LAHORE: Jundallah chief Abdul Rauf Riggi, who was tracked down by Pakistani authorities through his wireless set while he was making a call to a London-based newspaper from his Pak-Iran border area hideout in Balochistan, may soon be handed over to the Iranian authorities after interrogation by Pakistani security agencies.
According to well-informed security officials in Islamabad, the Pakistani agencies had been making frantic efforts to track down Riggi, especially after the December 15 killing of 40 people in a deadly suicide bombing in the Iranian city of Chabahar, when the most wanted Jundallah chief appeared on their radar on December 21, making a call on his wireless set to the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat, a leading international Arabic newspaper.
As the call had given the Pakistani authorities a fair idea about Riggi’s whereabouts on the Pakistani side of the Iranian border, they moved quickly and detained him in the next 24 hours following a brief commando operation.
Interestingly, the arrest came the day the Pakistani and the Iranian presidents were in Istanbul at the Economic Cooperation Organisation’s summit. Riggi will be handed over to Iran shortly after being interrogated by the Pakistani security and intelligence agencies.
Abdul Rauf Riggi had actually succeeded his elder brother Abdolmalek Riggi as the Jundallah chief following his arrest and subsequent execution in Iran. The elder Riggi was captured in February 2010 in a dramatic operation by the Iranian authorities while he was spotted on a flight from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan. The Iranian warplanes subsequently forced the commercial aircraft to land in Iran.
It is widely believed that the “Get Riggi” operation could not have been possible without the help of the Pakistani agencies, which had passed on vital information about his travel plans as soon as he had left an American military base in Afghanistan after holding a clandestine meeting with the Nato military chief there. After a quick trial, Abdolmalek Riggi was sent to the gallows on terrorism charges on June 20, 2010.
Jundallah is a Baluchi insurgent group that operates in the Sistan-Baluchistan province of Iran and has substantial presence in the Pak-Iran border belt of Balochistan. The Sunni majority of Sistan-Baluchistan has had tense relations with Iran’s central government since long and the Jundallah leadership claims it is fighting for the interests of Sistan-Baluchistan’s large ethnic Baluch community.
Jundallah or the Army of God claims to represent the rebel Sunni community of the Iranian Baluch. One of the brothers — Abdolgafoor Riggi — had executed a suicide car bombing on December 28, 2008, targeting the headquarters of Iran’s joint police and anti-narcotics unit in Saravan city.
Since then, Jundallah has carried out several deadly suicide bombings in Iran, the latest being the December 15 suicide bombings in the Iranian city of Chabahar. In a telephone call hardly 24 hours after the Chabahar attack, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had lodged a protest with his Pakistani counterpart President Zardari and asked him to order his security forces to quickly arrest ‘known terrorists’ and hand them over to Iran.
President Zardari assured the Iranian president that Pakistan would not withhold any help in uprooting terrorism. On December 20, a few days after Ahmadinejad and Zardari had spoken, the Iranian government hanged 11 members of Jundallah who were convicted of bombings in Iran that killed 15 policemen and 12 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
The next day, on December 21, a furious Abdulrauf Riggi made a phone call to the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper and threatened Tehran that an official of the Iranian nuclear plant, who was kidnapped by Jundallah in October this year, would be executed shortly if the group’s demands for the release of over 200 militants and political prisoners being held in the Iranian jails were not met.
Riggi had added that the likely execution of the Iranian official should also be taken as a reaction to the execution of 11 Baluch in Iran, who he said were innocent civilians and had nothing to do with Jundallah. While releasing his interview 24 hours before his arrest, the newspaper said that Rigi was speaking on the phone from ‘somewhere inside Balochistan mountains.’
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