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Images from the twin Jaish al-Adl attacks in Chabahar and Rask. (Source: Bakhtar News Agency)

Executive Summary:

On April 3, the Iran-based Sunni separatist militant group Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice) launched a highly sophisticated attack for the first time since its emergence. The group targeted multiple locations in Irans city of Chabahar, including the local naval forces headquarters and the headquarters of an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) detachment, an Intelligence Department office, and a police station (IranWire, April 5). Simultaneously, the groups fighters also attacked targets in the cities of Rask and Sarbaz for 14 hours, which led to the death of 11 Iranian troops and 18 militants (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, April 4). Irans representative to the UN Security Council demanded a strong condemnation of the attack, as only Pakistan had directly condemned Jaish al-Adls actions at that point (Iran International, March 6). The high-profile assault resembled those carried out by Baloch separatist groups in Pakistans Balochistan province, especially by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA). This raises the question as to whether Jaish al-Adl is borrowing its strategies and tactics from Baloch separatists in Pakistan, and to what extent there is a nexus between them.

The BLAs Complex Attacks

Of all the Baloch separatist groups in Pakistan, the BLA is the most active and launches the most complex attacks. The group has been targeting sensitive targets in Balochistan since 2018, and its targets range from Chinese interests in the port city of Gwadar to Pakistani forces and military installations in the province of Balochistan. On March 26, the groups Majeed Brigade (sometimes referred to as the BLAs suicide squad, given its tactics; see Terrorism Monitor, July 1, 2022) attacked Pakistans second largest naval air station, PNS Siddique, in Turbat. Turbat is near Gwadar, whose port is considered the crown jewel of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The attack lasted for three hours and resulted in the deaths of over a dozen Pakistani security forces (WION, March 26).

Before the attack on PNS Siddique, on March 20, the BLAs Majeed Brigade launched another attack against Pakistani intelligence facilities in Gwadar. The group struck the local Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Military Intelligence (MI) headquarters, resulting in the death of more than 25 members of the Pakistani military. The attack involved several hours of heavy combat, including a fierce engagement with the Pakistan Navy SEALs (The Balochistan Post, March 21).

Earlier this year, the BLA had also launched another well-coordinated attack in the Mach Area of Balochistan, which it termed Operation Dara-e-Bolan. This attack lasted for two days and involved 385 BLA fighters from different units, including 12 fidayeen (suicide bombers) from the Majeed Brigade and members of the Fateh Squad, Special Tactical Operations Squad (STOS), and the intelligence wing. In this attack, the BLA claimed the killing of 78 members of the Pakistani security forces. The attack was the most complex and intense in the history of the Baloch insurgency (ANI, February 4).

In August 2023, the BLA also attacked a military convoy carrying Chinese engineers in Gwadar (see Terrorism Monitor, January 12). Immediately after the attack, the spokesman of the group, Jeeyand Baloch, issued a 90-day ultimatum to the Chinese to leave Balochistan or face intensified attacks (The Balochistan Post, August 14, 2023). Beijing has not withdrawn.

Jaish al-Adls Adoption of the BLAs Attack Strategy

The complexity of the recent attack by Jaish al-Adl in Chabahar shows that it might have learned from the Baloch separatist insurgents in Pakistan. Similar to these groups, Jaish al-Adl is mostly composed of Baloch people, and Jaish al-Adls leader, Salahuddin Farooqui, has demanded an independent Balochistan that includes the ethnic populations on both sides of the IranPakistan border. To that point, Jaish al-Adls militants call Farooqui the Leader of Baluchestan/Balochistan Jihad (Iran International, January 21).

Like Gwadar in Pakistan, Chabahar is a strategically important port town in Iran populated by the Baloch people; it is often considered a competitor of Gwadar. Whereas China and India have both invested inand are competing for influence inChabahar, Gwadar is the main node of the exclusively Chinese-led CPEC. Attacks by the Baloch separatists in Gwadar and by Jaish al-Adl in Chabahar are aimed at disrupting economic activity in both states and sabotaging foreign development projects to fulfill their collective goal of an independent and united Balochistan.

Conclusion

Jaish al-Adls parent group, Jundullah, was sectarian in nature and preferred to target the Shia population of Pakistan. However, Jaish al-Adls focus is on the liberation of the Baloch people from Irans theocratic government. Being an ethno-nationalist militant groupas opposed to a sectarian onebrings Jaish al-Adl and the BLA close in many ways, and the increasingly complex attack strategy demonstrated by the former suggests that a cross-border nexus may have developed between the two Baloch militant groups. Although Jaish al-Adl is religious and the BLA secular, the two militant groups share a common goaland increasingly, a common means to that end.

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Iran-Based Baloch Separatist Group Jaish al-Adl Appears to Adopt Complex Attack Strategies from Baloch Liberation ... - The Jamestown Foundation

Iran and Al Qaeda endorsed pro-Palestinian and anti-war student protests this week, providing new challenges for the movement, which is calling for university divestment from Israel.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in social media posts and a long video on Wednesday that university students in the United States of America are standing on the right side of history.

You have now formed a branch of the resistance front and have begun an honourable struggle, said a letter quoted on his X account.

Mr Khamenei's message of support is in sharp contrast to how his own country dealt with anti-government protests in 2022, after the death of a young woman in morality police custody.

The crackdown on the movement, which focused largely on women's rights and demands for reform, led to mass arrests and even death sentences for some protesters.

This week, Al Qaeda also expressed its approval of the student movement.

We appreciate and value the movement of western demonstrators and sit-in students from western universities, who through their sit-ins and protests expressed their rejection of the genocide taking place in Gaza, a statement from Al Qaeda's central command said, according to a translation by the Long War Journal.

Hamas has also expressed support for the demonstrators, calling them the leaders of the future.

Izzat Al Risheq of the group's political bureau said students were demonstrating because of their rejection of the genocide that our Palestinian people are subjected to in the Gaza Strip.

The group has been designated a terrorist organisation by the US and other countries.

Over the past weeks, students at universities across the US set up tent camps, occupied academic buildings and held protests calling for their universities to divest from investments and academic programmes connected to Israel's actions in the Palestinian territories.

The student movement has been accused of supporting terrorism, and public endorsements by Iran and extremist groups have reignited that criticism.

But critics say the statements appear to be attempts to co-opt the student movement.

There is no evidence that the movement is connected to extremist groups.

Israel supporters and critics have accused participants of sympathising with Hamas due to their pro-Palestine messaging.

Others, including Israeli leaders, have accused protesters of being anti-Semitic.

Students involved in the movement, however, point to the soaring death toll in Gaza now past 36,200 according to local health authorities as the impetus for the on-campus pro-Palestine movement that has spread around the world.

Pro-Palestine protesters say they were compelled to act by images of destruction, starvation and displacement in the Gaza Strip.

While there have been reports of some hate incidents, the protests have been mostly peaceful although some schools have called in police for mass arrests in response.

Updated: May 31, 2024, 5:28 AM

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Iran and Al Qaeda accused of trying to co-opt US pro-Palestine protests - The National

Around 30 years ago, Iran told the world it had disposed of all its chemical weapons. It became a founding member of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and an active presence on the world stage against their use, after an estimated 100,000 Iranians suffered debilitating injuries after Saddam Hussein used mustard gas and nerve agents in dozens of attacks during the Iran-Iraq war.

But while the world has been focused on Tehrans nuclear programme, reports from inside Iran and statements from the US government point to a growing industry of pharmaceutical-based weapons. Iran maintains a chemical weapons program that includes incapacitating agents for offensive purposes, Nicole Shampaine, the US ambassador to the OPCW in The Hague, told Tortoise. This is an area that is a significant concern to us.

Pharmaceutical-based chemical weapons are based on substances such as fentanyl, the synthetic opioid which has ravaged the US. They are aimed at rendering targets unconscious. Leaks from regime-backed universities in Iran appear to show that fentanyl and other central nervous system-acting substances are being developed into aerosolised forms for use on civilians in riot control situations.

These kinds of weapons are often referred to as non-lethal incapacitants, but in practice they can be deadly. In 2002 Russian special forces pumped what is widely believed to have been a fentanyl derivative into a Moscow theatre where hundreds of hostages were being held by Chenyan terrorists. They were successful in regaining control of the theatre, but more than 130 hostages died in the process.

Both the American and Israeli governments say they have intelligence that Iran is developing such weapons, but wont give more detail. Israel is a known hawk when it comes to Iran. The Biden administration is less so.

Several leaks published by Iranian hackers opposed to the Islamic Revolutionary regime in Tehran appear to show academic papers discussing the development of such chemicals. But it is hard to verify such leaks.

In one case described to Tortoise, a veterinary sedative delivered in very large quantities to a regime-affiliated university in Tehran with no veterinary programme later appeared in leaked academic papers describing its use as an incapacitating agent for riot control.

Have they been used? Its possible. Over several months in 2022 and 2023, thousands of school girls in Iran became sick and with symptoms including vomiting and streaming nose and eyes. Some have claimed this as evidence that the regime used pharmaceutical-based agents (PBAs) against its own citizens in an attempt to bring an end to the anti-hijab protests gathering momentum across the country.

The Iranian government has claimed these were attacks carried out by Irans enemies and at other times insisted it was a case of mass hysteria. Attempts by journalists and human rights groups to gather concrete evidence have been unsuccessful.

Whats stopping them? Not much. The OPCW drafted new legislation banning aerosolized use of central nervous system-acting chemical agents in 2021, which designated these weapons as illegal in both law enforcement settings and warfare. The proposal was opposed by Iran, Russia and China but passed anyway.

Although the OPCW is mandated to prevent the use or development of chemical weapons it does not do spot checks. It is possible for a signatory state to call for a challenge inspection on another member nation, although Tortoise understands this has never happened in the organisations 30-year history. Even if it were to happen, the challenged state would have plenty of notice before any inspection enough time to wipe the surfaces clean.

The norm against using chemical weapons is under stress more broadly after the Syrian states use of chemical weapons and, more recently, reports that Russia has used riot-control agents, like CS gas, on the battlefield against Ukraine. In this context CS gas is considered a chemical weapon.

Whats more: In a new podcast series Tortoise investigates a German man accused of sending a chemical that can be used to make mustard gas to Iran during the Iran-Iraq war. He has been on the run for more than three decades Tortoise tracked him down.

Listen to his story: The Gas Man

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Exclusive: Iran believed to be developing chemical weapons, decades after publicly giving them up - Tortoise - Tortoise Media

While shooting his new film The Seed of the Sacred Fig, the director Mohammad Rasoulof learned that he was facing eight years in prison for making movies that criticize Irans hard-line government.

So Rasoulof fled Iran, made his way to Germany, and then arrived in France this past week for the Cannes Film Festival. After The Seed of the Sacred Fig premiered in competition at the festival to strong reviews on Friday night, Rasoulof promised to continue making films that shine a light on the situation in his country.

The Islamic Republic has taken the Iranian people hostage, he said at a news conference on Saturday. Its very important, then, to talk about this indoctrination.

Set against a backdrop of student protests in Tehran, The Seed of the Sacred Fig follows an investigating judge in the Revolutionary Court in Tehran whose job approving death sentences begins to take a heavy toll on him and his family. The judges paranoia is stoked after his gun goes missing, and as he begins to suspect his wife and daughters of conspiring against him, he makes drastic moves to determine who the culprit is.

Rasoulof said the idea for the film had come to him in 2022, when he was imprisoned alongside the director Jafar Panahi for signing a petition that called on Irans security forces to use restraint during public protests.

After his release in February 2023, the director began formulating a plan to shoot The Seed of the Sacred Fig in a clandestine fashion, with a small crew, so as not to arouse suspicion. Sometimes people said, Theres someone outside lurking, and we would all scatter, Mahsa Rostami, an actress in the film, said at the news conference. We just prayed that this project would be followed through to the end.

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Director Who Fled Iran Brings a Movie and a Message of Hope to Cannes - The New York Times

Students abducted

Princetons student exchange program first took off in 2014, when a prominent Iranian-American scholar and future Biden administration official, Ariane Tabatabai, connected the Iran centers then-associate director to Mostafa Zahrani, a senior Iranian foreign ministry diplomat with strong ties to his countrys elite military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). I wanted to introduce you to a friend who is in Princeton, and you will see him in Vienna in three weeks, Tabatabai wrote, ccing Kevan Harris, the then associate director. He is interested in sharing with you a plan to send Iranian students to Princeton and to send American students to Iran.

Harris jumped at this opening, according to correspondence seen by Semafor, and arranged to see Zahrani in Austria two weeks later on the sidelines of the nuclear negotiations that were taking place between Iran, the US, and other global powers. The follow-up took time, but by early 2015, Princeton welcomed its first candidate for the Iran program: a Chinese-American graduate student named Wang Xiyue.

Wang was hesitant about going to Tehran, he told Semafor in recent interviews. He didnt speak Farsi, and his Ph.D. work initially focused on the Soviet Unions role in Central Asia, rather than issues related to Iran itself. He also raised with Princeton his concerns about security, given Irans history of abducting American citizens and the fact Tehran had no diplomatic ties with Washington.

On Dec. 1, 2015, Wang emailed administrators that he felt he needed to be as specific as possible about his scholarship with Iranian officials to protect himself once on the ground. [A]s a US citizen of non-Iranian descen[t], I think it would be preferable for me to be as transparent as possible so that I would not be deported from the country for doing things my visa does not prescribe me to do, he wrote.

But Harris and other Princeton officials reassured Wang about his safety and the importance of learning Farsi in Iran, both for his dissertation and future academic work. Its a good time to go [to Iran] looks like they are in a good mood over there, Harris wrote to Wang in the weeks before his January 2016 departure. Take advantage of it.

Wangs reservations proved to be right. Six months after his arrival in Tehran, Irans intelligence ministry confiscated his US passport. On Aug. 7, 2016, he was arrested on espionage charges and sent to Irans feared Evin Prison, where he spent more than three years, at times in solitary confinement and threatened with death.

Princeton denied that it in any way downplayed the risks of travel to Iran nor pressured Wang into joining the exchange program. Princeton did not direct, and indeed did not have the power to direct, Mr. Wangs travel, university spokesman Michael Hotchkiss told Semafor. And it was Princeton University that undertook a relentless, multi-year and multi-million-dollar global effort to secure his release.

Last year, a second Princeton graduate student, Elizabeth Tsurkov, was abducted by an Iranian-backed militia in Iraq. She hasnt been seen since last November.

Tsurkovs journey to Princeton was an unusual one. The academic and journalist was born in Russia, raised and educated in Israel, and earned her masters degree in social science from the University of Chicago in 2019 with a 3.9 GPA. Throughout this time, she showed a remarkable ability particularly for an Israeli to engage the Middle Easts religious groups, militias, and political movements in hotspots like Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon.

Tsurkov has said in published interviews that she began her reporting through the heavy use of social media. Fluent in Arabic, she employed Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp to document the plight of people caught in war zones, and amassed a substantial online following and network in the process. She also used her Russian passport to visit Arab countries that are largely off limits to Israelis.

Tsurkov has acknowledged that her citizenship and religion unnerved some of her contacts. But her colleagues and family said that her writings, which have focused heavily on the plight of victims of regional and sectarian violence including Palestinians have allowed her to gain and maintain the trust of the groups and individuals shes documenting. Among her affiliations is an Israeli-Palestinian think tank that educates Israelis on Islam and their Arab neighbors in a bid to support the peace process.

I think that what drives all of them, at the end of the day, to speak to me is a feeling that I care about them, and I want to properly reflect their perspectives and their views, Tsurkov told the media outlet Al-Monitor in a 2021 podcast.

Tsurkovs doctoral work at Princeton was focused on the patronage systems that underpin political movements in Lebanon, Iraq, and Iraqi Kurdistan and why their members often remain loyal to feudal and sectarian leaders who deliver little economic development in return. In her thesis proposal from 2021, which was approved and funded by Princeton, she outlined the travels shed made, and would continue to make, to Baghdad, northern Iraq, and Lebanon.

Tsurkov was kidnapped on March 21, 2023 from a cafe in the central Baghdad neighborhood of Karrada, just days after undergoing back surgery in an Iraqi hospital for a herniated disc. Both the US and Israeli governments blame the Iranian-backed militia Kataib Hezbollah (KH) for the abduction.

KH was established in 2003 with the direct support of Irans IRGC, and is designated by the US as a terrorist organization. KHs militia forms the largest part of Iraqs national guard, known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, and KH politicians serve in Iraqi Prime Minister Shia Al Sudanis government. US officials say KH also regularly coordinates with the IRGC to attack American military facilities and personnel in Iraq and the wider region. This includes a January drone strike on a Pentagon base in Jordan that killed three American troops.

The Trump administration assassinated KHs founding commander, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, in a January 2020 missile strike on his convoy in Baghdad. He was accompanied by the IRGCs most powerful general, Qasem Soleimani, who also died in the attack. Iran has vowed to avenge both of their deaths. KH hasnt contacted the Tsurkov family nor made any demands for her release.

Elizabeths sister, Emma Tsurkov, has publicly criticized Princetons response to the kidnapping mirroring, in many ways, complaints raised by Wang Xiyue. Last August, she penned an opinion piece in the New Jersey Star-Ledger claiming the school had been denying it approved Elizabeths travel to Iraq and was telling the State Department that their grad student had essentially gone rogue. Emma Tsurkov stressed in her article that any divide between the school and Elizabeth was extremely dangerous as it could only fuel charges that she was a spy and hurt her chances of coming home.

Emma told Semafor that Elizabeth, once in Iraq, was in regular contact with her Princeton thesis advisor, Professor Amaney Jamal, the dean of the School of Public and International Affairs. This included occasional video calls from Baghdad. But the Tsurkov family has been disappointed that Jamal hasnt met with Emma in person since Elizabeths disappearance, something Princeton doesnt dispute.

The school in October, for the first time, publicly took responsibility for Elizabeths research and travel to Iraq, even while raising questions about whether she followed proper procedures going there. Spokesman Hotchkiss told Semafor that Princeton is totally committed to gaining her release by making available reputable outside experts the University has retained and by advocating with US government officials to use their influence to help bring Elizabeth home safely.

He added that Jamal directly communicated her deep concern for Elizabeth and her family to Emma Tsurkov via email and that the school has appointed a deputy dean at the graduate school to serve as a point person. [The administrator] is available for Emma at any time and remains in contact with her, he said.

KH released a proof-of-life video in November in which a visibly exhausted Elizabeth Tsurkov reads a statement in Hebrew claiming she was both an operative for the CIA and Mossad, the Israeli spy agency. (The US and Israel deny this charge.) The student is believed to still be in Baghdad.

Emma Tsurkov is now focused on pressuring Iraqs government to secure Elizabeths freedom, given Baghdads close ties to KH. The family believes Iraq should be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism and have its US aid budget slashed unless it wins Elizabeths release. Emma Tsurkov directly confronted the Iraqi prime minister at a Washington think tank last month on behalf of her sister, publicly accusing him of not doing anything to save her.

The Iraqi government hasnt responded to requests for comment from Semafor.

An Iranian diplomat on campus

Princeton entered the Iran debate in a significant way in 2009, when it agreed to host Hossein Mousavian, a top regime diplomat and former nuclear negotiator, in New Jersey. Mousavian fled Tehran that year after being charged with espionage by then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejads government, and briefly detained. The Islamic Republic insider would be cleared, but still found himself starkly on the wrong side of his countrys vicious political infighting.

Mousavian was no dissident, though, and used his perch at Princeton to advocate Irans positions on its nuclear program and other key national security issues. A former ambassador to Germany, Mousavian has supported ties with the West in ways that have placed him at odds with the IRGC and other hardline parties in Tehran. He has also sought to improve relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Many of Mousavians dictums on the nuclear file would be adopted by the Iranian government after his close political ally, Hassan Rouhani, succeeded Ahmadinejad as president in 2013 and moved to negotiate directly with the Obama administration over the next two years. The Princeton scholar was a prolific producer of opinion pieces and commentary during this period who liaised, at times, with Iranian diplomats, including Mostafa Zahrani and then-Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, to promote their messaging and engagements in the West, according to the foreign ministry correspondence reviewed by Semafor.

Princeton officials lauded Mousavians ability to advise the US and Iranian delegations to help advance the nuclear deal, which was finalized in July 2015. And in the eyes of Wang Xiyue, the graduate student, this reflected his schools strong ties to the upper echelons of the Islamic Republics leadership. This sense of security was only bolstered, Wang told Semafor, by the fact that one of his advisers at Princetons Iran center, Mona Rahmani, was herself related to an Iranian government official. Her father ran Tehrans interests section in Washington, an Iranian government body that works to support dual US-Iran citizens, from 2010-2015.

My concerns were alleviated by the fact that there were these direct links between Princeton and Iran, Wang said. It looked like there was coordination.

Following his arrest in August 2016, these connections to Tehran proved of little use, Wang outlined in a lawsuit he filed against Princeton in 2021, charging negligence. The university advised Wangs wife to stay quiet and not publicly criticize the Iranian government, he says. And Mousavian told Princetons leadership that his outreach to Zahrani, Zarif, and other Iranian officials would be counterproductive for Wang, given the Princeton scholars own sparring with Tehrans security state. Rahmani, meanwhile, also declined to lobby the regime, the lawsuit states. She left the university in 2017.

Wang says he felt totally abandoned during the more than three years he was incarcerated in Evin Prison. He was released on December 7, 2019 as part of a prisoner exchange negotiated between the Trump administration and Iran. Simply put, after encouraging and convincing Mr. Wang to go to Iran, Princeton chose to put their reputation and political interest ahead of Mr. Wangs personal safety, reads his lawsuit.

Princeton denies that it placed its reputation or ties to Iran ahead of Wangs safety. And the school said it invested enormous resources behind gaining his release. Throughout his ordeal, the University worked in close coordination with his wife and provided extensive financial and other support to Mr. Wang and his family during and after his imprisonment, Princetons legal team at Akin Gump wrote to congressional lawmakers investigating the schools ties to Iran last year.

Princeton reached a financial settlement with Wang last September but denies all charges made against the school in the suit. We have chosen to help them [Wangs family] move on with their lives by avoiding protracted litigation, spokesman Hotchkiss said.

Originally posted here:
How Princeton got burned by its outreach to Iran - Semafor