Iran
Publication: Terrorism Monitor Volume: 9 Issue: 37
October 14, 2011 05:07 PM
Influenced by the upheaval that has stricken many Arab countries in
the Middle East and North Africa, the people of southwest Iran's
Khuzestan Province have tried to start their own protest movement.
Khuzestan is inhabited by a majority of Arabs and is home to more than
80% of Iran's oil reserves. In the Arabic literature of the political
and cultural organizations of the province, the area is called al-
Ahwaz. [1]
The calls for an uprising in the province earlier this year tried to
emulate the April 2005 protests in Khuzestan, which were quelled by
the use of violence by Iranian authorities. The Iranian state media
reported no news from the province during the current protests but
opposition sources claimed that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards
opened fire on the protesters and killed three people. It was also
reported that dozens were arrested (Alarab.net, April 18).
Although the movement did not develop into anything like the uprising
of 2005, it attracted the attention of Iraqi Islamist insurgent
groups. The Salafi-Jihadi Ansar al-Islam (AI) group released a
communiqu� named "Message of solidarity with our brothers in Ahwaz,"
calling on them to unify their efforts and launch a jihad against Iran
(alboraq.info, May 11).Cooperation between the Iraqi insurgents and
Ahwazi groups reportedly started soon after the invasion of Iraq in
2003. During the 2005 uprising in Khuzestan, the first agreement
between activists from the province and Iraqi insurgents became known
and a series of bombs struck Iranian government buildings and targets
the following years (Islammemo.cc, June 12, 2005).
Arabs in the province accuse successive Iranian governments of
pursuing a policy aimed at changing the demographic nature of the
region by encouraging non-Arab Iranians to migrate to the province in
large numbers. They are also critical of changes in the province's
borders that have seen southern areas with a majority Arab population
detached and areas with Arab minority populations added in the north.
In an interview with the Jamestown Foundation, the leader of the
disbanded Hizb al-Nahda al-Arabi al-Ahwazi (Ahwazi Arab Renaissance
Party), Sabah al-Mossawi, revealed that there were Ahwazi fighters who
had joined the Iraqi insurgency: "They went to fight the occupation
[i.e. Coalition forces] but also to fight the Iranian-backed parties.
They mainly joined the Islamic Army in Iraq and the Ba'ath party."
Throughout centuries of conflict between Iran and the Ottoman Empire,
the Khuzestan region managed to maintain a degree of relative
independence, being ruled by a series of local tribal leaders. The
last of these was toppled by the Iranian authorities in 1925 and the
area came under the direct control of Tehran. After the Islamic
revolution of 1979, the community's demands for more rights and
recognition of their distinct identity were not accepted by the new
government. Subsequently a large-scale uprising broke out in the
province. The Iranian authorities in turn repressed the protest
movement ruthlessly and the area came under military rule. Iraqi-
backed organizations launched a series of attacks on military and
civilian targets during the uprising. The Ahwazi issue attracted
international attention when a group of Ahwazi gunmen belonging to the
Democratic Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Arabistan (DRFLA)
occupied the Iranian embassy in London in 1980 and took hostages.
After a six-day siege of the embassy by police, the gunmen killed one
hostage, leading to a successful raid to release the hostages in the
embassy by the British Special Air Service (SAS), a Special Forces
Regiment.
There are various opposition groups which claim to represent the Arab
population of Khuzestan. All of them are banned in Iran but operate in
exile while claiming to have an active presence in the province.
However the most prominent group that claims to be militarily active
is the Ba'athist Arab Struggle Movement to Liberate Ahwaz (ASMLA) and
its armed wing, the Martyr Mohye al-Din al-Nasir Brigade (MMDNB). The
latter's strategy is to target oil production facilities in the
province as a means of weakening the Iranian economy, which depends
heavily on the oil of Khuzestan Province. In 2007 the MMDNB recognized
Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri as the new leader of the Iraqi Ba'ath party
(Albasrah.net, June 24, 2007)
The majority of the people of Khuzestan are Sh'ia Muslims but there
has been a growing movement among them to convert to Sunni Islam. This
trend has escalated significantly over the last few years, driven
mainly by a local identity problem. Resentment of Iran by some Shi'a
Ahwazis is reflected in a number or ways, including a rejection of the
Shi'a faith. None of the prominent Shi'a clerics in Iran or Iraq have
clearly supported the Ahwazi cause. The most senior Ahwazi cleric and
the most influential community leader, Shaykh Muhammad Tahir al-
Khaqani, was forced to leave Khuzestan after the uprising of 1979 and
put under house arrest in Qom until his death in 1986. No other local
cleric emerged to preserve the Shi'a-Arab nationalist identity of the
population.
Salafi-Jihadi groups from Iraq regard the conversions to Sunni Islam
in Khuzestan-Ahwaz as genuine and are encouraging the integration of
Ahwazi converts in the international jihadi movement. According to the
AI communiqu�: "The origin of the people of Ahwaz is that they are a
Sunni nation. The Iranian occupation has imposed Persian and Shi'a
culture on them. The policy of Persianization is based on the Rafidah
faith (i.e. Shi'a Islam). Therefore there should be a clear
distinction of the right faith (i.e. Sunni Islam). This distinction
should be the foundation to be relied on for achieving political and
geographical independence for the state of Ahwaz." The AI message went
on to set a strategy for the confrontation in Khuzestan, calling for
its people to build a Sunni religious and political leadership: "There
should be a unified Sunni-Jihadi movement in Ahwaz and it should join
the global jihad" (Alboraq.info, May11).
The AI communiqu� is very important. It is picking up on a growing
trend and trying to direct it towards a jihadi goal. So far the
revolutionary movements in Khuzestan have been based on the
community's Arab identity within a Persian and Shi'a Iran. With the
increase of conversions to Sunni Islam among the population, it is not
possible to rule out that a base for a Salafi-Jihadi organization
could be established in the province. Such a development might well
change the relationship between Salafi-Jihadi groups and Iran. The
former have avoided a direct confrontation with Tehran so far, despite
the often severe confrontations between the Shi'a and Sunni
communities in the Middle East. Iraqi Sunni Islamists will be heavily
involved in such a struggle, putting the Salafi-Jihadists at the
centre of one of the most significant geo-political conflicts in the
region.
Notes:
1. Khuzestan was historically named Arabistan (the land of the Arabs).
In 1935 the Iranian government of Shah Reza Pahlavi renamed it
Khuzestan i.e. "the Land of the Khuzis," referring to the ancient name
used for sugar cane farmers in the ancient kingdom of Susa.
Local Arab people call the province al-Ahwaz and emphasize its history
of independence under Arab rulers since the Arab invasion of 639 C.E.
Ahwaz is also the name of the Khuzestan capital.
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