The Ball’s in Iran’s Court to Stop Anti-Pakistani Baloch Terrorism

Pakistan filed an official complaint against Iran just two days before Prime Minister Khan’s first visit to the Islamic Republic for its unwillingness to take action against Baloch terrorist groups like the one that claimed credit for the recent terror attack along the Makran Coastal Highway despite being informed by Islamabad about training camps and logistics bases within its borders, which therefore puts the ball in Iran’s court to stop this resurgent trend of transnational terrorism in the region and will obviously figure very high on the agenda during the Pakistani leader’s upcoming two-day visit.

An umbrella group of three Baloch terrorist organizations claimed credit for the recent killing of 14 Pakistanis who were pulled off of a bus traveling along the Makran Coastal Highway by fighters disguised as legitimate members of the security services and martyred in front of the other passengers. Pakistan filed an official complaint against Iran just two days before Prime Minister Khan’s first visit to the Islamic Republic for its unwillingness to take action against Baloch terrorist groups such as the one that was responsible for the latest attack, claiming that Tehran had previously been informed by Islamabad of training camps and logistics bases within its borders but hadn’t done anything to address this resurgent trend of transnational terrorism in the region. Although it’s not directly stated, the complaint heavily implies a high degree of hypocrisy on the side of the Iranian government which had previously resorted to over-the-top rhetoric back in February after a Baloch terrorist attack along the Pakistani frontier, even ridiculously hinting that an Indian-like “surgical strike” against Pakistan was one of the options on the table.

I wrote about that incident in a previous piece about how “Iran’s Being Tricked Into Making Balochistan The New Kurdistan” by India, but Tehran apparently doesn’t care all that much because it’s too obsessed with the carrot of potential “sanctions relief” that “Israel’snew ally in New Delhi is dangling in front of it through the Chabahar Corridor even though “Iran Just Fell Victim To Blowback From The US-Indian Hybrid War On CPEC” back in December. I explained how India’s RAW (its version of the Mossad) is responsible for this upsurge in regional terrorism, which the whole world is already aware of after Pakistan provided evidence of this to the United Nations’ International Court of Justice following the capture of HybridWar agent Kulbushan Jadhav and his admission to operating out of Iran’s nearby Indian-owned Chabahar port. My analysis at the time mentioned that Iran had the chance to use that tragedy to strengthen anti-terrorist cooperation with Pakistan along their shared border and possibly establish an Iranian version of the “Overseas Pakistani Baloch Unity” initiative (OPBU, recently rebranded to PBU after dropping the first prefix) for reintegrating wayward Baloch into society.

It now looks as though Iran ignored that opportunity and is therefore indirectly responsible for the latest terrorist attack in Pakistan as a result of its negligence. It’s important to point out that the incident was probably timed to coincide with Prime Minister Khan’s first two-day visit to Iran just like the February one against the Islamic Republic was likely inended to provoke a crisis in bilateral relations precisely at the moment that India was planning its Bollywood-like “surgical strike” against Pakistan. Islamabad wisely isn’t biting the bait but it surely isn’t going to leave Iran’s irresponsibility to its neighbor unaddressed during the Prime Minister’s trip either, especially since last week’s terrorist attack was obviously meant to diminish international confidence in CPEC after targeting one of the global pivot state’s main transit routes connecting to the terminal port of Gwadar. As such, Iran’s IRGC are compelled to take decisive action against the Indian-backed terrorist groups on their soil if they themselves truly aren’t the “terrorists” that Trump claims that they are, thus putting the ball in their court and making Prime Minister Khan’s upcoming visit a defining moment in bilateral relations.


By Andrew Korybko
Source: Eurasia Future

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