120
“Iran Sunni Jundollah leader vows to mount operations in Tehran”, Al Arabiyya, 17 October 2008.
Transcription by BBC Monitoring Middle East, 23 October 2008.

28 FFI-rapport 2009/01265
ƒ On 4 January 2006, nine Iranian border guards are taken hostage by Jundullah. The group demands in
a video sent to Al Arabiyya the release from prison of 16 of its members.
ƒ On the 17 March 2006, the group carries out the famous Tasuki attack on the convoy carrying the
governor of Sistan va Baluchistan province. The governor is later reported injured, but alive 121 .
ƒ About one month later, Jundullah claims responsibility for the killing of an “officer of the
Revolutionary Guard responsible for the Higher Political Committee of the Revolutionary Guard in
the area of Zahedan”, showing that the group is aiming at higher ranking security officials in the
region.
ƒ On 13 May 2006, twelve people are killed at a roadblock on the Zabol-Zahedan highway. It is reported
that Iranian security forces have received a call from Jundullah claiming responsibility. However,
Abdolmalek Rigi later denies involvement in the attack in an interview with BBC Persian.
ƒ In mid-December 2006, the Interior Ministry says the group is behind an explosion killing one person
in Zahedan. The bomb went off close to the office of the regional governor.

ƒ On 14 February 2007, Jundullah attracts world media attention by claiming responsibility for a car
bomb that kills 11 Revolutionary Guards on a bus in Zahedan 122 .

ƒ Later, the group continues to aim at Guards and policemen, such as in a high-profile kidnapping
operation in June 2008 when Jundullah captured 16 border guards and later killed them 123 .

ƒ In their blog, the group claims responsibility for an ambush killing 50 Revolutionary Guards on
12 October 2008, near the Dumag area. A few days later Jundullah claims to have killed 43 Guards in
clashes in a mountainous area, saying that information about the incidents is censored by the Iranian
authorities 124 .

ƒ The spate of kidnappings and ambushes seems to grow steadily throughout 2008 and 2009, and
according to the group the rate of success is high. The group claims to have executed more than 200
prisoners after “investigation” into their cases 125 ; the group has apparently established its own
“tribunal” to judge its prisoners.

121
“Bandits kill 21 in attack on motorcade in Iran”, China People’s Daily, 18 March 2006.
122
The timeline until 14 February 2007 was prepared by BBC Monitoring research, 15 February 2007.
123
“Iran says rebel group killed 16 policemen”, Agence France Presse, 04 December 2008.
124
Communiqués dated 12 October 2008 and 15 October 2008.
125
“We want a government in Iran that guarantees equal rights for every citizen”, The Herald (Pakistan),
September 2008.

FFI-rapport 2009/01265 29
6 Fitnah in Baluchistan?
Rigi states in interviews that the group wants:

A government in Iran that guarantees equal rights for every citizen (…) we demand that the
Iranian government respect our rights and then we will give up the armed struggle. But I am
sure that the government will never do that 126 .

Unlike Pakistani Baluch rebels, who want full separation from Pakistan and the creation of a
Baluch ethnic state 127 , Rigi says he does not make any territorial claims. At the same time, the
leader says the group is established to “protect our ulema [scholars] and mosques and defend the
rights of the Sunni community all over Iran. That is the most important pillar of our organization.
It is a constant principle recorded in the charter of the organization.” 128 Jundullah is therefore a
primary example of how a nationalist agenda has merged with religious motivation in a
movement that resorts to violence. But if Jundullah was initially a “family affair” motivated by
revenge and largely confined within the Rigi tribe, recent developments strongly suggest that the
group is undergoing a significant transformation. New members seem to add a new religious and
hard-line dimension to the activities of Jundullah.

6.1 Shahbakhsh revisited: new extremist elements in Jundullah?

Jundullah has on different occasions merged with other armed resistance groups, such as one
under the Arab name alhaqq nahzat ‘edalat, the Righteous Movement of Justice, who according
to the Jundullah blog has been engaged in “cultural and political activities” – but whose website
contains links to the extremist Taftan blog as well as the Darul Oloom in Zahedan 129 . Some
months later, the group announced a merger with the Sazman-e Mobarezin-e Sepah-e Rasul Allah
(the Association of Fighters of the Prophet’s Army) under the leadership of Hajji Vahedbakhshs
Derakhshan 130 . The name of the group immediately recalls that of Sipah-e Sahaba, The Army of
the Companions of the Prophet, the Pakistani Deobandi movement with a long history of
involvement in sectarian strife and killings.

Jundullah’s absorbtion of other groups suggests that its sectarian profile will be strengthened. The
story of Jundullah is the story of a dangerous mix of ethnic nationalism, criminal activities and
jihadi currents – and the incorporation of new members seems to radicalize the movement.

126
Ibid.
127
See for example Tarique Niazi, “The Ongoing Baluch Insurgency in Pakistan”, Terrorism Monitor (The
Jamestown Foundation) Vol. 3, Issue 11.
128
“Iran Sunni Jundollah leader vows to mount operations in Tehran”, Al Arabiyya, 17 October 2008.
Transcription by BBC Monitoring Middle East, 23 October 2008.
129
The website of the group is http://watwajahi.blogfa.com/.
130
Undated message, August 2007, http://jonbeshmardom.blogspot.com/2007_08_01_archive.html.

30 FFI-rapport 2009/01265
If the Rigis have been particularly active in the Tabligh movement in Iran, the Shahbakhshs have
been central in the development of institutionalized Deobandism in Baluchistan. It now seems as
though the two groups are merging, adding an inter-tribal feature to Jundullah. Late in September
2008, Jundullah mentions in its blog that the group merged with two other armed opposition
groups, led by Hajj Ne’matollah Shahbakhsh and Hajj Khodabakhsh Shahbakhsh, respectively 131 .
The Hajj Ne’matollah Shahbakhsh group is, according to Radio Baluch, called “Sazman-e
Mobarezin-e Sistan va Baluchistan” (Sistan and Baluchistan Combat Association) 132 .

It is too early to say if the Shahbakhsh have added a more radical feature to the movement, but
one important, recent incident probably highlights such a possibility. Just before the holy month
of Ramadan, on 27 August 2008, Basiji forces equipped with bulldozers razed the Abu Hanifa
mosque and madrasa in Azimabad, a suburb of Zabol in the northern part of Baluchistan 133 . The
mosque and madrasa housed ancient Holy Scriptures, and videos posted on the Taftan news
agency webpage shows people picking up torn pages from the Koran from the ruins and the
sewage 134 .

The Abu Hanifa mosque and madrasa was run by a member of the Shahbakhsh tribe, Maulavi
Hafez Mohammad Ali, and under the auspices of the Darul Oloom in Zahedan. Just after the
operation, two brothers of the Maulavi, Abdulrahman Shahbakhsh and Noor Mohammad
Shahbakhsh, were arrested, uncertain on what charges 135 . In a furious message posted on the
Jundullah blog, Abdolmalek Rigi swears revenge, and says that the “jihad will never end” 136 .
A few weeks later, Rigi announces the merging with the Shahbakhsh groups. Then, on the 14th of
October 2008, a man called Naser Shahbakhsh was killed in a clash with military forces.
According to the blog, Naser Shahbakhsh, brother of Dara Shahbakhsh, leader of yet another
armed group 137 , had been a member since the merger. Naser Shahbakhsh was killed alongside a
member of the Rigi tribe, Nader Rigi. Once again, revenge is promised.

The revenge astonished everyone. In late December 2008, Abdulghader Rigi, the younger brother
of Jundullah’s leader, drove his yellow pickup to the gates of the military headquarters in Saravan
and detonated two tons of TNT, becoming the group’s very first suicide bomber in Jundullah’s
war on the Iranian government. The group said that the operation was a revenge for the razing of
the Abu Hanifa mosque and seminary in Zabol. In the videos posted on the Internet after the

131
www.junbish.blogspot.com (the official blog of the group since June 2008), 29 September 2008.
132
Radio Baluch FM is broadcast from a Baluchi exile community in Stockholm, Sweden. Undated article
called Haqiqat chist? (What is the truth?), accessible at
http://www.radiobalochi.org/BH_Rights/HaghiqatChist_s_s_zahedan070821.html.
133
“Baluchis intensify rebellion in Iran”, Asia Times Online, 20 February 2009. Accessible at
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KB20Ak02.html. The story is further referred to on the
Jundullah webpage.
134
Video named “Shahid Abdulghafur 1”, posted on Taftan.
135
“Takhrib-e madrese-ye dini-e emam abuhanifa-ye ‘azimabad-e Zahedan” (Destroying of the Emam
Abuhanifa religious madrasa in Azimabad in Zahedan), SunniOnline, 27 August 2008.
136
Message dated 27.08.08, the same date as the razing of the mosque and madrasa.
137
Radio Baluch: Undated article called Haqiqat chist? (What is the truth?).

FFI-rapport 2009/01265 31
suicide operation, Jihadi songs, so-called Nashids, accompany the preparations of the martyr-to-
be. The same songs are used in similar videos by Al-Qaida and other groups. 138

While difficult to verify as none of the webpages of Baluchi armed groups contain links to
foreign armed groups, this might indicate that the group indeed is in touch with other networks
across the border – or at least that the group is learning from the campaigns of such groups.

6.2 A sectarian strife

In some of its propaganda, Jundullah uses the name National Resistance Front of Iran, apparently
in an attempt to attract some international sympathy to its cause. Overall, however, its propaganda
recalls a cause transcending the Baluch minority issues. In a curious posting on the blog,
Abdolmalek Rigi commemorates the murder of the Kurdish activist Abdolrahman Qassemlou by
Iranian agents, expressing sympathy with the Kurdish cause 139 . In another, following an alleged
air raid on villages in the Rudmahi mountains close to Zahedan, Rigi calls on “international
organizations such as the UN and the EU” to intervene in the conflict between the Baluch and the
Iranian government 140 . In an English posting on 2 February 2007 141 , Jundullah denies links with
foreign groups and countries, and stresses that it has adopted the Universial Declaration on
Human Rights.

That seems less compatible with the fact that the group often executes its hostages, sometimes by
brutal methods such as decapitation. While Jundullah in earlier postings stressed its nationalist
nature, it now seems as if this element is being overshadowed by the second column in the
movement: that of an Islamist uprising, mimicking the practices of extremist networks in
Pakistan, and using a religious language in order to attract fellow Muslim sympathy to their
cause. The term “Jihad”, used in the blog of the group, is telling: the group notably states that
“faith and Jihad are the only means to achieve honor, freedom and justice” 142 . It also claims on its
website that it has taken up arms to defend “the righteous Muslim belief” (din-e haqq-e Moslem).
The movement constantly calls the Iranian government “regim-e jahl” (regime of ignorance), a
religiously laden expression that connotes un-Islamic behavior. It further says that the regime’s
forces are “godless Safavids” – the expression recalling that Iran was a largely Sunni country
before the Safavid Empire established Shi’a-Islam in the early 16th century. Another expression
used about the government is “taghut”; which means “tyrants” and denotes an enemy of God 143 .

The group and governmental forces seem to be trapped in a downward spiral of violence and
retaliation, with increasing sectarian overtones as both parties attack religious symbols of the
other. On 18 February 2009, the group claimed responsibility for a bomb that went off in the Al

138
According to a Jihadi video analyst at the FFI (Norwegian Defence Research Establishment).
139
Posting 12.07.08: http://junbish.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.html.
140
Posting 13.10.08: http://junbish.blogspot.com/2008_10_01_archive.htm .
141
http://jonbeshmardom.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html.
142
http://junbish.blogspot.com/2008_08_01_archive.html.
143
For example in undated message, July 2007:
http://jonbeshmardom.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html.

32 FFI-rapport 2009/01265
Qadir mosque in Zahedan, an operation where 20 kilo C4 was used, but without causing
casualties 144 . The group justified the action by claiming the mosque was a “Basij hangout”. 145
Members of the religious judiciary are also targeted. The group has claimed responsibility for the
assassination of the judge Ebrahim Karimi, killed in Saravan in June 2008 146 , the reason being
that he “had the blood of young Baluchs on his hands” 147 , an action condemned by Sunni clerics
such as the principal of Saravan seminary. 148 In another incident, for which the group has not
claimed responsibility, Hojjat ol-Islam Ali Ebadi, a Basij religious authority in the town of Khash,
was gunned down 149 , while the public prosecutor of the city, Fazlollah Shahbazi, was targeted by
armed men some months earlier, but escaped with his life. 150 The year before, Shi’a preacher
Mahdi Tavakkoli was killed by unknown assailants in the same city. 151

Other actions by seemingly zealot Shi’a groups add fuel to the fire, as Sunni clerics and
seminaries are being targeted. The destruction of the mosque in Zabol had a profound impact on
Jundullah, as it triggered the suicide operation some months later. The targeting of Sunni clerics
by vigilant gangs goes back to well before the creation of Jundullah; during the parliamentary
elections of 1996, two clerics were murdered. Two years later, the prayer leader of a Sunni
mosque in the town of Miyankang was killed. In the spring of 2000, a Sunni seminarian from
Birjand, north of Baluchistan, was beaten, set on fire and killed in Zahedan 152 . And the sectarian
violence in the region continues; in late 2007, Darul Oloom in Zahedan claimed that “unidentified
armed forces had entered the Mohammadiyyeh Seminary in Zabol, opened fire and forced the
students and scholars to leave the seminary” in order to close down the school 153 . Darul Oloom
has further reported that one of its scholars, Imanallah Gomshadzahi, was attacked with a knife
and seriously wounded in the head by unknown assailants when he came home from evening
prayer 154 . On 10 November 2008, Molavi Sheikh Ali Dehvari was gunned down and killed in
Saravan by two unknown men on a motorcycle in an operation that recalls earlier attacks on
regime opponents. 155

144
“Enfejar-e bomb dar yeki az masajed-e shi’ian dar shahr-e zahedan” (bomb explosion in one of the Shi’a
mosques in Zahedan), Al Arabiyya, 18 February 2009: Accessible at
http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2009/02/18/66726.html.
145
http://junbish.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html.
146
“Tashyi’ peykar-e pak-e qazi-e dadgostari-e Saravan” (Procession of the body of the judge in Saravan
tribunal), Ettela’at, 18 June 2008.
147
http://junbish.blogspot.com/2008_06_01_archive.html.
148
“Tashyi’ peykar-e pak-e qazi-e dadgostari-e Saravan”, op cit.
149
“Cleric gunned down in southeast Iran”, Press TV, 06 April 2009..
150
“Teror-e nafarjam-e dasetan-e khahsh dar Iran” (unsuccessful attempt on the public prosecutor on
Khahsh in Iran), BBC Persian, 29 September 2008
151
Ibid.
152
Abbas William Samii, “The nation and its minorities: ethnicity, unity and state policy in Iran”,
Comparative studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Vol. XX, No. 1&2, 2000.
153
SunniOnline, 02 November 2007, cited by “Profile: Southern Iranian Sunni seminaries, Mowlavi
Abdolhamid”, BBC Monitoring Middle East – Political, 14 November 2007
154
“Su’-ye qessad be jan-e yeki az asatid-e daruloloom-e zahedan” (attempt on the life of one of the
scholars at Darul Oloom in Zahedan), SunniOnline, 10 February 2009.
155
“Ruhani-e sunni dar Zahedan teror shod” (Sunni cleric killed in Zahedan), BBC Persian, 11 November
2008.

FFI-rapport 2009/01265 33
Murders and extra-judicial killings thus seem to harden the stance between the Sunni population
and Shi’a vigilante groups, but the Iranian government has also explicitly targeted the Sunni
religious community. After the previously mentioned shootout in Chahjamal seminary in
Iranshahr, the two Sunni clerics Moulavi Abdolghods Mollahzahi and Moulavi Mohammad
Yusef Sohrabi were sentenced to death and executed by hanging. The same year, the clerics
Moulavi Khalilollah Zare’i and Hafez Salahoddin were hanged in Zahedan prison. The sentences
bore clearly religious references, as the clerics were judged for Moharebeh, enmity with God, and
Mofsedeh fi’l arz, corruption on earth. A large number of other Sunni clerics have been arrested
and given prison sentences for igniting sectarian tensions 156 .

The harsh governmental response to the extremist networks in Baluchistan has therefore added to
the burgeoning sectarian strife in the region. When targeting religious figures, the Iranian
government is also targeting community leaders, recalling earlier campaigns against tribal elders
in the first years after the revolution. When the religious Sunni establishment is silenced,
opposition to the government will increasingly be expressed through lay activist movements such
as Jundullah, bypassing other institutions in the Sunni community.

7 An Islamic awakening – consequences and conclusions

The story of Jundullah is the story of how an ethnic resistance movement has transformed into a
violent sectarian group adopting tactical and ideological elements from the global Jihadi
movement. It is at the same time the story of the limits to Islamic Unity, as claimed by the Iranian
state. From a humble beginning of 30 armed men in a movement that bore the hallmark of a
personal vendetta, Jundullah has reportedly grown to a group of several hundred fighters,
encompassing different opposition groups. As there are signs that the fight might spread beyond
Baluchistan to other regions in Iran, such a movement is inevitably posing a serious challenge to
the Iranian government. The fact that the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij are taking over the
role of civilian authorities in policing and other areas of jurisdiction must be interpreted as a sign
that the government is fighting an enemy regarded as deadly serious. Big economic projects such
as the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline as well as a planned pipeline from the north to the south
are underway in the region. If inspired by Pakistani Baluch separatist groups, that constantly blow
up such pipelines, Jundullah could threaten projects of great economic and symbolic importance
to the Iranian government.

When Abdolghafour Rigi became a suicide bomber in late December 2008, it was the result of a
long process that has transformed religious life in the Sunni communities in Iran. The Islamic
Revolution in Iran in 1979 did indeed lead to an Islamic awakening among the Sunni minorities
in that and surrounding countries – albeit contrary to the intentions of the Islamic government in
Tehran. As the Revolution was increasingly seen as exclusively Shi’a and Persian, universal
Iranian nationalism has been replaced with Sunni extremist and Baluchi nationalist currents

156
“Aqliatha-ye qomi va dini dar sal-e 1387” (Tribal and religious opposition in 1387), BBC Persian, 06
April 2009. Accessible on http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/lg/iran/2009/03/090406_minorities_1387.shtml

34 FFI-rapport 2009/01265
opposed to the hegemony of the Shi’a clergy. Jundullah’s demand of a greater share for Sunnis in
the running of the country cannot be met within the framework of Iran’s constitution.

As the Sunni clergy in the region is a “hostage” of the state, being dependent on governmental
funding for Sunni seminaries and mosques, a complex patchwork of movements based on
ethnicity, confession and tribal traditions has occurred, bypassing the institutionalized religious
establishment. Fuelled by the large criminal economy in the region, these movements target law
enforcement forces and officials engaged in the fight against drug trafficking. As Iranian police
and security forces are also seen as major agents of Shi’a zealotry and chauvinism opposed to the
Sunni identity in the population, a dangerous mix of Jihadi currents, nationalism and criminal
activities occurs.

But this is only one part of the story, as the developments in the Sunni community in Baluchistan
mirror those in neighbouring Pakistan. Deobandism, an austere and vehemently anti-Shia branch
of Sunni Islam has grown to be one of the main religious currents in Pakistan, exercising
significant influence across the border via tribal networks. Extremist groups such as Jundullah are
seemingly copying the practices and discourse of Pakistani movements. As the same ideas are
also spreading to other ethnic minorities of Sunni confession in the country, alliances between the
porous borders regions are formed, highlighted by the fact that Jundullah apparently also attracts
non-Baluch fighters. There are several signs of influence from the global Jihadi movement, for
example the use of songs also used by groups such as Al Qaida and the use of improvised
explosive devices. Jundullah’s cause could very well prove to attract foreign fighters in the future.

The political consequences of the Jundullah phenomenon are therefore apparent on several levels.
One immediate consequence is the risks Jundullah poses to the security in the region, as the low-
scale war seems to be highly successful from Jundullah’s point of view. During the last year there
has been a significant spate in deadly attacks – recently also by suicide bombers, until now
unheard of in Iran. The conflict is for the time being contained within the borders of Baluchistan.
But if Jundullah succeeds in bringing its operations to Tehran, the situation could prove difficult
to control.

The group has also dealt a blow to one of the very pillars of the Islamic Revolution; the idea of
Islamic Unity, with an all-encompassing state elevated over sectarian differences. For the time
being, Iran finds itself isolated from the International community by sanctions and political rows
but strives to establish alliances with Sunni countries. This policy could prove increasingly
difficult as the political and religious situation of the Sunni communities inside the country is
dire. On the more practical level, the situation translates into a process where the clergy is pushed
aside by militia networks. Civil authorities in Baluchistan are marginalized by the uncontrollable
situation, replaced by Revolutionary Guards and Basijis, groups famous for their Shi’a religious
zealotry and heavy-handed policies. In the ongoing conflict between Sunni and Shi’a activists,
clergymen and religious institutions on both sides are targeted.

FFI-rapport 2009/01265 35
An ethnic conflict has turned sectarian. The Islamic Republic is dealing with a Jihad within its
own borders. The governmental suppression of the Baluchi people in Zahedan that followed after
the suicide bombing in early June 2009 was intense. There are reports of summary detentions and
executions – Jundullah claims in its blog that none of the executed men were connected to the
suicide operations.

On 12 June 2009, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “won” a comfortable victory in the presidential

elections, elections that seem to have been rigged. While today it is too early to say anything
about the consequences and outcome of the political crisis that has followed the election, a new
Ahmadinejad period could indeed accentuate the tensions in Baluchistan. The suicide bombing of
the Ali Ibn Abu Taleb mosque in Zahedan, one of the largest in the city and belonging to regime
notables that originate in Tehran, is of enormous symbolic importance and exposes the regime’s
feeble control. It is not unlikely that the rigging of the elections, giving Ahmadinejad a renewed
mandate, could also be motivated by the need for a strong and streamlined government to bring
Baluchistan back into its fold. In that sense, the Baluchi uprising of Jundullah has succeeded in
bringing about political changes in the Islamic Republic – but not at all in the sense Abdolghafur
Rigi and his companions wish.

36 FFI-rapport 2009/01265
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FFI-rapport 2009/01265 39
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40 FFI-rapport 2009/01265