Unrest is rising in Iran’s southeastern Sistan and Baluchistan province. Separatist Jaysh al-Adl has increased its attacks on government personnel and pro-regime members of community since December 2025, and the Islamic Republic is now blaming “some Arab states” for the uptick in attacks.
Sistan and Baluchistan have been a part of the Iranian state for millennia, with sentimental value for Iranians. Rostam, the hero of the Shahnameh (Book of Kings), Iran’s tenth-eleventh-century national epic, supposedly hails from Sistan.
Baluchi are a majority in their province, and they are overwhelmingly Sunni, when even the Kurds are divided across sectarian lines.
The Baluchis receive relatively little attention in the West, both due to their distance from Tehran and their distinct language. They have been, however, the most violent in their anti-regime activities. Iran determined its southeastern border along the Goldsmid Line in 1871, when it shared a border with British India. In 1959, using advanced mapping tools, Iran and the newly formed Pakistan delineated the border with greater precision, effectively dividing the ten million Baluch between Iran and Pakistan. Baluchi are a majority in their province, and they are overwhelmingly Sunni, when even the Kurds are divided across sectarian lines. The border region is porous, allowing both counties’ Baluch regions to act as a safe haven at times for insurgency in the other.
The Iranian Baluchi problem has erupted in phases. Between 2003 and 2011, the Baluchi nationalist Rigi network, or Jundallah, conducted a series of operations. These included attacks on regime forces, abduction of civilian truck drivers, and bombing Shi’i mosques. The group rose to prominence when one of group’s leaders, Abdolmalek Rigi, published a video of himself in 2005, beheading his brother-in-law, who was a government agent.
On February 23, 2010, Iranian jets scrambled and forced a civilian airliner flying from Dubai to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, to land. Iranian forces arrested Rigi, who was traveling with a forged passport, executing him soon after; Jundullah disbanded later that year.
In 2012, Jundullah’s members formed Jaysh al-Adl which, unlike its predecessor has targeted civilians for their regime connections. Its attacks against government establishments, such as the Zahedan courthouse, killed ordinary Iranians, but it never targeted random civilians.
In 2012, Jundullah’s members formed Jaysh al-Adl which, unlike its predecessor has targeted civilians for their regime connections.
Something changed in Sistan and Baluchistan after Bloody Friday, the regime’s September 30, 2022, massacre of 96 protestors in Zahedan. The slaughter happened after Molavi Abdolhamid, a popular Sunni imam in Zahedan, issued a call to protest. While the regime blamed Jaysh al-Adl for the fatalities, Jaysh al-Adl denied the accusation. Abdolhamid concurred, “The country’s officials and authorities and the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic who commands the armed forces are all responsible, and [none of them] can deny responsibility.”
The supreme leader, through his provincial representatives, appoints Friday prayer imams. Due to Abdolhamid’s popularity, Ali Khamenei refrained from ousting him, but the regime allegedly tried to poison him in 2023. The government instead arrested the Friday prayer imam of Mirjaveh, a small town in the province, for supporting Abdolhamid. Khamenei’s representative in the province then replaced him with a regime-friendly successor, Mohammad Anvar Rigi, but the local population saw Mohammad Anvar as a collaborator, Sunni Baluchi or not.
On December 11, 2025, Jaysh al-Adl announced that it was joining forces with three other Baluchi groups to form a united front, the People’s Fighters Front, also translated as Popular Fighters Front and Popular Resistance Fighters. Ansar al-Furqan, an Islamist Baluchi group, refused to join. Attacks then escalated. There have been dozens of subsequent incidents for which Jaysh al-Adl has claimed credit, and others attacks that have gone unclaimed. On July 20, 2026, for example, an unknown group assassinated Mohammad Anvar Rigi. On September 15, 2026, unknown assailants assassinated another pro-regime Friday prayer imam, Yousef Gorgij.
Nour News, close to the Supreme National Security Council, attributed the uptick to Arab states. “Credible security sources [told Nour News that they] have found obvious signs of foreign support for active armed groups in [the southeast] and the role of some Arab states in supplying them,” it reported, singling out alleged Arab support for “Sipah-e-Sahaba and Jaish-e Mohammed, through personnel, financial resources, and intelligence and military capabilities.” Nour News reported that the groups’ total membership exceeds 50,000, and that “1,500 of them have deployed inside Iran.”
The local population, including law enforcement and some security forces who are Baluchi, have grown more reluctant to crack down on these groups after the Bloody Friday.
Neither of these groups is a member of the newly formed People’s Fighters Front, which has claimed credit for many of the recent attacks. What the regime gets right, albeit with bizarre numbers, is that there are many small groups with different sources of support, complicating regime countermeasures.
The Islamic Republic appears desperate. First, the local population, including law enforcement and some security forces who are Baluchi, have grown more reluctant to crack down on these groups after the Bloody Friday. Second, Iran’s security forces are stretched due to shortage of resources and increased foreign and internal threats. Finally, just because the regime is paranoid, it does not mean that nobody is out to get it. Critically, blaming Arabs, instead of the usual Central Intelligence Agency and the Mossad, for these attacks suggests that the regime is not entirely making things up.
The accusation against Arab states is the second such instance in recent years. On January 16, 2024, Iran launched missile attacks against Jaysh al-Adl inside Pakistan. Pakistan retaliated two days later. It was the first instance of foreign conventional attacks on Iranian soil since the Iran-Iraq War. As the Iranian regime weakens, the number of such local movements will likely multiply in number and consolidate in power.