By Gareth Smyth in Tehran
Published: January 30 2006 22:55 | Last updated: January 30 2006 22:55
Iran’s deputy interior minister on Monday warned of “severe punishment” if Sunni Muslim rebels in the south-eastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan harmed a soldier they captured last month.
Mohammad-Baqer Zolqadr said militants had released seven of eight soldiers kidnapped last month, but had claimed one was dead. “We still lack any accurate information and we hope these hooligans have not made any attempt on his life. But if this is true, severe punishment awaits,” he said.
The deputy minister blamed a group led by “Abdul-Malek Rigi”. The name was similar to “Abdul-Malek Baluchi”, given to al-Arabiya television in July as the name of the leader of a Baluchi group that sent the station a videotape of the beheading of an Iranian security official.
The killing had the hallmarks of Sunni militants linked to al-Qaeda, and al-Arabiya reported the group had demanded the release of jailed members and a ransom. Mr Zolqadr insisted on Monday that no “advantages” had been given to the kidnappers for releasing the seven soldiers.
The kidnappings have highlighted not just al-Qaeda’s apparent presence in Sistan-Baluchestan, which borders Pakistan and Afghanistan, but the potential for wider unrest among Iran’s ethnic and religious minorities at a time when the country faces growing international pressure over its nuclear program.
Half Iran’s 68 million people are made up of Persians, while the remainder include Kurds, Baluchis, Arabs, Lurs and Azeris. While close to 90 per cent of the population are Shia Muslims, the Kurds and the Baluchis are mainly Sunni. Kurds, Arabs and Baluchis all allege religious bias and discrimination in employment and regional development.
The deputy-governor of Ahvaz, provincial capital of the mainly Arab south-west province of Khuzestan, yesterday said 50 arrests had been made after two bombs last week killed eight people on a day that Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad was due to visit the city.
Manouchehr Mottaki, the foreign minister, has accused Britain of training militants in neighbouring Iraq to carry out the blasts and giving them refuge in London. It was unclear if he was referring to the Democratic Solidarity party of Ahvaz, which is London-based. The bombings were claimed on websites in the name of the Arab Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz as part of a fight for independence.
A collection of ethnic-based parties opposed to Iran’s Islamic republic last year announced a Congress of Iranian Nationalities for a Federal Iran, advocating a “federal democratic” system of government based on “the separation of religion and state”.
Among the signatories, the Kurdistan Democratic party of Iran has replaced its earlier advocacy of limited autonomy following the example of Kurdish federalism in Iraq. The KDPI has been based in Kurdish-held northern Iraq since it was defeated by Iranian forces in the early 1980s, and remains illegal although it gave up its “armed struggle” in 1997.
But there is little uniformity among Iran’s ethnic minorities or the parties purporting to represent them.
In last year’s presidential election, Kurdish turnout was low. But a high turnout in Sistan-Baluchestan saw more than 50 per cent of voters back Mostafa Moein, the reformist candidate running on a platform of ethnic rights. Dr Moein was backed by Abdul-Hamid Esmaeel-Zehi, an influential Sunni cleric who has spoken out against both separatism and al-Qaeda.
Iran’s largest ethnic minority, the Azeris, number 15m-20m but are well integrated, influential in Tehran’s bazaar, and include Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader.
Even the independence of Azerbaijan, the neighbouring former Soviet republic, in 1991 failed to stir significant unrest in Iran’s north-west, where Azeris predominate.
US dealings with Mahmud Ali Chehregani, a former parliamentary deputy who leads the Southern Azerbaijan National Awareness Movement, may have weakened any view in the US that Iran’s minorities could be harnessed to advance “regime change”. Mr Chehregani’s calls for Azeri protests have fallen flat."
No comments:
Post a Comment