Word: pakistans
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What's more likely - and more intriguing - is the tacit involvement and cooperation of Pakistan. Jundallah, which means "Soldiers of God" in Arabic, has operated since 2002 in the borderlands between Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Tehran has long suspected that the group receives tactical support from forces within Pakistan, including the same elements in the country's notorious military intelligence that helped form the Afghan Taliban. If Islamabad was involved in Rigi's capture, the move, combined with recent arrests of senior Taliban leaders living on Pakistani soil, could be a sign of the country's new seriousness at getting...
Jundallah draws its recruits from the Baluch, an ethnic group whose historical homeland lies on both sides of Iran and Pakistan's desert border. The group says its aim is to fight for Baluch economic and political rights in Iran's marginalized southwest. But they are set apart from other Baluch outfits warring on the Pakistani side against Islamabad by their staunchly religious character. "The Baluch nationalists aren't really sectarian," says Syed Adnan, a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School for International Studies in Singapore. "Jundallah sees itself fighting a Sunni war against the Shi'a Islamic Republic...
...proved difficult. "There are a lot of ungoverned spaces along this border," says Kamran Bokhari, regional director for the Middle East and South Asia at Stratfor, a global intelligence firm based in Austin, Texas. Like other groups in the region, Jundallah exploited illicit smuggling routes between Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, possibly trading in arms and narcotics. Though there's little clear evidence, analysts suspect Jundallah received support and succor from a web of shadowy sources, including perhaps Saudi, Pakistani, Israeli and even U.S. intelligence agents. "The one consensus among experts on this matter is that Rigi...
Tehran and Islamabad had largely cordial ties until Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979. By the 1990s, they found themselves facing each other across a post-Cold War battle line as Pakistan built up the Afghan Taliban, whose Sunni puritanism grated against Iran's state Shi'ism. Following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Islamabad allowed the U.S. the use of two military bases in Pakistani Baluchistan for counterterror operations. This predictably drew Iran's ire and deepened its fears of external forces conspiring to undermine its interests both at home and in Afghanistan...
...countries have also stepped up diplomatic visits and military exchanges, including a Feb. 21 meeting held in Quetta - capital of Pakistani Baluchistan - between two senior Iranian and Pakistani army commanders. "It seems quite clear that the Iranians could not have [arrested Rigi] without Pakistani cooperation," says Bokhari. Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI, is said to have a highly sophisticated operation in Dubai, where Rigi was picked...