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April 04, 2007

Source: Stratfor

Summary

An April 3 ABC report discussed covert Pakistani and U.S. links to a Balochi insurgent group in Iran known as
Jundallah. Stratfor has noted U.S. links to Jundallah in Iran for some time. The group's activities have served as a
device for the United States to poke Iran as the two dance the diplomatic tango over Iraq.

Analysis

An ABC exclusive released April 3 details covert Pakistani and U.S. links to a Balochi insurgent group in Iran
known as Jundallah, citing unnamed U.S. officials and Pakistani tribal and intelligence sources. According to the
report, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney discussed the secret Jundallah campaign against Iran during his visit to
Pakistan in February. The report also says the U.S. relationship with Jundallah is arranged so that Washington
lacks direct financial links to group, since these would require an official presidential order and congressional
oversight.

Stratfor has been examining the U.S. connection to Jundallah's activities in Iran for some time now. These
activities serve as a poking device for the United States to use against Iran in the diplomatic tango over Iraq.

The group's origins are murky, but it appears to have surfaced in 2003 under the leadership of a 23-year-old Sunni
ethnic Balochi who goes by the name Abdolmalek Righi. Jundallah, or "Soldiers of God," is not to be confused with
the more jihadist-oriented Pakistani group by the same name that was responsible for the 2004 attack against
Gen. Ahsan Saleem Hayat, Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's deputy.

The Jundallah that is active in Iran is an ethno-nationalist insurgent group with an Islamist bent. Its campaign is
directed against the Iranian clerical regime for suppressing Iran's impoverished Balochi minority, who are
concentrated in the lawless Sistan-Balochistan province in southeastern Iran, where the Afghan, Pakistani and
Iranian borders meet.

Jundallah's activities have picked up during the past two years. The group has claimed responsibility for a number
of killings and kidnappings of Iranian security forces and officials, the most recent and prominent attack being a
Feb. 14 bus bombing that killed 11 members of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The group's
young leader has mounted a strong media campaign, in which he regularly condemns the Iranian regime and
claims responsibility for attacks via Internet statements. In fact, Voice of America (VOA), a U.S. government agency,
aired a live phone interview with Righi on its Persian-language service April 1, introducing him as the "leader of the
Iranian people's resistance movement." VOA's decision to provide Righi a platform to air Balochi grievances has
raised further suspicions about U.S. involvement with the group.

The United States has a variety of minority groups to rely on to stir up trouble in the Islamic republic, including the
exiled Mujahideen e-Khalq (which largely came under U.S. control at the beginning of the 2003 Iraq war), Ahvazi
Arabs in Iran's southwest and Kurds in its northwest. Jundallah's campaign in Sistan-Balochistan falls in line with
U.S. efforts to ramp up support for oppressed Iranian minority groups in an attempt to push the Iranian regime
toward a negotiated settlement over Iraq.

The Pakistani connection, however, is more elusive. Pakistan has its own raging Balochi insurgency to deal with,
and is not interested in supporting a Balochi insurgent group across the border with the capability to kidnap and
kill members of the IRGC. Moreover, the Pakistanis know they must tread carefully in their dealings with Tehran,
particularly as Iran is already wary of repercussions of Washington's close relationship with Islamabad.

That said, Pakistan could have worked out an arrangement with the United States to turn a blind eye to covert U.S.
forces in Pakistan working with Jundallah. The Pakistani sources cited in the ABC report also said Righi formerly
worked for the Taliban, though both Pakistani and Iranian officials are prone to classify the Balochi groups as al
Qaeda-linked terror organizations for their respective political purposes. The porous borders in the region are
highly conducive to drug smuggling, however, so Righi's group likely has contacts with a variety of militants
through these operations.

U.S. support for Jundallah fits into the larger picture of U.S.-Iranian negotiations over Iraq. Iran has made painfully
clear that it has -- and can use -- a variety of militant assets throughout the region to pressure Washington to
meets its demands in Iraq. At the same time, the United States has an interest in demonstrating that it has friends
among Iran's minority groups to gather intelligence, stir up public unrest and distract the clerical regime from its
Iraqi agenda.

This type of covert activity fits into a complex blend of negotiating tactics, including military posturing, risky
maneuvers and occasional conciliatory gestures designed to get the other side to bend. For the United States to
run a more effective, coordinated campaign inside Iran, however, it will need to demonstrate it can alternate action
among the Iranian mix of minority groups. Only then can Washington unnerve the Iranians enough to cause
serious worries about potential leaks in their system, and thus enhance the U.S. bargaining position.

2007/04/iran-balochi-insurgents-and-iraq-tango.html