Asia

Asia

Pakistan may hand over seized top Baluch militant to Iran

26 December 2010 04:22 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Abdul-Rauf Rigi, described as the leader of the Sunni Muslim group Jundallah, which Iran blames for violent attacks, was arrested Dec. 22 and may be handed over to authorities in Shiite-run Iran, APA reports quoting Los Angeles Times.

The captured leader of an outlawed militant group that has waged a years-long campaign of bombings and killings against Iranian authorities may soon be handed over to Tehran, Pakistani and Iranian news media reported Saturday.

Abdul-Rauf Rigi, described as the leader of the Sunni Muslim ethnic Baluch group Jundallah, was arrested along the Iran-Pakistan border Dec. 22 and may be handed over to authorities in Shiite Muslim-run Iran after he is interrogated in Pakistan, Pakistani media reported.

A high-ranking Iranian official confirmed the arrest by Pakistani security forces of Rigi and eight alleged accomplices, Iran’s semiofficial Fars News Agency reported.

Jundallah claims to represent Iran’s ethnic Baluch minority, a mostly Sunni people with a distinct language straddling the border areas between southeastern Iran, southwestern Pakistan and a corner of Afghanistan. Iran is an overwhelmingly Shiite nation dominated by ethnic Persians and Azeris.

The United States recently placed Jundallah on its list of blacklisted terrorist organizations. Although Tehran publicly accuses the West and Israel of supporting Jundallah, Iranian officials have also applied pressure on Pakistani authorities to crack down on the group, which subscribes to the same puritanical strain of Sunni Islam that inspires Al Qaeda.

Iranian officials stepped up pressure on Pakistan over Jundallah after a Dec. 15 suicide bombing outside a mosque in southeastern Iran that killed at least 39 people and wounded dozens of others as well as a string of previous attacks. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Dec. 20 urged his Pakistani counterpart, Asif Ali Zardari, to crack down on the group, Iran’s state television reported.

Other Iranian officials were more threatening. Brig. Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi, the armed forces chief, hinted that Iran might resort to cross-border raids if Pakistan "falls short of controlling and stopping terrorist groups," Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

Ali Akbar Javanfekr, a top advisor to Ahmadinejad, urged in a meeting Saturday in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, with the chief minister of Pakistan’s Punjab province, Shahbaz Sharif, that Pakistan "fight and uproot the gruesome phenomenon" of terrorism, according to Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency, or IRNA.

Javanfekr, who oversees IRNA, told his counterpart that "Pakistan should use necessary actions to fight terrorism in border areas with Iran," the news agency said.

According to the Karachi-based Pakistani newspaper the News, Rigi was arrested after Pakistani authorities traced a cellphone call while he was speaking with the London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq al Awsat. He was detained in a raid, the News reported on its website.

Authorities describe Rigi as the younger brother of Abdulmalak Rigi, the founder of Jundallah, who was captured by the Iranians and hanged in June.