RFE/RL IRAN REPORT, Vol. 3, No. 41, 30 October 2000
INSURGENCY IN THE EAST?
Events in Khorasan Province at the end of October call
attention to the poor security situation there. Indeed,
together with other provincial developments, these latest
events suggest that what is taking place is more than simple
lawlessness.
On 21 October, state television reported the killing of
"four insurgents" near the villages of Sarbala and Nuri in
the Torbat-i Heidarieh district, but "a number of armed
insurgents escaped the area of the clashes." Three days
later, IRNA reported the evacuation of three villages --
supposedly due to an explosion at an ammunition depot State
radio reported on 25 October that traffic along the Mashhad
to Neyshabur/Torbat-i Heidarieh route, as well as the Tehran-
Mashhad route, was stopped to protect the public. No reason
for the alleged explosion or fire was given.
At the same time that these events were occurring,
locals from different villages - Deh No, Kasrineh, and
Badafkan (Bardeskan) - held demonstrations in Kashmar, a
Khorasan Province town, over a series of kidnappings. Kazem
Khoshniat, a local journalist, told RFE/RL's Persian Service
that because some of the kidnappings go unreported, there are
no solid numbers on how many there are. He went on to say
that there has always been some banditry in this part of the
country, but now there is real physical danger and it has
become so bad that many villagers are afraid to go out at
night, and in other cases livestock and crops are untended.
Khorasan's Governor-General Mohsen Mehralizadeh called
on the Law Enforcement Forces to step up their security
measures against "Afghan bandits and smugglers," IRNA
reported on 25 October. President Mohammad Khatami met with
Khorasan Province parliamentarians two days earlier and said
that the provincial security situation requires cooperation
between the executive and the legislature, and from the
security and military forces. The central government hopes to
improve the security situation by sealing the eastern border
and assigning more security personnel there.
Closing off the borders is not enough, Khoshniat told
RFE/RL's Persian Service. As it is, the Afghans are able to
penetrate 300 kilometers into Iranian territory, sell their
drugs, and commit other crimes. The failure to solve the
province's security problem does not make sense to the
locals, Khoshniat said. He pointed out that Iran fought and
won an eight-year war with Iraq against much greater odds,
and the central government succeeded in its campaign in
Kurdistan in spite of harsher terrain.
In addition to closing the borders, the government has
been preparing village defense units, a plan that was
announced earlier this summer (see "RFE/RL Iran Report," 18
September 2000). The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps's
mobilization and arming of villagers is familiar. The U.S.
Army Special Forces' Vietnam-era Civilian Irregular Defense
Group program called for arming locals, too, with the
intention of strengthening South Vietnamese counterinsurgency
efforts and discouraging locals from joining the Viet Cong.
Within a few years of its establishment about 60,000
Vietnamese highlanders had joined the CIDG program.
Eventually, CIDG units led by Special Forces engaged in
military operations. More recently, village defense units in
Turkey fought the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and there
are village defense units in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, and
Thailand.
Referring to insurgents as "bandits," "smugglers," or
"criminals" is a common way of trying to delegitimise their
struggle. This method was employed by the Soviet Union when
referring to the Afghan Mujahedin, and the Russian Federation
uses the same tactic in its current conflict in Chechnya. But
official Iranians use the term "insurgent" with some
frequency.
Brigadier-General Abdol Ali Purshasb, commander of the
Ground Force of the Army, noted that the army is employed
against "insurgents" in the east (Saff, April-May 2000).
Similar comments appeared in an interview with Brigadier
General Mostafa Torabipur, Chief of the Joint Staff of the
Army (Saff, March-April 2000); and in the report to the
president from Commander-in-Chief of the Army Major General
Mohammad Salimi (Saff, July-August 2000). Also, IRNA referred
to the deaths of "insurgents" at least nine times since
January.
Some observers suspect that attention to eastern
insecurity has taken on a factional tone and serves as a way
to criticize the Interior Ministry and the Khatami
government. Indeed, conservative newspapers from Mashhad like
"Qods" and "Khorasan" write about the subject in dramatic
terms. On 26 October, furthermore, Governor-General
Mehralizadeh attacked Iranian state broadcasting for its
reportage on the subject. Local journalist Kazem Khoshniat,
however, said that locals actually thank IRIB for bringing
attention to the matter, although he admitted that the
newspaper accounts are exaggerated. (Bill Samii)
Copyright (c) 2000. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
http://www.rferl.org
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