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Iran Continues Efforts To Release Kidnapped Border Guard

By Katayoun Ebrahimi July 19, 2017

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Iranian soldiers on the border between Iran and Pakistan in Mirjaveh, Sistan-Baluchestan Province. / Behrouz Mehri / AFP - Getty Images

A border guard commander stationed in Iran’s southeast has confirmed that security officials continue their manhunt for a frontiersman that was kidnapped by Sunni extremists along the border with neighboring Pakistan in April.

Twelve Iranian border guards, including nine conscripts, were attacked by terrorists in Mirjaveh Town in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchestan province, which shares a border with Pakistan, when they were changing posts on April 26. Members of the Sunni militant group Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice) claimed responsibility for the attack in which three noncommissioned officers and six privates were killed. Two others were wounded, and another was held captive by terrorists. Iranian security forces are still searching for this twelfth victim.

“We are engaged in diplomatic talks to help release Saeed Barati, a border guard kidnapped on the Mirjaveh border,” Brigadier General Saeed Komili said on Monday, adding that the abducted border guard is reported to be in good health. 

Meanwhile, Ali Kord, an Iranian member of parliament representing the towns of Mirjaveh, Khash, Kurin and Nosratabad, told Iran’s statw-owned IRNA news agency that Barati’s abductors are looking to extort money for Barati’s release, but that Iran has an official policy of not permitting ransoms to be paid for the release of captives. 

The attack in April was not the first against Iranian security forces by Jaish al-Adl, which claims Sunni Muslims, particularly ethnic Baluchis, living in predominantly Shia Iran are discriminated against. The group has claimed responsibility for other attacks in the past, including one that killed eight border guards in April 2015, and another that claimed 14 border guards in October 2013.

Sistan-Baluchestan is considered an underdeveloped province, with mountainous terrain that makes patrolling the land difficult and ripe for illicit activity by rouge groups. The region is known for attracting drugs smugglers looking to move narcotics into and out of Pakistan to the east and Afghanistan to the north. Iran has spent more than $700 million to seal the borders and prevent the transit of narcotics destined for European, Arab and Central Asian countries from the world’s top drug producer, namely Afghanistan.

Besides Jaish al-Adl, other Sunni rebel groups operating in the region along Iran’s border include the Baluch nationalist group Jundallah, which sees the Islamic Republic of Iran as its enemy and is said to be linked to Al Qaeda. Harakat Ansar Iran is one of two groups that had split from Jundallah, the other being Jaish al-Adl, and has allegedly received support from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Afghanistan’s Taliban. In 2013, the group merged with another faction to form yet another Sunni Baluch militant group, called Ansar Al-Furqan.

Tehran usually accuses the US, Saudi Arabia, the UK, Qatar and the Taliban of supporting these armed groups, despite Jundallah, for example, being listed as a terrorist organization by the US. Additionally, Iran frequently complains to Pakistan about foreign-backed terrorists that use the Pakistan’s border regions to launch attacks in Iran’s Sistan- Baluchestan province.

On July 15, three rebel suspects were killed during a skirmish with Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps in Saravan, a town that lies along the Pakistan border. According to reports, the insurgents who killed two Iranian border officers were affiliated with “foreign spying services,” and following the armed clash two of the rebels are said to have escaped back into Pakistan.