http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=25100
Pakistan tells Iran: Jundallah, TTP and LJ are involved
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
By Amir Mir
LAHORE:
Islamabadhas informed Tehran that Jundallah (or Soldiers of God), thePakistan-based anti-Shia militant outfit, which has claimedresponsibility for the October 18 deadly suicide attack in Zahedan,targeting Iranian Revolutionary Guards, is carrying out coordinatedterrorist operations with the help of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan(TTP) and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ), to undermine Pak-Iran ties.
Accordingto well-placed interior ministry sources in Islamabad, the explanationhas been conveyed to Tehran after the Iranian President MahmoudAhmadinejad alleged that Sundays mayhem in Tehran had been plottedfrom neighbouring Pakistan. Ahmadinejad had further alleged thatAbdolmalek Rigi, the chief of the Jundallah, who has claimedresponsibility for the attack, operates from Pakistan.
Sourcessaid during his Mondays telephonic conversation with President AsifZardari, his Iranian counterpart expressed deep concern over thefailure of the Pakistani authorities to proceed against the Jundallahnetwork in Balochistan and elsewhere despite having been providedspecific intelligence information by Tehran. He said the Tehran attackcould have been averted had Islamabad acted in time on the Iranianintelligence information.
While responding to the Iranianallegations, the ministry of interior has informed the concernedauthorities in Tehran through the Pakistani ambassador that the October10 Fidayeen attack on the General Headquarters of the Pakistan Army wasalso a coordinated operation which was carried out jointly by a selectgroup of highly trained militants belonging to the Tehrik-e-TalibanPakistan with the help of at least two Punjab-based militantorganisations the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and the Jaish-e-Mohammad. Theauthorities in Islamabad have conveyed in their post Sunday attacktalks with their Iranian counterparts that the enemies of Iran andPakistan are common and are trying to sabotage the recently signedPak-Iran gas pipeline project. The Iranian authorities were alsoapprised of the intelligence reports regarding a recent meeting betweenAbdul Malik Rigi and some top notches of the TTP.
TheOctober 18 suicide attack was not the first such incident blamed onPakistan. On May 28, 2009, Jundallah had carried out a deadly suicidebombing inside the Amirul Momenin Mosque in Zahedan, inSistan-Balochistan province of Iran, killing 25 people. Pakistaniambassador to Tehran MB Abbasi was subsequently summoned by the Iranianforeign ministry and told that three Pakistanis - Haji Noti Zehi,Gholam Rasoul Zehi and Zabihollah Naroui have already confessed tosmuggling explosives into Iran from Balochistan and passing them overto the suicide bomber. The trio was subsequently hanged in public inZahedan on May 30. Almost a week after the hanging, hundreds of Balochwomen and children took out a protest rally in Quetta on June 9, 2009and threatened to target the Iranian nationals in Pakistan, as areaction to the execution of the five Baloch nationals by the Iraniangovernment.
Jundallah, also known in Iran as the Rigi group(after its ringleader, Abdul Malik Rigi), is a rebel militant group ofIranian Baloch, who claims to represent their minoritys rights inIrans southeast province of Sistan-Balochistan. Their hideout is inPakistani Balochistan. Iran directly blames Jundallah for a series ofcross-border guerrilla operations that have been going on since 2003,killing mostly Iranian soldiers and border guards. In the wake of theOctober 18 suicide bombing in Tehran, Islamabad faces tremendouspressure to arrest and extradite Jundallah chief Rigi, who is believedto be based in Balochistan. While asserting that the Pakistanilaw-enforcement agencies were making efforts to dismantle the Jundallahnetwork from Balochistan, authoritative sources in the ministry ofinterior pointed out that the militant organisation in question hasactually stepped up its anti-Iran activities following the June 15,2008 extradition of Abdul Hamid Rigi, the brother of Jundallah chief,Abdolmalek Rigi, from Pakistan to Iran. Rigi is now being tried by anIranian court on terrorism charges.
Initially, patronised bylate Taliban commander Nek Mohammad, the Pakistan chapter of Jundallahusually draws its cadre from Jihadi and sectarian groups like theSipah-e-Sahaba and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.
Lt-Gen Ahsan SalimHayat, former corps commander of Karachi, was one of those high-profilepersonalities to have been targeted by the Pakistan chapter ofJundallah on June 10, 2004, killing 11 people including seven Armypersonnel when his convoy was ambushed near the Clifton bridge.
Interestingly,there are those in the Pakistani establishment who insist thatJundullah was actually created by the mastermind of 9/11 attacks,Khalid Sheikh Muhammad. He was arrested in March 2003 fromRawalpindi and handed over to the Americans, after which Jundallah wentwild. Soon after the Karachi attempt on the corps commander, the policewere able to apprehend a group of Jundullah terrorists headed by anArab, Musab Aruchi, who turned out to be a nephew of Khalid Sheikh witha million dollars on his head.
Jundallahwas not without its support system in the port city of Karachi as itproceeded to avenge the arrest and handover of its mastermind after2003. The support system included two MBBS doctors. Dr Akmal Wahid, anorthopaedic surgeon, and his younger brother Dr Arshad Wahid, a heartspecialist, were convicted in 2005 by an anti-terrorism court whichsent them behind bars for 18 years on charges of causing disappearanceof evidence by harbouring and providing medical treatment to activistsof banned Jundallah group. There were protest marches in Karachi andLahore by pious doctors when the two doctors were sentenced. As DrArshad Wahid was bailed out almost a year later, he got killed in a USmissile attack in the Wana on March 16, 2009. According to recentintelligence information passed on to the ministry of interior, theJundallah network is still active in Karachi and intends to carry outhostage taking operation for the release of its leader Sheikh AttaurRehman alias Zubair, who is currently imprisoned in Karachi Centraljail after the Anti-Violent Crime Unit arrested him in 2003 from hishideout in Model colony, Karachi.
