Killing the Guards and Facing the Consequences

The recent attack at Pishin in south-east Iran by a suicide bomber has inflicted significant losses on the higher ranks of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). General Nourali Shoushtari, deputy head of the IRGC's ground forces, and General Rajabali Mohammadzadeh, the IRGC commander in Sistan-Baluchistan province, were among six officers killed, along with more than thirty other people.

Responsibility for the attack has been claimed by Jundallah, a group also known as the People's Resistance Movement of Iran, which is a Sunni Muslim movement led by Abdolmalek Rigi. Based in Baluchistan, an area straddling the Iran-Pakistan border, Jundallah claims not to be a separatist organisation. Rather its aim is said to be to obtain better treatment for Baluchis, and Sunni Muslims in general, within Shia-dominated Iran. Since 2005 Jundallah's terrorist attacks within Iran have increased in both number and effectiveness.

The Iranian government has a simple explanation for the increasing impact of Jundallah's operations. This is increased foreign support for what Iran regards as a dangerous terrorist group. After the recent atrocity in Pishin, the Iranian government made the usual accusations that the USA and Britain were behind the attack. In response the Americans and the British made the usual denials of any involvement with terrorist attacks inside Iran. More directly, Iran accused Pakistan of allowing Jundallah bases to exist on its territory and demanded that Abdolmalek Rigi be handed over to the Iranian authorities. Pakistan rejected all Iran's accusations and demands.

The American, British and Pakistani denials of involvement with Jundallah are of course not to be taken seriously. For at least five years, the CIA, with full presidential and congressional backing, has been carrying out a strategy to destabilise the government in Tehran by encouraging ethnic insurgencies within Iran. The CIA has been assisted in its operations by Britain's MI6, Israel's Mossad, Pakistan's ISI, and the intelligence service of Saudi Arabia.

Nearly forty per cent of Iran's population are non-Persian and the CIA has sought to encourage terrorist activities by members of these minority ethnic groups. The principal groups involved have been the Azeri Turks in north-west Iran; the Kurds in western Iran; the Arabs in south-west Iran; and the Baluchis in south-east Iran. For several years after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the efforts of the CIA and its allies were concentrated on the Arab inhabitants of Iran's Khuzestan province, which borders southern Iraq. Bombings and other attacks took place, but eventually Iranian security forces got the upper hand. This rebuff led to renewed interest in Jundallah's operations in the Sistan-Baluchistan province of south-east Iran.

Originally suspect because of past links with the Taliban and al Qaeda, Jundallah now seemed an ideal vehicle for creating chaos in a vulnerable area of Iran. Closely connected with the existing drug smuggling trade in a region where the borders of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan meet, Jundallah had much support among the Baluchis and promised to open up a new front against the ayatollahs in Tehran.

The new importance assigned to Jundallah put Pakistan in a difficult position. Within their own borders the Pakistanis were struggling to suppress a Baluchi separatist insurrection, but now they were being asked to provide bases on their territory to support a Baluchi rising within neighbouring Iran. Such a contradictory situation was of course nothing new in the CIA's strategy against Tehran. Iraq's Kurds were encouraged to support Kurdish resistance in Iran while at the same time being discouraged from aiding the Kurdish insurgency within Turkey. As usual the Pakistanis became reconciled to the new situation thanks to suitable payments from their American and Saudi paymasters.

The efforts of Jundallah, the CIA's proxy, have now culminated in the killing of senior IRGC generals. How is Iran likely to react to this provocation? It is certainly not going to be cowed by foreign-sponsored terrorism within its borders. The IRGC, and in particular its elite Qods force, is almost certain to launch violent retaliation against those it regards as responsible.

The Taliban, whether Afghan or Pakistani, and al Qaeda are notorious for their hostility to Shia Muslims. Yet US intelligence has several times accused Shia-controlled Iran of supplying arms to the Sunni Muslim fundamentalist Taliban in Afghanistan so that they can fight the NATO occupying forces. Clearly the Iranians may be prepared to overlook past differences with the Taliban if they can use them as proxies to strike at the Americans and the British. Perhaps the Iranians might even supply the Taliban with shoulder-launched ground to air missiles, a development long feared by NATO military analysts.

Alternatively, Iran might encourage its proxies in Iraq to launch terror attacks on American forces still based in that country, or bombings might take place in Saudi Arabia's principal oil-producing area on the Gulf, where many oppressed Shia Muslims live. However, it is most likely that Iranian retaliation will be directed at Pakistan, the base for most Jundallah operations in Iran. The government of Pakistan does nothing more than utter muted protests when American UAVs attack Taliban bases on its sovereign territory. It is likely to react more strongly if Iranian land or air forces start attacking Jundallah bases on its territory. Hence Iran will probably use terrorist proxies within Pakistan to attack military and political targets.

No doubt the death of senior IRGC generals has brought satisfaction at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, but using proxies to kill supposed enemies is a two-edged sword. The IRGC has proxies of its own who will probably soon hit back at America and its allies.