The recent arrest of the Jundallah chief Abdulrauf Rigi by the
Pakistani security forces, hardly six months after the June 2010
execution of its founding ameer, Abdulmalak Rigi by Tehran, has come
as yet another major setback to the insurgent Sunni
sectarian-cum-militant group which claims to be fighting for the
rights of the country’s Sunni Muslims and operates not only in the
Sistan-Baluchistan province of Iran but also has presence in
Pakistan’s Baluchistan province.
Jundallh or the Army of God, which has already been renamed as Peoples
Resistant Movement of Iran (PRMI), was founded in 2003 and is known
for carrying out terror attacks against high profile Iranian targets,
especially the government and the security officials, in a bid to
pressure Tehran for the secession of Sistan-Baluchistan province of
Iran from the countries it was actually divided among (Iran, Pakistan
and Afghanistan) and to create their own unified country. The Sunni
majority of Sistan-Baluchistan maintained the unity of its lands
throughout the centuries, until it was divided between Iran, Pakistan
and Afghanistan after the British invasion. This led to the
establishment of Iranian, Pakistani and Afghan Baluchistans.
Nevertheless, the Baluchis in the three areas maintained their
allegiance to their ethnic identity, as well as their language,
culture and Sunni/Salafi version of Islam.
While narrating Jundallah’s agenda in an October 2008 interview with
Al-Arabiya television, Abdulmalak Rigi had stated that the Iranian
Baloch were not interested in independence from Iran, but only seek to
achieve a better life for the Baloch minority, within a state that
respects their human rights, culture, and faith. “We are ready to lay
down arms and enter the Iranian politics, but only if we are allowed
to practice our rights in full. The only thing we want from the
Iranian government is to be citizens. We want to have the same rights
as the Iranian Shia people. That’s it”. He described his group as an
Islamic awakening movement but denied any ties with al-Qaeda or the
Taliban. He also told the interviewer that despite the fact that many
of his aides have been martyred … he was prepared to reach an
understanding with the Iranian government.
However, Abdulmalak Rigi was arrested in February 2010 while he was
spotted on a flight from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan. Iranian warplanes
subsequently forced the commercial aircraft to land in Iran. “Get
Rigi” operation could not have been possible without help of the
Pakistani security agencies which had passed on some vital information
about his travel plans as soon as he had left a US military base in
Afghanistan after holding a secret meeting with the NATO military
chief there. Iranian Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi subsequently
described Rigi’s capture as a great defeat for the United States,
while showing pictures of Rigi taken inside an American military base
in Afghanistan.
Abdulmalak was succeeded by his younger brother Abdulrauf as Jundallah
chief in June 2010 after he was sent to the gallows by the Iranian
authorities on terrorism charges following a brief trial. But the
Pakistani authorities arrested him barely six month later [on December
22, 2010]after tracking him down through his wireless set while he
was making a phone call from his Pak-Iran border area hideout in
Balochistan. The Pakistani agencies were making frantic efforts to
track him down following the December 15, 2010 killing of 40 people in
a suicide bombing in the Iranian city of Chabahar. His arrest came the
day the Pakistani and the Iranian presidents were in Istanbul to
attend the Economic Cooperation Organisation’s summit. Rigi is
expected to be handed over to Iran shortly after being interrogated by
the Pakistani security and intelligence agencies for his group’s
alleged links with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ).
The dedication of the Rigi brothers with their cause can be gauged
from the fact that one of them – Abdolgafoor Rigi – had opted to
sacrifice himself by executing a suicide car bombing on December 28,
2008, targeting the headquarters of Iran’s joint police and
anti-narcotics unit in the Saravan city.
Besides the Iran-based group of the same name, another Jundallah
operates in Pakistan which is believed to have close ties to the
Iranian outfit. Initially patronised by Commander Nek Mohammad, the
late commander of the local Taliban in South Waziristan, the Pakistan
chapter of Jundallah usually draws its cadre from anti-Shia jehadi and
sectarian groups like the Sipah-e-Sahaba and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. Lt
Gen Ahsan Saleem Hayat, the former Corps Commander of Karachi was one
of those high profile personalities to have been targeted by the
Pakistan chapter of Jundallah on June 10, 2004, killing 11 people
including seven army personnel when his convoy was ambushed near the
Clifton Bridge in Karachi.
Interestingly, however, there are those in the establishment circles
who insist that the Jundallah was actually created by the master
planner of 9/11 terror attacks, Khalid Sheikh Muhammad. He was
arrested in March 2003 from the garrison town of Rawalpindi and handed
over to the Americans, following which the Jundallah went wild and
carried out several terrorist activities. After the Karachi attempt on
the corps commander, the police were able to apprehend a group of
Jundallah terrorists headed by an Arab, Musab Aruchi, who eventually
turned out to be a nephew of Khalid Sheikh with a million dollars on
his head. One of the Pakistani’s Jundallah’s most wanted operative in
Karachi is Qasim Toori.
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