Decoding Iran’s Politics: Jihadist Operations by Iranian Sunni Militants

February 20, 2019

7 min read

Decoding Iran’s Politics: Jihadist Operations by Iranian Sunni Militants

On February 13, 2019, a car bomb destroyed a bus carrying Revolutionary Guards troops, leaving 27 dead and 13 injured. The suicide attack was claimed by an Iranian Sunni group named Jaish al-Adl (“Army of Justice”), which active in the Sistan and Baluchistan province in the southeast of Iran close to the borders of both Pakistan and Afghanistan. The perpetrators targeted the bus as it traveled to Zahedan, the province’s capital.

The recent attack occurred about two months after another suicide attack in Sistan and Baluchistan. The previous attack took place on December 6, 2018, in the Chabahar free trade zone on the coast of the Gulf of Oman. In that incident, another Sunni group, Ansar al-Forqan (“the helpers of the Koran”) perpetrated a suicide attack against a police headquarters, killing four and wounding dozens of others. The operation took place despite the Iranian government’s announcement in October 2017, in the aftermath of a devastating operation against this group, that the security forces had eradicated Ansar al-Forqan.

The two recent operations were widely covered by Iranian media from different viewpoints, especially because suicide attacks in Iran, unlike some neighbouring countries, have not been commonplace. These operations also attracted the attention of analysts and experts, who examined the history of operations by jihadist groups in Iran, especially those of Jaish-al-Adl, Jondallah and ISIS.

Jaish al-Adl Attacks

Jaish al-Adl begun its operations in 2012. The group claims to defend the rights of the Sunni minority in Sistan and Baluchistan province. Butit has also been quite critical of Iran’s involvement in the Syrian civil war.

The February 13 car bomb was apparently Jaish al-Adl’s first suicide operation in Iran. Prior to this, the group had conducted a series of attacks and kidnappings of Iranian forces near the borders of Pakistan but had not carried out suicide bombings.

Before its most recent operation, the group had staged a series of deadly attacks against Iranian police and Revolutionary Guards forces in Sistan and Baluchistan on August 25, 2012, October 9, 2012, October 25, 2013, April 6, 2015, April 26, 2017 and February 2, 2019.

Jaish al-Adl had also perpetrated a number of kidnappings of Iranian border guards. In particular, it kidnapped five police personnel on February 17, 2014 and 14 Revolutionary Guards and Basij troops on October 16, 2018, taking the hostages into Pakistani territory.

Jaish al-Adl operations have created ongoing tensions between Iran and Pakistan. Iranian authorities blame Islamabad for not doing enough to prevent the infiltration of terrorist cells into Iran. Some Iranian officials accuse Pakistani intelligence agents of turning a blind eye to the Jaish al-Adl operatives, or collaborating with them. On the other hand, Pakistan says it has a very limited control over the tribal regions near Iran’s borders, and that in these regions, many anti-Pakistan government operations take place, too.

Jundallah Attacks

Jundallah emerged as an armed Sunni militant group in 2005 and continued its operations until 2010, when it was crushed by Iranian security forces. Many security analysts consider Jaish al-Adl to be the successor of Jundallah, asserting that the new group was formed from the remaining members of the old group.

Jundallah, like Jaish al-Adl, was active in Sistan and Baluchistan province, portraying itself as an advocate of the Iranian Baluch minority. In 2005 and 2006, the group carried out operations on various routes in the province, killing low-ranking state officials and even civilians. At the same time, in 2009 and 2010, Jundallah staged at least three suicide attacks in Zahedan, the province’s capital.

In two operations on May 28, 2009 and July 16, 2010, the group’s suicide bombers hit two Shia mosques and killed tens of civilians and a number of government forces. In its biggest operation, which was carried out on October 18, 2009, the Jundallah suicide bombers attacked a site where a state-run seminar was taking place, and killed more than 30 individuals, including the deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards ground forces, as well as the Guards commander of Sistan and Baluchistan province.

The Islamic Republic of Iran arrested the leader of Jindallah, Abdolmalek Rigi, on February 23, 2010, and executed him on June 20, 2010. About three weeks after his execution, Jundallah carried out another big suicide attack. However, the group has been practically inactive since the beginning of 2011.

ISIS Operations

Over the last few years, Iranian intelligence agencies have claimed to have neutralized a number of ISIS-planned attacks within the country. Nevertheless, in 2017 and 2018, the group committed two major terrorist operations in Iran, none of which were suicide attacks. On June 7, 2017, ISIS staged two simultaneous attacks on the Iranian parliament building and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini in Tehran. A great majority of the attacks’ casualties — 17 victims and 43 wounded — were civilians.

In retaliation for the attacks, on June 18, 2017, the Revolutionary Guards fired missiles at a target it described as being an ISIS headquarters in Syria. The Iranian authorities said that the targeted headquarters was connected to ISIS operations in Tehran.

The second ISIS-affiliated terrorist attack occurred on September 22, 2018, during a military parade in the southwestern city of Ahvaz. This operation left 25 people dead, including military personnel and civilians. The attack was first claimed by one of the spokesmen of an Arab separatist group named the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz (ASMLA). But later, ISIS officially claimed responsibility for the Ahvaz attacks.

On 1 October 2018, the Revolutionary Guards launched a series of retaliatory missile and drone attacks on an ISIS base in Syria.

The Evolution of Jihadist Attacks in Iran

On June 20, 1994, a bomb exploded at the shrine of Ali Ibn Musa Reza, the eighth Shia Imam, in Mashhad, the second largest city in Iran. The attack left 25 dead and more than 70 injured. The Iranian government blamed the MEK, the Mujahedin-e Khalq organization, for the attacks.

However, it was later discovered that this attack was carried out by Iranian Sunni militants in retaliation for the Iranian government’s destruction of a Sunni mosque in Mashhad. A month after the attack, a Sunni group calling itself the Islamic Movement of Iran claimed responsibility for the operation. It later emerged that the Iranian perpetrators of this operation were connected to Pakistan-based jihadist cells.

The 1994 terrorist attack was possibly the first recognized operation by Sunni militants in Iran. After the US invasion of Afghanistan, a hardline Sunni (Salafi) group named Ansar al-Islam was formed in Iranian Kurdistan by Al-Qaeda members who had fled Afghanistan. The Iranian intelligence apparatus tolerated Ansar al-Islam’s presence in Kurdistan, apparently because it intended to use the Sunni jihadis’ potential against the US army in case Iran was the American forces’ next target. After the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Ansar al-Islam extended its presence in Kurdistan, which led to the formation of a new hardline Salafi cell in this province (Iranian Kurds are Sunni but not Salafi). The Iranian Kurds under the influence of this imported, new jihadist ideology were later involved in the murder of a handful of state officials. In addition, four out of the five attackers from the June 2017 ISIS operation in Tehran were Iranian Kurdish militants who had embraced the Salafi ideology.

Nevertheless, most Iranian citizens who have been involved in jihadist operations within the country have come from Sistan and Baluchistan rather than Kurdistan. Baluchi groups such as Jaish al-Adl and Jondallah have been responsible for the great majority of such operations over the last 15 years.

Finally, it appears that the Syrian civil war and the Islamic Republic’s involvement in this conflict has played a considerable role in the intensification of jihadist operations in Iran. After the civil war began, a number of Iranian Sunni citizens, mainly from Kurdistan and Sistan and Baluchistan provinces, headed to Syria, and some of them came back to Iran after having what they believed to be a significant jihadi experience.

The Islamic Republic has always accused the US, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as the enemies of the Syrian government, of supporting and orchestrating jihadist operations inside Iran, an accusation these countries deny.