Saudi-Iran Proxy War

http://www.vox.com/2015/3/30/8314513/saudi-arabia-iran
"The Iraq War and the Arab Spring set the stage for today's proxy conflict
During the 1990s and early 2000s, the Saudi-Iranian rivalry was fairly quiet. According to both Gause and Serwer, that's because Iran's opportunities to challenge the Saudi-led political order were fairly limited. Tehran was just too focused on the threat from Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
Then the US led the 2003 Iraq invasion that toppled Saddam and changed everything. Iran saw an opportunity to strengthen reliable, pro-Iran Shia militant groups (Iraq is majority Shia) and to replace Saddam with a friendlier Shia-led regime — which is exactly what happened.
"Until the American invasion of Iraq," Serwer says, "the door wasn't really open [for Iran to challenge the regional order], except in limited ways like supporting Hezbollah and Hamas.
"What the United States did in Iraq, by opening the door to the Shia majority, is part of the story for the Saudis."
Then the Arab Spring, by toppling governments or inspiring uprisings throughout the region, created a whole new set of openings in which Iran could seek to expand its influence — and Saudi Arabia would struggle to maintain the status quo. When a Saudi-friendly regime was threatened, the Iranians supported the opposition while the Saudis tried to prop them up. When it was an Iranian ally on the brink of collapse, Saudi Arabia tried to push it over the edge while Iran tried to pull it back."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-35219693
"Saudi and other Arab Gulf governments also linked Iran's post-revolutionary government with a rise in Shia militancy, an aborted coup in Bahrain in 1981, and a failed attempt to assassinate the emir of Kuwait four years later.
Meanwhile, the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah al-Hejaz was formed in May 1987 as a cleric-based organisation modelled on Lebanese Hezbollah intent on carrying out military operations inside Saudi Arabia.
Hezbollah al-Hejaz issued a number of inflammatory statements threatening the Saudi royal family and carried out several deadly attacks in the late 1980s as tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia rose sharply."


http://www.vox.com/2016/1/4/10708682/sunni-shia-iran-saudi-arabia-war

This conflict began in 1979, when the Iranian revolution turned secular Iran into a hard-line Shia theocracy. My colleague Zack Beauchamp explains:

After Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution toppled the pro-Western shah, the new Islamic Republic established an aggressive foreign policy of exporting the Iranian revolution, attempting to foment Iran-style theocratic uprisings around the Middle East. That was a threat to Saudi Arabia's heavy influence in the Middle East, and perhaps to the Saudi monarchy itself.

"The fall of the shah and the establishment of the militant Islamic Republic of [founding leader] Ruhollah Khomeini came as a particularly rude shock to the Saudi leadership," University of Virginia's William Quandt writes. It "brought to power a man who had explicitly argued that Islam and hereditary kingship were incompatible, a threatening message, to say the least, in [the Saudi capital of] Riyadh." In response, Saudi Arabia and other ultra-conservative Gulf monarchies formed the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), an organization initially designed tocounter and contain Iranian influence.

It's important to understand that the Saudi monarchy is deeply insecure: It knows that its hold on power is tenuous, and its claim to legitimacy comes largely from religion. The Islamic Republic of Iran, merely by existing, challenges this legitimacy — not because it is Shia, but because its theocratic revolution was popular, it was presenting a claim to represent Muslims better than the Saudi monarchy.

And Iran, in its first years, did try very deliberately to foster such revolutions abroad, including in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis saw this as a declaration of war against their very monarchy and a serious threat against their rule.

But note that, at first, this conflict had nothing to do with the Sunni-Shia divide, and in fact it was a conflict in which both Iran and Saudi Arabia saw themselves as representing all Muslims.

Iran isn't trying to export its Islamic Revolution abroad anymore, particularly not to Saudi Arabia. But both governments still see each other as illegitimate in their claim to represent all Muslims. Saudi Arabia's government is premised on its religious authority over Islam's holiest sites. Iran's government is premised on its 1979 revolution ostensibly championing Islamic independence against a hostile world. But they can't both be the true representatives of all Muslims.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=72fADAAAQBAJ&pg=PA17#v=onepage&q&f=false
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=72fADAAAQBAJ&pg=PA183#v=onepage&q&f=false
https://twitter.com/cybertosser/status/850326710654521344
Israel covertly armed Iran even before Iran-contra


https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=72fADAAAQBAJ&pg=PA185#v=onepage&q&f=false
https://twitter.com/cybertosser/status/850333693503836160
Worth noting Saddam's main arms suppliers were USSR, France, China. One who got US/Israeli arms was Iran, not Iraq


https://twitter.com/cybertosser/status/865883839087902720
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QfFrZ2_KnnwC&pg=PT161#v=onepage&q&f=false
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QfFrZ2_KnnwC&pg=PT128#v=onepage&q&f=false
Extract from 'Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam' By Mark Curtis. UK kept training Iranian military officials until April 1980. Thatcher considered Iranian regime as an effective way to counter Communists (p 128). UK shared intelligence with mullahs to crush Tudeh party (p. 129). Supplied tank weapons to Iran during war with Iraq (page 161)




https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7czT4fipTyoC&pg=PA30&dq=Zia+and+Iran&hl=en&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=true
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/10/17/world/iranians-captured-stinger-missiles-from-afghan-guerrillas-us-says.html
Pakistan supplying Stingers and Chinese missiles to Iran in 1980s


http://archive.is/20130416103101/www.iranembassy.pk/en/political-section/592-pak-iran-relations-since-islamic-revolution-genisis-of-cooperatio-and-competition.html
Pakistan was one of the first countries in the world which recognized the revolutionary regime in Iran. The monarchy was over thrown and an Is[amic Republic declared in Iran in February 1979. Responding swiftly to this great revolutionary change, the government of Pakistan sent its Adviser on Foreign Affairs, Agha Shahi, to Tehran who met the Iranian Foreign Minister Karim Sanjabi on March 10, 1979. Both expressed confidence by stating that Iran and Pakistan were going to march together to a brighter future. The next day, Agha Shahi held talks with the Leader of the Is[amic Revolution, Ayutuallah Ruhollah Imam Khomeini, in which developments in the region were discussed. Subsequently, acclaiming and appreciating the Islamic Revolution as the voice of the people ofIran, President Zia-ul-Haq of Pakistan, while sending message offe[icitations, said on April 11: "Khomeini is a symbol of Islamic insurgence". Reciprocating President Zia's sentiments, Imam Khomeini, in his letter, called for Muslim unity. He declared: "Ties with Pakistan are based on Is[am".


https://iranwire.com/en/features/336
Iran’s revolution marks the beginning of an ambiguous relationship between states with shared qualities and deep divisions. In April 1979 Zia praised Khomeini as “a symbol of Islamic insurgence,” and Pakistan was among the first countries to recognize the Islamic Republic of Iran. Khomeini, meanwhile, made the best of Zia’s Islamizing tendency, promising that relations would be “based on Islam.” But Iran was lukewarm. “The trouble for Zia ul Haq,” Vatenka says, “was that the revolutionaries [in Iran] looked at him [as the head of] a military fascist pro-American regime.” Pakistan, he says, tried to become a broker between Iran and the United States, but Iran refused to let it play that role.
.... 
Iran, Fitzpatrick says, claims Pakistani assistance slowed its nuclear progress. “Like people of many countries, they would like to claim indigenous work. When it’s pointed out that, ‘Hey, you got the stuff from Khan,’ they respond by saying, ‘What he gave us was junk, and it actually retarded our development.’ They’re gilding the lily there.”
...
The countries’ outside rivalries may have helped to keep their relationship pragmatic. “On the list of priorities in the respective capitals, they have chosen not to pick a bigger fight with one another, Vatanka says. “Pakistan lives to hate India. That helps to explain why Pakistan has, for the past 35 years, very deliberately sought not to antagonize Iran any more than it has to.” In the recent case of the missing border guards, he says, “The Pakistanis were very careful about what they said, despite very harsh words from the Iranian side. That’s Pakistan that’s nuclear-armed, being on the defensive against Iran!”

https://www.tasnimnews.com/ur/news/2016/10/01/1201671/

آج شاید کسی کو یقین ہی نہ آئے کہ مالی مشکلات میں گھری پاکستانی خواتین نے اپنے قیمیتی زیورات تک اتار کر انقلاب اسلامی کی کامیابی کی خاطر ایران کے لئے عطیے کئے ہیں۔

حتی کہ اقتصادی مسائل اور مشکلات کی شکار پاکستانی ماوں اور بہنوں نے اپنے کنگن بھی اتار کر ایران بھیجے ہیں، یہ کون باور کرسکتا ہے؟

پاکستانی مائیں اور بہنیں جوق درجوق امداد جمع کرنے والے مراکز میں آکر اپنی اپنی استطاعت کے مطابق کچھ نہ کچھ دے کرجاتی تھیں تاکہ انقلاب اسلامی کے بچاو میں اپنا کردار ادا کرسکیں۔

یہاں تک کہ پاکستانی ایرانی محاذ جنگ پر لڑنے والے جوانوں کے لئے آموں کی پیٹیاں تک بھیجا کرتے تھے۔

ہاں یہ سب کچھ اب بھی پاکستانیوں کو یاد ہے جب ایران عراق جنگ کی بات ہوتی ہے تو کہتے ہیں ہمیں فخر ہے کہ ہم نے اپنی طاقت سے بڑھ کر ایرانی بھائیوں کی مدد کی اور انقلاب اسلامی یہ جنگ جیت کر فتح یاب ہوا، جس کی وجہ سے ہم بھی سرخرو ہوئے۔

پاکستانیوں نے عراق ایران جنگ کے دوران کئی مرتبہ پاکستان میں عراقی سفارتخانے پر حملے کئے۔ آئے دن عراقی سفارتخانے کے سامنے مظاہرے کئے جاتے اور مطالبہ کیا جاتا تھا کہ اسلامی جمہوریہ ایران پر مسلط کی گئی جنگ کو ختم کیا جائے۔

عراقی سفارت خانے پر پتھروں کی بارش کی جاتی تھی اور روزانہ کے بنیاد پر سینکڑوں جوان جیل کے سلاخوں کے پیچھے اسی جرم میں سزا کاٹنے پر مجبور ہو جاتے۔ آج بھی آپ ان سے ایران کی حمایت کے بارے میں سوال کرتے ہیں تو بڑی خوشی سے یہ قصے سناتے ہیں۔

پاکستان میں  ایرانی شہر ''خرمشہر'' پرعراقی فورسز کے قبضے کی خبر آگ کی طرح پھیل جاتی ہے اور چند لمحوں کے اندر سینکڑوں  پاکستانی جوان عراقی سفارتخانے میں داخل ہونے میں کامیاب ہوجاتے ہیں لیکن سیکورٹی فورسز کی کارروائی میں کم سے کم 500 جوان گرفتار کر کے جیل بھیج دئیے جاتے ہیں۔ یہ لوگ آج بھی بڑے فخر سے کہتے ہیں کہ ہم امام خمینی (رہ) کے عشق اور ایران کی حمایت میں جیل گئے تھے۔

جب خرمشہر کی آزادی کی خبر سنی تو پاکستانیوں نے ایران سے بڑھ چڑھ کر خوشیاں منا کرچراغاں کیا اور مٹھائیاں تقسیم کیں۔

پاکستان کے بیشتر شہروں میں تین دن تک جشن منایا گیا کیونکہ ایران کی فتح کے لئے رکھے گئے روزوں کا نتیجہ جو سامنے آیا تھا۔

بہت سارے پاکستانی ایسے بھی تھے جو عشق انقلاب اسلامی میں گھر بار، قوم وقبیلہ، والدین، بیوی بچے سب کچھ چھوڑ کر اپنی جانوں کا نذرانہ پیش کرنے عراق - ایران محاذ جنگ تک پہنچ گئے تھے۔ جن میں سے بہت سوں نے جام شہادت نوش فرمایا، بعض غازی کے درجے پر فائز ہوگئے جبکہ چند پاکستانی قیدی بن کر صدام کے جابر و ظالم فوجیوں کے ہاتھوں ظلم سہنے پر مجبور ہوگئے۔

اس کے اثرات کا آج بھی پاکستان کے بعض شہروں اور دیہاتوں میں مشاہدہ کیا جاسکتا ہے۔

پاکستانی عوام ایران کے لئے لڑی، زخم کھائے، بالآخر جنگ کا خاتمہ ہوا اور وہ اپنے اپنے گھروں کو واپس جا کر اپنی زندگیوں میں مصروف ہوگئے۔ کسی پر احسان جتایا اور نہ ہی اس کا تذکرہ کیا۔

https://www.tasnimnews.com/ur/news/2016/09/10/1183341/
عاشق حسین طوری دو سال تک ایرانیوں کے ساتھ عراق کے خلاف جنگ لڑتا رہا
....

یہ جاننا ضروری ہے کہ ایران کوئی چھوٹا ملک نہیں ہے اور نہ ہی یہ ملک صرف ایرانیوں کا ہے۔ ایران مستضعفین عالم کے لئے پناہ گاہ ہے، ایران کی کامیابی عالم اسلام کی کامیابی ہے۔

ہم پاکستان کے ہر کونے سے یہ آواز سنتے ہیں کہ ہر کوئی پکار پکار کر کہتا ہے کہ ہمیں بھی ایک خمینی کی ضرورت ہے، جب تک ایک خمینی پیدا نہ ہوگا تب تک ہمارے درد کی دوا ممکن نہیں ہے۔

....

طوری: میں آپ کو بتاتا چلوں کہ ایران عراق جنگ میں انقلاب پر کئی پاکستانیوں نے اپنی جانیں قربان کی ہیں۔ میں خود محاذ جنگ پر دوسال تک ''صدام'' کے خلاف لڑتا رہا ہوں اور میں اب بھی جنگ کی ان عظیم یادوں کو بھول نہیں سکا۔

....

مثال کے طورپر 1983ء میں مجھے پاکستان کے کسی شہر میں ایرانی کلچر ہاؤس جانے کا اتفاق ہوا۔ وہاں پر موجود اکثر کام کرنے والے پاکستانیوں کا تعلق اہل سنت برادری سے تھا لیکن میں نے کلچر ہاؤس کے کتاب خانے میں ایک کتابچہ دیکھا جو اہل سنت کے مقدسات کی توہین پر مبنی تھا۔ چند سال بعد میں نے ایک ویڈیو میں دیکھا کہ سپاہ صحابہ کا سرغنہ اسی کتابچے کو ہاتھ میں لئے ہوئے ایران اور تشیع کے خلاف پاکستانیوں کو اکسا رہا ہے۔

...

اسی ایران میں، میرے گھر کےاندر ہی ایک ایسی کتاب ہے جس میں خلفاء کے خلاف مختلف باتیں درج ہیں اس قسم کی کتابیں شیعہ سنی اتحاد کو سخت نقصان پہنچاتی ہیں۔ ایران اسی وقت عالم اسلام کا علمبردار بن سکتا ہے جب وہ دوسروں کے عقائد کا احترام کرے۔ شیعہ سنی اختلافات پر لکھی گئی کتابیں سب سے پہلے دشمن کے ہاتھ چڑھ جاتی ہیں اور دشمن یہ موقع پاتے ہی اس کا فائدہ اٹھاتا ہے۔

پاکستانیوں کے اذہان سے یہ بات نکل جانی چاہئے کہ ایران پاکستان کے اندر مذھب تشیع پھیلانا چاہتا ہے۔ ہمیں براہ راست طور پر پاکستان میں شیعیت کی تبلیغ نہیں کرنی چاہئے۔ ہمیں صرف اہل بیت علیہم السلام کی شان اور فضائل بیان کرنے چاہئیں۔

https://www.tasnimnews.com/ur/news/2016/08/27/1166810
پاکستانیوں کا خرم شہر کی آزادی کے لئے دو دن روزہ رکھنا دنیا کی جنگوں کی تاریخ میں کوئی معمولی بات نہیں ہے۔ جون 1982ء میں پاکستان کی ایک جماعت کے لوگ پشاور میں جمع ہوتے ہیں۔ ان کے قائد سید عارف حسین الحسینی ہیں جو ایک چھوٹے سے ریڈیو کو اپنےکان سے دور نہیں کرتا تاکہ ایک پل بھی ایران کے جنوب کے دورترین علاقے خرم شہرکے قبضے کی تازہ ترین خبروں کو کہیں کھو نہ دیں۔ ہماری کہانی کے پاکستانی لوگ، خرم شہر کے قبضے کے بہت طویل ہونے کے میں بارے میں فکرمند اور پریشان تھے اس لئے منت مانتے ہیں کہ خرم شہر کی آزادی تک پاکستان میں روزے رکھے جائیں گے۔
دو دن کے بعد پاکستان میں خرم شہر کی آزادی کا اعلان سب سے پہلے اسپیکر پر ایک مقامی مسجد سے کیا جاتا ہے پورا شہر جوش و خروش کے ساتھ جشن مناتا ہے، پاکستانیوں کی پرانی روایت کے مطابق، خوشی کے موقع پر کی جانے والی ہوائی فائرنگ کی آوازوں سے پورا شہر گونج اٹھتا ہے مختصر یہ کہ پورا شہر جام ہوجاتا ہے۔ ایک ایرانی شہر کی آزادی کی مناسبت سے پاکستان کے ایک شہر میں تین دن کے لئےچھٹیاں منائی جاتی ہیں۔


http://indianexpress.com/article/world/world-news/pakistan-sold-iran-nuke-tech-in-1980s-former-president-rafsanjani-reveals/
The AQ Khan network is suspected to have supplied Iran with designs for its P1-type aluminium-rotor centrifuges, during a visit the scientist made to its Bushehr nuclear facility in 1986, Later, in between 1994 and 1996, Iran received components for 500 centrifuges, a deal that was followed up with designs for the more advanced P2 centrifuges, which began operating from 2002.


https://tribune.com.pk/story/438084/dr-khans-new-version-of-nuclear-proliferation/ 

A dossier released by London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in 2007, as a ‘chronology of Dr AQ Khan’s proliferation’ indicates that he had visited Iran’s reactor at Bushehr in 1986. Iran approached Dr Khan’s ‘network’ to close a three million dollar deal for centrifuge technology. The IISS dossier, distinguishes between ‘Pakistan government’ (meaning General Zia) and ‘Khan network’ (excluding General Zia). Iran, later, disclosed the details of the despatch of centrifuges to Iran, by Dr Khan, to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). According to IAEA, he made the sale to Iran of all the required elements in 1987, in Dubai.

https://tribune.com.pk/story/476508/who-killed-general-zia/

As Gordon Corera noted in his book Shopping for Bombs: Nuclear Proliferation, Global Security and the Rise and Fall of the AQ Khan Network (Oxford University Press, 2006, p.59-60): “At this point, without a green signal from Zia, Beg got together with Dr AQ Khan to sell Iran nuclear technology crucial to building an Iranian bomb.”

Dr Khan was already into selling his wares globally. Iran was the first country to receive centrifuges from him. According to the IAEA, he made the sale to Iran of all the required elements in 1987 in Dubai, collecting payment in Swiss francs. Zia did not know. He did not know either that Beg too had got into the act. (After Zia’s death, prime minister Nawaz Sharif was shocked that Beg had signed a secret nuclear deal with Iran without telling him.)

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/08/07/the-atomic-emporium
Iran signed a secret nuclear-coöperation agreement with Pakistan the following year, according to Leonard Weiss, who tracked the issue at the time for Senator John Glenn and conducted investigations into Pakistan’s program for a Senate subcommittee. Pakistan’s motives were unclear; Zia, the country’s military leader, was a religious man, but not a revolutionary in Khomeini’s vein. The 1985 agreement was detected at the time by American intelligence, but its provisions were unknown, Weiss said.
A one-page sheet, handwritten in neat letters, is the earliest known record of a business transaction between Iran and A. Q. Khan, or Khan’s associates. The document dates to 1987, according to the I.A.E.A., and appears to be a shopping list prepared for Iran, created after a series of meetings in Europe. It refers, among other items, to materials for two thousand centrifuge machines. The handwriting has been checked against samples from Khan, Tahir, Lerch, and others, but no match has yet been found.



http://www.rferl.org/content/iran-saudi-arabia-war-of-words-over-hajj/27973885.html

At the pilgrimage in 1987, violence between Iranian Shi'ite pilgrims and Saudi security forces led to the deaths of more than 400 people, including 275 Iranians.

Beginning in the early 1980s, Iranian pilgrims held annual demonstrations against Israel and the United States at the hajj. But in 1987, Saudi police and national guards sealed part of the planned demonstration route, leading to a confrontation. This escalated into a violent clash, followed by a deadly stampede that killed hundreds and injured thousands more.

Following the incident, enraged Iranians attacked the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, while Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called on ordinary Saudis to overthrow the ruling Saud family in revenge for the pilgrims' deaths. Iran officially boycotted the hajj for the next three years.

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, severed its ties with Iran and reduced the number of Iranian pilgrims permitted to take part in the hajj to 45,000, down from 150,000 before the incident.

Events in 1989 further dented relations, as Saudi Arabia accused Iran in connection with two bombing incidents during the hajj, purportedly in retaliation for Saudi restrictions against Iranian pilgrims. The twin bombings killed one pilgrim and wounded a further 16. Saudi authorities eventually executed 16 Kuwaiti Shi'a for the bombings after originally blaming Iranian terrorists.

In the early 1990s, diplomatic relations were restored and an agreement was reached to allow Iranian pilgrims to perform the hajj. Demonstrations have since been permitted by the Saudi authorities only in a specific compound in Mecca, with few incidents reported thereafter.



https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hiipAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA189&lpg=PA189#v=onepage&q&f=false
https://web.archive.org/web/20010506180138/http://boozers.fortunecity.com/jerusalem/47/Political_Role/political_role.html
Khalili succeeded in reorganizing Hizb-e-Wahdat and engaged in a massive military offensive to expel government troops from Hazarajat. In mid-1995 they liberated Hazarajat and even drove government troops out of Shikhali district, Parwan province and seized a large cache of light and heavy artillery from the fleeing government troops. They also captured an Iranian technician who later confessed that he had been sent by the Iranian leadership to assist the Kabul government and its Shiite ally vis-à-vis the Hazaras.


===================

Safed Sang massacre (1998)

http://irantag.net/?p=2890
[A report about a massacre in Afghan refugee camp in Mashhad, Iran. Following a fight between a policeman and an immigrant, the majority of the camp’s residents were shot dead. This massacre has been ignored by the international communities.]

http://mahajerchest.mihanblog.com/post/9
An eye witness account

http://iranrights.org/library/document/2806
https://twitter.com/IranRights_org/status/810549844557385730
Read: Testimony of an #Afghan migrant witness to massacre at #Iran's #Sefidsang prison camp  #MigrantsDay (The testimony said the massacre happened in March 1995)




https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=3nJFvCMEMpUC&pg=PA17&lpg=PA17#v=onepage&q&f=false
Safed Sang massacre in 1998. Iranian forces killed 600 Afghan refugees in Safed Sang camp (located between Mashhad and Afghan border). Extract from page 17-18 of the book "A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise her voice" By Malalai Joya.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG_8HAqMW6o
Afghan film "Hamsaya" based on Safed Sang massacre

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-making-movies-the-afghan-way-1027758.html
http://8am.af/oldsite.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=21893:1390-07-15-15-06-21&catid=1:title&Itemid=553
http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta2/tft/article.php?issue=20120302&page=5.1
https://iwpr.net/global-voices/afghan-film-cancellation-blamed-iran
http://www.rferl.org/a/24352892.html
http://www.rferl.org/a/24367353.html
21 Oct 2011: This ominous setting provides the backdrop for the film "Neighbor," which portrays the alleged massacre of hundreds of Afghan migrants at a detention center inside Iran in the 1990s.

In the film, Iranian guards abet the massacre of some 600 Afghan inmates at the Safed Sang (White Rock) detention facility after they protest their treatment. Iranian warplanes finish off the detainees by strafing them with machine-gun fire.

The Iranian authorities have never permitted an independent investigation of what actually happened at Safed Sang, so the facts of the case cannot be verified.

But those who escaped provide chilling testimony.

To acclaimed Afghan film director Siddiq Barmak, who produced "Neighbor," it was a story that needed to be told.

But he says the Iranian authorities have mounted a determined effort to prevent the film from gaining wider distribution in Afghanistan -- with a measure of success so far.
The scheduled premiere of "Neighbor" at a human rights film festival in Mazar-e Sharif earlier this month was canceled after protests from the Iranian Consulate, which labeled the film "un-Islamic."

Similar objections were voiced in Kabul, where Barmak says the film was briefly screened and warmly received by the audience. "Everybody was appreciative of the film and they welcomed it," he says. "It had a huge impact on the audience."

But the filmmaker says he has had no luck gaining wider distribution. "We took the screening of the film...to a few private TV channels in Kabul," he says, "but unfortunately at the last minute they refused."
.....

The controversy surrounding "Neighbor" comes as another Afghan film was barred from screening this week in Kabul.

The premiere of "Madrasa," based on the true story of a young female Afghan refugee in Iran, was suddenly canceled at the French Cultural Center in Kabul.

"Madrasa" follows the story of 8-year-old Meena, who is prevented from attending school by officials in Iran. She dreams of becoming a doctor but anti-immigrant laws prevent her from getting a good education.

Asad Sikandar, director of "Madrasa," says the Afghan authorities prevented the movie from being shown based on a request from the Iranian Embassy in Kabul.

"The Iranian Embassy, together with Latif Ahmadi, head of Afghan Film, received notice not to screen our film," Sikandar says. "If they are saying that there is freedom, why don't they allow me to show my film?" 


==================

http://www.rawa.org/refuge.htm
20 Sep 1998: Afghan refugees living in Iran are under violent attacks in the aftermath of killing of Iranian nationals in Mazar-e-Sharif and reports on Saturday said as many as 100 defenceless refugees had lost their lives as a result of widespread anger. The state-controlled Iranian papers reported that a number of Afghan refugees had been killed in the last few days in Mashshad, Isfahan and capital Tehran. But friends and relatives of the refugees living elsewhere said the Afghan refugees killed in Mashshad numbered 30, and all over the country 150 defenceless refugees had been killed. The reports said although the Iranian president had appealed to the nation to maintain calm in the wake of killing of Iranians in Afghanistan, the public anger has known no limits.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/181245.stm 
27 Sep 1998: 

One refugee told the BBC that bullying had got worse since the Taleban massacre of the Iranian diplomats.

''I have not been beaten up, but I have been humiliated. They do not make any distinction. They call us all Talebans,'' he said.

''It's ironic because the most easily identifiable Afghans, [the ones] with oriental looks, are Shia Muslims like the Iranians.

''They are the ones being massacred by the Taleban in Afghanistan itself and paying the price in Iran for Taleban actions.''

 



http://carnegieendowment.org/2016/11/30/sectarian-dilemmas-in-iranian-foreign-policy-when-strategy-and-identity-politics-collide-pub-66288

Iran’s leaders have long emphasized pan-Islamic ideals and courted Sunni allies. The majority of scholars who have studied Iranian foreign policy since 1979 do not describe that record of behavior as sectarian, meaning primarily aimed at advancing a pro-Shia agenda. Rather, they see Iran’s decisionmaking as closer to realpolitik.²

However, the sectarian element in Iranian foreign policy has increased over the last decade. The primary catalysts for the country’s shift toward a more clear-cut favoring of Shia clients and allies in the Middle East were the toppling of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in 2003 and the Arab Spring beginning in late 2010. Those events and the conflicts they ignited— particularly in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen—have sharply divided the interests of Iran and its neighbors. Fearful of each other’s intentions, the behavior of Iran and its Arab rivals has moved increasingly in a sectarian direction. Such sectarianism runs counter to Tehran’s official positions, but close relationships with Shia allies have become the basis of Iranian influence in the region. With its allies threatened in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, Iran has doubled down on its pro-Shia strategy as a way of protecting its regional interests and investments.
..... Iran retained contacts with Hazara and Tajik militias and continued to provide them support during the 1990s and early 2000s, but that support did not translate into special affinity for Khomeinism or Iran’s political objectives more broadly. Similarly, the IRGC’s intervention in the Balkan conflict of the early 1990s, where it funneled arms and support to Bosnian Muslim militias, was relatively short lived and unsuccessful at establishing a lasting pro-Iranian movement.

https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/ajpreport_20050718.pdf
https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/reports/casting-shadows-war-crimes-and-crimes-against-humanity-1978-2001
Casting Shadows: War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity: 1978-2001. Afghan warlords war crimes.


http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2007/10/04/afghan-refugees-meet-with-cold-welcome-in-iran.html#ixzz4XCGjsSkd
4 Oct 2007:

The Iranian government views Afghans as burdens on its economy, and has been putting measures in place to repatriate the Afghan migrants for some years.

If an Afghan man marries an Iranian, their marriage is considered illegal unless the man registers with Iranian authorities, then goes back to Afghanistan to clear a background check, and after obtaining the proper documents comes to Iran. He then gets a one-year residency permit that he has to renew each year. He also obtains other relevant documents that allow him to work, but the monthly fees he is required to pay take a very huge chunk out of his usually low monthly salary.

Access to education has also become restricted for Afghan children, since they are required to pay for their education, making it practically impossible for many of these children to go to school because their low-income families can't afford the tuition.

An official from Iran's Bureau for Aliens and Foreign Immigrant Affairs (BAFIA) says 85 percent of Afghans are not satisfied with their lives in Iran, and about 95 percent of them are living in poverty. He says in years 2004 and 2005 their rate of return was high, but although the situations were made more difficult for them, the rate dropped in the following two years.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/194913
3 March 2010:
 Iranian Embassy officials exploit contacts with a number of Afghan politicians to influence Parliament's agenda. Many MPs accuse Hazaras, who like Iran's leaders are mostly Shia Muslims, of having the closest ties with Iran. Moderate Hazaras insist Iranian outreach influences only conservative Hazaras, many of whom received religious educations or lived in Iran while in exile. MPs single out Sayed Hussein Alemi Balkhi (Kabul), Ahmad Ali Jebraili (Herat), and Ustad Mohammad Akbari (Bamyan) as the Hazara MPs who receive the most support from Iran. The Iranian Embassy has also cultivated deep relations with members of opposition groups (including the United Front), Tajik Sayeds, and MPs from Herat and other western provinces.


http://www.ipsnews.net/2010/08/afghanistan-not-much-good-news-for-the-media/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-10776654
27 July 2010: The authorities in Afghanistan have closed down the Emroaz TV channel.
...

Officials enforced its disconnection shortly after the channel's owner, the MP Najib Kabuli, had protested against the decision on screen.

He urged his supporters not to let the ministry of information impose a "one-sided decision" on the station.

Emroaz - which means "today" in Dari - has criticised leading Shia politicians in Afghanistan, accusing them of working for Iran. They deny this.

http://www.rferl.org/a/2212566.html
6 Nov 2010: It is easy to spot the nearly three-acre campus of Khatam-al Nabyeen Islamic University in western Kabul.

The madrasah, or religious school, which opened four years ago, still appears brand new. Its complex of mosque, classrooms, and dormitories is built in a classic Central Asian architectural style, giving it a timeless feel. 

But the school is noteworthy for other reasons. Built at a cost of some $17 million by one of Afghanistan's most Iran-leaning clerics, it is one of Tehran's lesser noticed, but most effective efforts to build influence in Afghanistan.
....
Alireza Nourizadeh, director of the Center for Arab and Iranian Studies in London, says, "They have the same books, the same sort of lessons, and they all believe in, they have to believe in, Khamenei as the Velayat-e faqih [supreme religious expert] or Khamenei as the representative of the disappeared imam, the 12th Imam."

"So, we are talking about a very exclusive and comprehensive program in which a young man from a remote village in Bamian or any other part of Afghanistan comes to that school and within six or seven years he becomes totally a man who is ready to die for Khamenei and for his ideas," Nourizadeh said.

The university's founder, Grand Ayatollah Mohseni, is a 75-year-old cleric and former mujahedin leader whom Tehran has helped propel to greater prominence in recent years. The Iranian government is widely reported to have provided engineering help and supplies of programming to enable Mohseni to open a television station, Tamadon (Civilization). 


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/02/afghan-mps-scholars-iran-payroll
2 Dec 2010: Afghan MPs and clerics on Iran's payroll


https://iwpr.net/global-voices/divisive-books-herat 
Sep 27, 2011:An influx of Iranian books on religion into western Afghanistan has angered some local residents who see them as offensive to Sunni Islam, the majority faith.
... Lying on the Iranian border, Herat has many cultural and economic connections with Shia-dominated Iran. The Iranians, with a prolific publishing industry, have supplied Afghan universities with books, opened cultural centres, and are said to have funded Herat’s main public library since it was set up in 2004.
Many Afghans remain highly suspicious of Tehran’s intentions, and are especially upset at the notion – right or wrong – that it is trying to export Shia ideas.
Mohammad Shafi Faruqi, owner of the Faruqi Bookstore in Herat, said he had been approached by people offering to supply him with provocative material from Iran, but he had turned them down as he had seen what this kind of literature it could do.
“I’ve witnessed physical as well as verbal confrontations between young people over the content of these books,” he said. “If things continue like this, these confrontations will escalate to a regional level.”
Walishah Bahra, director of the Herat provincial department for information and cultural affairs, said his staff had impounded thousands of books from both Iran and Pakistan on the grounds that they were against the national interest.
“These books were going to be distributed in Herat… their purpose was to create religious divisions among people,” he said.
Two years ago, officials in Nimroz province, south of Herat, seized hundreds of copies of Iranian books deemed to be anti-Islamic and anti-Afghan, and dumped them in the Helmand river.
Cultural affairs analyst Ahmad Farid Ayubi accused certain states of trying to make trouble in Afghanistan.
“Neighbouring countries are trying to stir up disputes by any possible means, and to exploit the situation,” he said. “They want to do anything they can so that the [NATO-led] foreign forces run into problems.”
IWPR asked the Iranian consulate in Herat to discuss the issues raised in this story, but an official – who did not want to be named – refused point blank to comment.
Ahmad Ali Jebraeli, an Islamic scholar who runs a Shia madrassa or religious school in Herat, was keen to play down divisions, suggesting that the offending literature might have come from Islamic radicals in Iran seeking to “create disunity between the Shia and Sunni brothers”.


http://www.khaama.com/infiltration-of-pakistan-iran-in-afghan-medias-nds-065
11 April 2012: 
Mr. Mashal also named Tamadon and Noor Television Channels as an exemplary which broadcasts programs in accordance with the Agendas of the Iranian government.

He said, “The subjects broadcasted by Tamadon TV was handed over to them by Iranian sources and are not created by Tamadon TV officials, and Noor TV normally invites individuals who oppose the presence of foreign troops and installation of foreign forces in Afghanistan and also criticize the achievements of the Afghan government.”

He also said, a number of Pakistani spies are also working in Shamshad TV which broadcasts in Pushto language. He said, “Shamshad TV has hired 12 foreigners without informing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture and Information of Afghanistan. The Financial Director and a program maker of this TV is Pakistani nationals and creates Pakistani subjects for display.”


http://www.rferl.org/a/24535458.html 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17954943 
4 May 2012: 

Late last month, the deputy governor-general of Iran's northern Mazandaran Province, Hadi Ebrahimi, announced that all Afghans had to leave the province by 2 July, irrespective of their legal status.

"From that date, their residency and identity documents will no longer be valid," said Ebrahimi, according to the official Iranian news agency Irna.

The deputy governor, who is in charge of political and security affairs of the province, went on to warn employers that offering work or help to Afghans would be illegal.

"Any form of service or assistance [to Afghans] would be considered a crime and punishable by the full force of the law."

Mr Ebrahimi, whose province is on the Caspian Sea coast and is a popular tourist destination, reminded the public that the "presence of Afghans in 10 coastal towns" had been banned four years ago.

Moreover, he said that marriage between Iranian women and Afghan men had been deemed illegal in 2006.

"We should prevent this occurring by educating the public about the consequences of these marriages," he added, without elaborating.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-iran-media-idUSBRE84N0CB20120524
24 May 2012:
Nearly a third of Afghanistan's media is backed by Iran, either financially or through providing content, Afghan officials and media groups say.
....
Afghanistan's intelligence department, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), had earlier gone public with Iran's alleged meddling in the media, saying that weekly newspaper Ensaf and TV channels Tamadon and Noor had received financial support from Iran.
A journalist who recently left Tamadon TV, owned by Afghanistan's most prominent Shi'ite cleric Ayatollah Mohammed Asef Mohseni, told Reuters that while the station never confirmed it was getting support from Tehran "it was obvious". 
"My salary of $600 a month would fluctuate dramatically, as it was pegged to Iran's rial," said the 23-year-old, one of 200 employees at Tamadon, where he worked for four years before resigning over fears his employment would land him in trouble with Afghan authorities. 
"Our office is full of posters calling for protests against the strategic pact with America. We'd invite pro-Iran analysts onto our shows saying Iran was the only one who could help Afghanistan with food and supplies," said the recent graduate, dressed in a tight black long-sleeved t-shirt and jeans.
Tamadon TV dismissed the claims of Iranian backing as an "insult". Editor in chief Mohammad Rahmati said the station was targeted "because we show core Islamic values; we don't show half-naked dancing women".  
...
The three media outlets feature news reports that hold little interest for Afghans, but are important to Iran, using the same messages and wordage carried by Iranian state media.
The state of Israel, for instance, is called "the Zionist regime", a term Afghan officials generally avoid using.
....
Last year, Afghans were shocked when Tamadon TV broadcast a live speech by Iran's parliament speaker Ali Larijani criticizing the presence of Western troops in Afghanistan.
.... 

The Kabul-based reporter of Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency, Abdul Hakimi, was arrested two weeks ago on charges of spying, Afghan officials said. The NDS declined to comment.

One man who says he is painfully familiar with Iranian interference is author and journalist Razaq Mamoon. He says a masked man who threw acid in his face in January of last year was working for Tehran. The Iranian embassy in Kabul has not commented on his allegations.

...

Though media reports at the time said his assailant staged the attack over a soured love affair, Mamoon says his 2010 book which accuses Iran of sabotage and espionage in Afghanistan, motivated Iranian intelligence agencies to attack him.

"Those individuals who planned the attack on me are still in power and their Iranian spy agencies are still very active in Kabul," Mamoon, who now lives in New Delhi out of fear for his safety, told Reuters in e-mailed comments.



https://www.opendemocracy.net/opensecurity/afshin-shahi/plight-of-afghan-refugees-in-iran 
1 August 2012: 

Lately the government has started the process of forced expulsion of Afghans. These forced evacuations are taking place both at the time when many Afghan families have developed roots in Iranian towns and cities and when Afghanistan is far from being a safe place to force Afghans to return to. Now Afghans are only allowed to live in three provinces, they are not welcome in the remaining twenty eight provinces. Most cities have banned Afghans and the authorities will persecute anyone who offers them shelter or employment. Lately in Fars province the authorities went as far as banning selling food to Afghans. They demanded that all the shopkeepers and bakeries should check the identity of their customers before selling them food. They have warned local businesses that if they continue to sell food to the ‘illegal foreign nationals’ their businesses will be closed down. Denying basic needs like food and shelter is not only a fundamental violation of human rights, it is also a step towards ethnic cleansing. 

Earlier this year during the festival of Sizdah-bedar, an ancient tradition celebrating nature enjoyed by both Afghans and Iranians, authorities in Esfahan openly banned Afghans from entering a major public park to celebrate the event, their reason being, to maintain ‘safety and security‘ of the families.

http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2012/10/28/iranians-build-up-afghan-clout.phtml
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204076204578078564022815472
28 Oct 2012:

Ms. Karimi and the Husseinis live in the Herat neighborhood of Jubrayl, with many ethnic Hazaras who, like Iranians, are Shiites. Iran has built it a library, school, clinics and smooth roads—all Afghanistan rarities.

On a recent day in the library, a stack of books bearing a portrait of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was piled on the floor awaiting distribution to children.

The library doesn't just spread Iranian propaganda. Young girls use one room to learn English. There are classes in computer science and math.

"I would be happy if the U.S. would provide this aid, too, but they don't," said Reza, the manager, who uses just one name. "So I'm working with Iranian aid."

An employee, however, said the library had little choice: Officials from the Iranian consulate in Herat threatened to cut off funding this spring unless the library promoted more Iranian programs.

Another demand, the employee said, was to commemorate the June 3 anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of Iran's 1979 revolution. The library, needing the funds, agreed to increase its classes on Iranian culture.

"Soft power" isn't the only kind Iran projects. Herat provincial officials say they have seen a rise in insurgent activity by groups with Iranian backing. Insurgents "have safe houses in Iran and fight against the Afghan government," said Herat's governor, Daoud Saba.

In August, The Wall Street Journal reported that Iran had let the Taliban open an office in Iran and was increasing its support to the insurgency, aiming to speed up the U.S.-led coalition's withdrawal from Afghanistan.

...

Afghan officials say Iranian diplomats have long funded Afghan media outlets, and in August, officials in Iran's embassy in Kabul met with four Afghan TV stations and three newspapers in an effort to establish a union of Afghan journalists that would voice the Iranian line.

Afghanistan's intelligence agency struck back, arresting several Iranian journalists it claimed were Iranian spies. A Kabul-based reporter for Iran's semiofficial Fars News Agency remains in custody.

Mobarez Rashidi, Afghanistan's deputy minister of culture and information, acknowledged that the U.S.-led coalition, too, has funded the Afghan media to foster pro-American views. He drew a distinction. "We welcome countries that support media clearly and openly," he said.

Unlike the U.S., which focuses aid on restive provinces where the Taliban are strong, Iran empowers those that tend to be pro-Iranian.

Permission to enter Iran is potent tool. At Iranian-run clinics and mosques in Herat, when Afghans seek to enter Iran for medical care or a pilgrimage, only those deemed loyal to Iran get visas, said a senior Western official in Herat.

Herat's provincial health director felt Iran's wrath in 2008 when he sought to inspect an Iranian-funded clinic that was accused of giving patients pro-Iranian propaganda. The clinic, Sabz-e-Parsyan, is a gatekeeper for Afghans seeking treatment in Iran. The provincial official, Ghulam Sayed Rashed, says its staff refused to let him inspect the building fully.

He ordered the clinic shut until an inspection was completed, but two days later was overruled by a higher Herat official. The clinic's current director said he wasn't aware of the incident and denied any pro-Iran activity.

http://www.rferl.org/a/24761437.html 
Nov 5, 2012: The project, which is expected to cost between $45 million and $100 million, was agreed between the two countries in Jeddah. Construction is expected to begin next year. The Islamic complex will cover 24 hectares on Maranjan Hill in central Kabul. It will feature a university, a hospital, a sports hall, and a mosque capable of holding around 15,000 worshippers at a time.

When completed, it will become a rival to the massive Iranian-built Khatam al-Nabyeen Islamic University in western Kabul. The Shi'ite religious school, which was opened in 2006, was built at a cost of some $17 million by one of Afghanistan's most Iran-leaning clerics. The campus has a mosque, classrooms, and dormitories for its 1,000 Afghan students.


http://iranpulse.al-monitor.com/index.php/2013/02/1346/head-of-ammar-strategic-base-syria-is-irans-35th-province-if-we-lose-syria-we-cannot-keep-tehran/ 
14 Feb 2013: 
Hojjat al-Islam Mehdi Taeb, the head of the Ammar Strategic Base (an organization established to fight the “soft war” against the Islamic Republic of Iran), in a meeting with university student members of the Basij paramilitary force, has stated: “Syria is the 35th province [of Iran] and a strategic province for us. If the enemy attacks us and wants to appropriate either Syria or Khuzestan (in southern Iran), the priority is that we keep Syria.” 

http://www.boulevard-exterieur.com/Teheran-s-Designs-on-Afghanistan.html

http://thediplomat.com/2013/05/tehrans-designs-on-afghanistan/?allpages=yes

23 May 2013:The attack occurred in the afternoon of February 22, when the 30-year-old journalist was on his way to Mojhda radio station in Herat, where he has presented a daily evening show for the last four years. Yaghobi used the program, called “Tazyana” (meaning “a whip to arouse the conscience of the people”), to question certain conservative Shia practices and the rising influence of Iran in Herat society. He was also associated with a foreign crew documenting the cultural and political influence of Iran in Afghanistan.

Afghan Journalist Centre writes that the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. However, Yaghobi has told The Diplomat that the “modus operandi used by the attackers is not employed by the Taliban, but is the handiwork of Iranian intelligence active in Herat through fundamentalist Shia groups.” His claim was supported by local intelligence officials, who demanded anonymity. Yaghobi says that past attacks on creative people and journalists have been carried out by these local groups.

Because of its geographical proximity and religious bonding, Shia Iran’s influence is visible throughout western Afghanistan. The overarching presence of the large neighbor is evident not only in the goods on sale in Herat, Farah and other provinces, but also in the religious and cultural spheres.

“It’s very suffocating the way Iran controls your life in Herat,” says Yaghobi. “For the outside world it’s the Taliban that is disrupting Afghanistan, but the fact of the matter is that Iran is also playing a very negative role in destabilizing Afghanistan, in radicalizing Shia society and using that to serve its narrow political interests.”

Prominent Afghan writer Taqi Bakhtiari, a Shia himself, agrees. He blames Tehran for injecting fundamentalism into Shia society in Afghanistan. Bakhtiari has been forced to live in hiding since publication of his novel Gomnami (Anonymity), which tells of a young Afghan boy who goes to Iran to learn Islamic teaching but is sexually assaulted in the seminary. The incident abruptly neuters the young boy’s religious zeal and he returns to his homeland, where he starts reading secular texts and loses faith in established religion. For this work, which Bakhtiari claims is based on real story, he has been declared persona non grata in Afghanistan. Facing a serious threat to his life, Bakhtiari has gone underground with his family. When The Diplomat met him, he was living with eight members of his family in a cramped one bedroom accommodation. He has approached the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees seeking asylum in the West.

The novelist remains very bitter about Iran and blames “Afghans acting at the behest of Tehran” behind the threats to his life. He says that the “Iranian regime is trying to expand its theocratic dominion and for the last three decades Iran has been using Shiites against Sunni and thousands of Hazaras who are mostly Shias have lost their lives in this game.”

Listen to the Friday sermon at the Shia center in Heart, and Bakhitari’s claim seems credible. The mosque located in the center’s basement was packed on April 19, when The Diplomat visited. More than five thousand people had gathered to listen to Sayed Baqer Hasaniyan, chief imam of the biggest Shia mosque in the province. In an address lasting more than an hour, the imam blamed the West “for keeping Islamic countries backward and destroying their culture.” He called upon all Islamic people “to unite and fight together against the Western world for interfering and intruding into Islamic countries.” He also exhorted people “to shun music and ask women to behave according to the Islamic law and culture.”

Right next to the Islamic center is an old mosque, currently being renovated with the help of Iran. Once completed, it will have capacity for more than 8000 people.

Not far from the Shia center is Taqi-e-Abul Fazl library, one of the biggest in Herat. The majority of the books on display have come from Iran and narrate Iranian folk tales and stories about the Islamic movement. Very little literature about Afghanistan’s history and way of life is available. Some bookshelves display jihadi materials and have books on holy war.

...

Omar Sharifi, director of the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies in Kabul, disagrees, arguing that “Iranian influence remains strong among more religiously conservative Shiite groups at best, with nominal to very little influence over other groups. Iran can be a destabilizing element at the local level in the Afghan conflict, but its ability to create a major crisis for Afghan government is shrinking due to Tehran’s isolation at the world level.”

At a conference attended by The Diplomat, Herat Governor Dr. Daud Shah Saba said that, “Iranian influence is because of geography, but yes Afghan forces have captured an arms consignment at the Iranian border and they have also recovered Iranian-made weapons from the hands of the Taliban.”

Iran thus remains an enigma for Afghanistan. But some reports suggest that Tehran is trying to fill the void that will be created by the U.S. withdrawal at the end of 2014, and is cultivating closer relations with the Taliban, funding politicians and media outlets.

Meanwhile, Yaghobi has fled Herat, fearing for his life. He hopes to start anew in another country, somewhere he and his family might feel safe from fundamentalist groups.

http://www.sunni-news.net/en/articles.aspx?article_no=30572 
13 Sep 2013:

The outstanding Iranian Sunni leader, Mawlana Abdol-Hamid, has denounced strongly a Shia cleric over insulting Iranian Baloch women asking him and his satellite TV channel to apologize to the entire Baloch nation.

 According to the office of Khateeb and Imam of the Friday prayers in Zahedan, southeastern Iran, Mr. Qazwini accused the Iranian Baloch Sunni women for traveling to Syria practicing “Jihad of Nikah”. The baseless and irrational words of Mr. Qazwini, director of Velayat Satellite TV channel based in the Qom city of Iran, have erupted massive anger of the Sunnis in Iran.

https://www.memri.org/tv/iraqi-shiite-imam-and-former-mp-jalal-al-din-al-saghir-shiites-control-entire-region
https://www.memri.org/tv/iraqi-shiite-imam-and-former-mp-jalal-al-din-al-saghir-shiites-control-entire-region/transcript
28 Apr 2014:
Iraqi Shiite Imam and former MP Jalal Al-Din Al-Saghir said that even though the Shiites are the minority in the numerical sense, "we are the majority, strategically speaking." The Shiites control the oil reserves in the region, as well as the straits controlling international maritime traffic, he said.

https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/AAN-Paper-012015-Borhan-Osman-.pdf
2015:
On the perceived threat from Shi’ism, members of all four groups expressed concern about what they perceived as Iran’s efforts to use and promote Shi’ism for its strategic goals. Salafis and Eslah members were most vocal. When prompted, respondents from all four groups distinguished between Shi’ism as an indigenous Islamic sect and as a political tool influenced by the Islamic revolution of Iran, describing the former as acceptable and the latter as problematic. Some Salafis, however, believed that the freedoms currently given to Shias in Afghanistan are a problem per se, as these increase Shias’ influence and could pose a threat to Afghanistan’s identity as a ‘Sunni country.’ They pointed to the recognition of the Shia family law (known as Shia Personal Status Law) in Afghan courts and the inclusion of Jafari fiqh in schoolbooks as manifestations of increasing Shia influence. Some Hezbis pointed to the grand Shia educational institutions (Khatamun Nabiyeen University run by Ayatollah Asef Mohseni) and TV channels owned by Shia personalities (Tamadon TV run by Mohseni, Rah-e Farda TV that belongs to Vice CEO, Muhammad Mohaqiq, Negah TV that belongs to former Vice President Abdul Karim Khalili) as “increasing Shia encroachment” on Afghan society.



https://www.yahoo.com/news/export-irans-revolution-enters-chapter-general-155903109.html?ref=gs 
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/iran-continues-boast-regional-reach-944755422 
10 March 2015:

On Wednesday, Iran's top general said that Tehran is making progress in exporting its ideology.

"The Islamic revolution is advancing with good speed, its example being the ever-increasing export of the revolution," Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), was quotes as saying by ISNA.

"Today, not only Palestine and Lebanon acknowledge the influential role of the Islamic republic but so do the people of Iraq and Syria," he said, adding that "the phase of the export of the revolution has entered a new chapter."

Meanwhile, Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Supreme National Security Council, has reportedly boasted that Iran has a military presence in the Mediterranean Sea and Bab-el-Mandeb, a strait that connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.

Last September, Ali Reza Zakani, Tehran city representative in the Iranian parliament, said that with the fall of Yemen's capital Sanaa under the control of Shiite Houthi militia, Iran now rules in four Arab capitals – the three others being Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut.

"Three Arab capitals have today ended up in the hands of Iran and belong to the Islamic Iranian revolution," he was quoted as saying, adding that Sanaa is joining them.

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2017/05/analysis-iran-steps-up-support-for-terrorism-in-bahrain.php

In speeches delivered in Qom in 2015 and 2016, Sanadi himself embraced vilayat-e faqih and recognized Khamenei as amir al mu’minin, or leader of the faithful. He also authored an anti-American article on Khamenei’s official website in December 2016. Other than a brief appearance in the Iraqi city of Karbala in late 2013, virtually all of Sanadi’s public appearances for propaganda purposes seem to have been made from Qom, including as recently as March of this year.

Last year, Sanadi gave a lecture on Bahrain to the Masoumieh Religious Seminary, a top institution for training clerics to serve in Iran’s military and security services, including the IRGC. According to Reuters, Sanadi was even allowed in September 2016 to deliver a Friday sermon at the most prestigious mosque in Qom. His activities in Qom highlight the overlap between Iran’s extremist ideology and his Bahrain-oriented activism.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/01/04/why-saudi-arabia-escalated-the-middle-easts-sectarian-conflict/
Jan 4, 2016: Sectarianism itself does not explain very much. Little has changed since the winter of 2013, when I analyzed growing sectarianism in terms of the cynical manipulation of identity politics by regimes seeking to advance their domestic and foreign policy interests. The idea of an unending, primordial conflict between Sunnis and Shiites explains little about the ebbs and flows of regional politics.
.....
As influentially described by Gregory Gause, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf regimes tend to balance against both domestic and foreign threats. Anti-Shiite mobilization has long been viewed as an effective way of blunting Iran’s appeal to Sunnis, while serving as a currency in intra-Sunni competition for influence. Recent books by Matthiesen and Fred Wehrey effectively demonstrate how sectarian foreign policy also maintains domestic regime stability. Mobilizing sectarian tension abroad should be understood both as a gambit within the region’s power politics as well as a way to maintain domestic control.


https://theintercept.com/2016/01/06/one-map-that-explains-the-dangerous-saudi-iranian-conflict/
Jan 6, 2016: As Izady’s map so strikingly demonstrates, essentially all of the Saudi oil wealth is located in a small sliver of its territory whose occupants are predominantly Shiite. (Nimr, for instance, lived in Awamiyya, in the heart of the Saudi oil region just northwest of Bahrain.) If this section of eastern Saudi Arabia were to break away, the Saudi royals would just be some broke 80-year-olds with nothing left but a lot of beard dye and Viagra prescriptions.


http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/01/iran-saudi-sunni-shiite/422808/

Jan 7, 2016: ... this notion that these two powers are predestined for immutable rivalry because of the ancient Persian-Arab divide or the ancient Sunni-Shiite divide—that can only get us so far, because there’s been periods where [Iran and Saudi Arabia have] been on the same sides of conflicts, they’ve cooperated in a chilly manner—never warm. During the Cold War, they were both monarchies, they both faced a threat from a communist insurgency, [and] from [Egyptian President Gamel Abdel] Nasser. They cooperated there.

....... 

The Iranians have always downplayed sectarianism because if you’re a Shia minority in the Sunni world, it doesn’t serve your interests to highlight the sectarian divide, because that means you’re always going to be in the minority. [The Iranians] have always said that, “We want to speak for all Muslims, we advance all Muslims,” or they play the class card. They say, “We advance the interests of the oppressed.” The oppressed can be Palestinians, the oppressed can be Bahrainis. It just so happens that the oppressed in many regions are in fact the Shia. But that logic hasn’t really helped them with Syria, because they’re backing a [Shia] government that is killing its own. …

I don’t doubt there are [Saudi] royals that genuinely hate the Shia and are sectarian, but I think from a political and policy perspective, they are looking at the region in realist terms and they also see an expediency to sectarianism. And the actors that they’re backing on the ground in these places are very sectarian—are Salafis, are Sunni jihadists.

.....

There have been plenty of times in the Middle East when these differences have been subsumed by other identities. Some of the early members of [Iraq’s Sunni-dominated] Baath Party were Shia. The Saudis did in fact back the Shia candidate in the [2010] Iraqi elections, [Ayad] Allawi. Iran is backing Hamas, which is a Sunni power. There are examples of this theory collapsing elsewhere.

......

Iranians have [the ability] to train and equip and control these proxies, but I can tell you from working in Iraq and having followed this Iranian regional power from the Pentagon, that that’s not always the case—that the Iranians have been surprised, frustrated, flummoxed, angry at the way things have happened on the ground. And the same thing with the Saudis. The Saudis have even less of an institutional capability to create and manage proxies. They typically just distribute cash, whereas the Iranians at least have advisors on the ground.

http://www.bbc.com/urdu/pakistan/2016/01/160110_baat_se_baat_wusat_zh
Wusat ulla Khan's column

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/08/19/the-iran-saudi-proxy-wars-come-to-mali-shiite-sunni-islam/
August 19, 2015: Historically, West Africa has had a tolerant approach to religious differences, shunning — at least until recently — the sort of Sunni-Shiite sectarian rivalries that have plagued the Middle East in favor of a patchwork of beliefs that incorporate Sufism, Maliki Islam, and traditional animist practices. But Mali — home to seminaries with ties to Iran, like the Mustafa International School, and where diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks this summer reveal that Saudi Arabia is scrambling to fund its own competing schools, mosques, and cultural projects — provides a case study in how the enmity between Sunni Islam and Shiite Islam may be being spread, via Iranian and Saudi proxies, to places thousands of miles from the Middle East.
....
Iran and Mali have a warm, if limited, relationship. When Iran’s then-president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, visited Bamako and Timbuktu in 2010, he spoke in glowing terms about solidarity between the two countries and signed a raft of agreements on development aid and Iranian investment in agriculture and extractive industries. The Mustafa International School’s director, Mohamed Diabaté, who studied in Iran and maintains links with clerics there, makes appearances on Malian television to talk about his understanding of Islam. (He argues that the Tidjaniya school of Sufism common across West Africa has roots in Shiite, rather than Sunni, teaching.)
The presence of Shiism here isn’t something Saudi Arabia is taking lightly. Among the nearly 60,000 diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks on June 19 are a slew of documents detailing the kingdom’s fear of a “rising tide of Shiism” resulting from proselytization on the part of Saudi Arabia’s rival in the Middle East, Iran. Cables detailing specific Iranian charities, schools, and media outlets from Kazakhstan to Spain — as well as vague fears of “Shiite activities” elsewhere — show that Saudi diplomats see Shiism not only to be a vile heresy, but a movement inseparably tied to Iranian political clout. And even the smallest Shiite community is considered a threat.


http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/11/iran-qatar-rapprochement-middle-east.html#ixzz4HE40UREk

Nov 4, 2015: Qatar was one of the first countries to welcome the Iran nuclear deal. Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid Attiyah said Aug. 4 that the deal makes the region safer...

Also, Qatar fears an expansion of the Saudi role in the region following the Saudi-Iranian conflict, which is playing out in the fighting in Yemen. The Saudi-Qatari conflict also escalated when Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States withdrew their ambassadors from Qatar on March 5, negatively impacting Qatar’s regional influence.

Qatar took another step toward Iran by developing its security and military agreements with it in a qualitative change. The Islamic Republic News Agency announced that Iran and Qatar signed a security agreement Oct. 18 to fight crime in the two countries’ boundary waters.

This new agreement was preceded by a series of meetings and understandings between the two countries. In December 2010, Iranian military commanders arrived in Qatar in Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps military vessels to hold meetings and reach security understandings. Iran’s Ambassador to Qatar Abdullah Sohrabi and military attache Masha-Allah Purseh attended the meeting that resulted in the signing of a security agreement between the two countries. The joint meetings and talks between the two sides continued in the military, security and economic fields.

Apart from these political developments, Qatar has shared important economic interests with Iran, particularly in the gas fields between the two countries. Qatar is aware that the lifting of sanctions on Iran would end its privileged position for Iran, as it is the only one of the two that can host foreign companies investing in gas. If sanctions are lifted then Iran could do this as well.

In this context, investment projects will be launched in the joint Qatari-Iranian gas fields following the lifting of UN sanctions in the deal's full implementation deal, which could take up to six months. These projects will require cooperation and understanding between the two countries.

Qatar does not want to be part of the Saudi camp in the sectarian conflict in the region. It already has border disputes with Saudi Arabia and does not want to be under its influence, considering itself a leader in the Arab World. This is another reason for Qatar to diversify its alliances in general and move closer to Iran after the healing of the rift between Iran and the West.

http://en.iranwire.com/features/7012/
2 Jan 2016: Nadim Shehadi, director of the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies at Tufts University, estimates that Iran has provided Syria's Bashar Al-Assad government with between US$14 and 15 billion in annual aid since the start of Syrian civil war. If these figures are correct, then Iran has spent $60 billion in Syria over the last four years — in addition to the cost of supporting Iraqi and Kurdish militia and military forces in the fight against Daesh (ISIS). It is no secret that Iran has provided military advisors, volunteers and supplies to anti-Daesh forces in Iraq.
No similar estimate is available for the amount Saudi Arabia has spent in Syria. But the kingdom does train and support Islamic Front forces and groups in Syria. In 2013, Saudi Arabia promised to arm and to train Jaysh Al-Islam, a Salafi rebel alliance made up of more than 60 rebel groups. Liwa Al-Islam, under the command of Zahran Alloush — who was killed in a Russian airstrike on December 25, 2015 — was the leading group in the coalition when it was founded in 2013. Jaysh Al-Islam has 45,000 fighters at its disposal, supported by mechanized units and armored columns. Benefiting from Saudi Arabia’s support and patronage, Jaysh Al-Islam’s role in the Islamic Front is the most serious and the most significant fighting force in Syria, and it is among the best armed of the anti-Assad groups. It accepts foreign volunteers and its leaders have vowed to increase their ranks to 100,000. It is not cheap to keep an army this size battle-worthy and well equipped — Saudi Arabia has spent millions of dollars in Syria trying to do so.
Saudi Arabia’s government also dispenses large sums of money outside Syria, and across the region. Over the summer of 2014, it allocated $1 billion in military aid to Lebanon’s army, while Iran lavishly supported Shia militant group Hezbollah — though estimated figures on the amount are hard to come by. Military experts also estimate that the Saudi Arabia military campaign in Yemen has cost the kingdom $1.2 billion since it intervened. Some believe the monthly cost of campaign ranges from $175 million to $250 million.
So it is clear that both countries foot a number of bills throughout the region. And as they increase their commitments, both countries have seen a decline in revenues, made worse by a 70 percent decline in oil prices. Saudi Arabia’s GDP stands at around $750 billion and Iran’s at approximately $425 billion. The International Monetary Fund estimates that the Saudi government could face a deficit in excess of $100 billion in 2016.


http://thediplomat.com/2016/01/iran-and-saudi-arabia-in-afghanistan/

Jan 14, 2016: in May 2009, the Ministry of Culture and Information of Afghanistan disposed of 25 tons of books, which had been brought in by a private publisher at the Afghan-Iran border. Among them were the Nahjul-ul-Balagha, a collection of letters and speeches of Ali, the fourth caliph and the first imam of Shiites, and the Usul-e-Kafi, a revered Shiite book. The ministry called these texts ethnically and religiously controversial. Needless to say, the inflow of Shiite religious texts has concerned some Sunni radicals.

In May 2015, a political organization, Afghan Milli Ghorzang launched a protest attended by more than 100 people that ended in front of the Iranian embassy in Kabul. The protestors were calling for an end to the cultural invasion of Afghanistan by Iran. The group called for surveillance of the activities of the Iranian embassy and officials traveling between Kabul and Tehran. Throughout the protest they shouted “Death to Iran” and accused the neighbor of meddling in Afghanistan’s educational media. Tamadoon, a television channel that regularly broadcasts Iranian shows and another channel, Rah Farda, which belongs to the Shiite-Hazara leader Mohammad Muhaqeq, have been the focus of attacks by protestors. Many believe, however, that Iran’s true influence comes from within the Afghan government.

...

Even with its propaganda war and government support, Iran has struggled to win popular support, perhaps because the community doesn’t see those cash payments. Iran has shown minimal interest in the development and economic prosperity of Shia communities. Since 2000, it has undertaken very few developmental projects in central Afghanistan, a region dominated by Shia-Hazara Muslims, who are the first victims of sectarian violence. Iran’s development aid has been concentrated mostly in western Afghanistan, where the majority of people are Persian-speaking Sunnis. There, Iran constructed the Herat-Islamqala Highway, which connects Afghanistan’s western provinces to Mashhad in the east of Iran.

An apparent duality of symbolism and development is surfacing in Iranian’s foreign policy vis-à-vis Afghanistan: religious texts, pictures, flags and billboards for Shiites. Weapons and training for the Taliban. Roads, electricity and water for Sunni Persian-speakers. Time will tell if this approach contains anti-Iranian antagonism within hostile Sunni-dominated countries, where Salafism and Wahhabis extremism is growing. For the Shiite communities of Sunni-dominated countries, however, these symbols ensure that they are branded as Iranian pawns, to face continued harassment and violence.

http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/saudi-military/
19 April 2016: But while Saudi Arabia has the third-largest defence budget in the world behind the United States and China, its military performance in Yemen has been mixed, current and former U.S. officials said. The kingdom’s armed forces have often appeared unprepared and prone to mistakes.
U.N. investigators say that air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition are responsible for two thirds of the 3,200 civilians who have died in Yemen, or approximately 2,000 deaths. They said that Saudi forces have killed twice as many civilians as other forces in Yemen.
On the ground, Saudi-led forces have often struggled to achieve their goals, making slow headway in areas where support for Iran-allied Houthi rebels runs strong.
And along the Saudi border, the Houthis and allied forces loyal to former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh have attacked almost daily since July, killing hundreds of Saudi troops.
Instead of being the centrepiece of a more assertive Saudi regional strategy, the Yemen intervention has called into question Riyadh’s military influence, said one former senior Obama administration official. “There’s a long way to go. Efforts to create an effective pan-Arab military force have been disappointing.”
Behind the scenes, the West has been enmeshed in the conflict. Between 50 and 60 U.S. military personnel have provided coordination and support to the Saudi-led coalition, a U.S. official told Reuters. And six to 10 Americans have worked directly inside the Saudi air operations centre in Riyadh. Britain and France, Riyadh’s other main defence suppliers, have also provided military assistance.


http://www.wsj.com/article_email/with-iran-backed-conversions-shiites-gain-ground-in-africa-1463046768-lMyQjAxMTA2MjE0MjExODI0Wj
12 May 2016: YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon—Walking from classroom to classroom at the Ahl ul Bayt Linguistic Center, which teaches Arabic and Islam, director Ahmed Tijani pointed at his students, a mixture of teens and young adults.
“This one is Shiite, these ones are also Shiite,” he said. “And these ones, they are still Sunni.”
Mr. Tijani, whose office in the Cameroonian capital is decorated with an Iranian flag and a poster of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was also once a Sunni Muslim. Then he made the life-changing choice of enrolling at a similar Iranian-funded academy in the coastal city of Douala.
Since converting to Shiite Islam a decade ago, the 39-year-old educator has risen through the ranks, establishing this school in Yaoundé and even visiting Iran on a government-sponsored trip in 2012.
“There is a big difference between Shiite Islam and Sunni Islam,” he said. “Only the Shiites are spreading the truth.”
Such sectarian talk used to be exceedingly rare in much of Africa. So were actual Shiites. The few who could be found in Africa belonged to immigrant communities from Lebanon or the Indian subcontinent. Now, parts of the continent’s Sunni Muslim heartland are living through the biggest wave of Sunni-to-Shiite conversions since many Sunni tribes of southern Iraq adopted Shiism in the 19th century.
Hard figures are difficult to come by. But in Nigeria alone, Africa’s most populous nation, some 12% of its 90-million-strong Muslim population have identified themselves as Shiite in a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, up from virtually zero in 1980. The number is 21% for the Muslims of Chad, 20% for Tanzania, and 8% for Ghana, according to the survey.
That demographic change is occurring just as the Muslim world becomes increasingly polarized along sectarian lines, with Saudi Arabia, a self-proclaimed standard-bearer of the Sunni cause, engaged in proxy struggles from Yemen to Syria to Bahrain against a rival axis led by Iran’s Shiite theocracy.
“The core of the Saudi-Iranian confrontation over power and territory is in the Middle East. But West African Shiites are of symbolic value to Iran, for it to be able to say that its vision of Islam is expanding rather than shrinking. They give Iran more of a claim that they’re able to speak for Muslims in the whole world,” said Vali Nasr, dean of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and author of a book on the Shiite revival.
Pushing back, the Saudis have already pressed some of Iran’s erstwhile African Muslim allies to sever ties with Tehran, curb Shiite conversions and join Riyadh’s “antiterror coalition.” One of these countries, Sudan, in recent months went as far as sending troops to fight, under Saudi command, against the Shiite Houthi militia in Yemen.
The Shiite wave in Africa kicked off with Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979, a revolution that initially played down Shiism and sought to unite all Muslims under its banner. One of the early followers was Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky, a preacher from the northern Nigerian city of Zaria who adopted Shiite Islam after a stint in the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood.
Nigerian Shiite cleric Saidu Abdulhamid, then a 10-year-old in Zaria, recalls seeing a rambunctious street protest led by Mr. Zakzaky and joining his group, the Islamic Movement in Nigeria.
“People support the revolution in Iran 100%. They saw how Ayatollah Khomeini brought justice and made everyone equal. And every human being likes justice,” said Mr. Abdulhamid. “But in Nigeria, every president, once he becomes president, his first enemy is the Shiites.”
Relations between Nigeria’s Shiites and the government indeed worsened dramatically after President Muhammadu Buhari, a Sunni Muslim, replaced his Christian predecessor in May 2015.
Hundreds of Shiites died last December, in clashes that followed what the government said was an attempt by a Shiite mob to assassinate Nigeria’s army chief of staff. Mr. Zakzaky, whose sons died when the army opened fire on Shiite crowds, has been behind bars since then. His continued detention has turned into a cause célèbre for Iran and Shiite movements world-wide.
Nigeria’s radical Sunni movement Boko Haram, which last year became Islamic State’s sub-Saharan African franchise, has also imported the Middle East’s sectarian violence to Africa. Last November, it sent suicide bombers to attack a Shiite procession in the Nigerian city of Kano, vowing to wipe out the Shiite sect from the region.
The vast majority of Sunni Muslims in Nigeria and other countries of sub-Saharan Africa follow the mystical Sufi tradition that abhors the kind of radicalism spread by Boko Haram or the ultraconservative Islam promoted by Saudi Arabia. But even these Sufi leaders are increasingly worried by the Shiite penetration.
For ordinary Sufis, conversions to Shiism are relatively easy because the Sufi tradition venerates the family of Prophet Muhammad, explained Sheikh Abdadayim Abdoulaye Ousman, a Sufi cleric who oversees Chad’s Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs. Discord over whether the prophet’s son-in-law Ali and his descendants should have inherited the leadership of the Muslim world, as the Shiites believe, caused the initial 7th-century schism with the Sunnis.
“We must be vigilant,” Mr. Ousman said, adding that repeatedly refused entreaties from Iranian institutions to establish Shiite schools or mosques in Chad.
“If we allow them to set foot here, we’ll be finished because they have the financial means. And the Sufis will easily rally to them because they love the family of Ali.”


http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21698440-there-one-god-yet-different-forms-islam-are-fighting-their-own-version?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/ed/thenewstrife
May 16, 2016: Shias are given to emotional commemorations of the martyrdom of Ali and Hussein, including public self-flagellation. They are often accused of revelling in al-madhlumiya, or “victimhood”. These days, though, it is often Sunni Arabs who feel and behave like the underdogs. Though they make up the majority of Muslim Arabs, Sunnis often feel disenfranchised in the Arab heartland—sidelined by the Shia majority in Iraq, under murderous attack by the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria (dominated by Alawites, an offshoot of Shiism), intimidated in Lebanon by Hizbullah (a powerful Shia militia), and dispersed and occupied by Israel in Palestine. In Yemen, they have been ejected from power by Houthi fighters, issued from the Zaydis.
International brigades of Sunnis and Shias now confront each other in Syria. Those fighting for Mr Assad include Shia recruits from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, led by Hizbullah and senior officers of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Against these stand two broad groups: the jihadists of Islamic State, made up of volunteers from many countries, and looser alliances of Syrian Sunni rebel groups supported to varying degrees by neighbouring Sunni states, mainly Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Jordan. Suicide-bombings, the poor man’s guided missile, were first adopted by proto-Hizbullah in 1983; they were copied by Palestinian Islamists and are now a favourite tactic of Sunni jihadists.
Islam is more than ever the cause for which everyone claims to be fighting. But which Islam? Eugene Rogan of Oxford University argues that the fate of the Arab world will be determined by the contest between three versions of Islam: the Muslim Brotherhood and salafi-jihadism (both Sunni) and the Shia doctrine of the “rule of the jurisprudent”.


http://www.rferl.org/content/kosovo-iran-cleric-arrest/27886917.html
July 28, 2016:  the arrest this week of an Iranian cleric in Kosovo on charges of financing terrorism and money laundering through a nominally nongovernmental organization he operates. Kosovar authorities claim Hasan Azari Bejandi, charged on July 26, ran five Shi'ite organizations with links to Tehran.
....

Iranian charities launched their activities in Kosovo soon after the war ended in 1999. The organizations built schools and mosques, but also brought with them a conservative brand of Shi'ite Islam. The groups also spread anti-Western and anti-Semitic propaganda, and are seen to be tied to Tehran's long-standing effort to export its Islamic Revolution.

"Iran's activities in Kosovo were more or less underground," says Visar Duriqi, an investigative journalist for Kosovo's Gazeta Express news website. "Their activities didn't cause too much attention. But that changed when authorities found out that the NGOs were hiding their sources of income and the purposes of their spending."

....

Journalist Duriqi, who has spent a year investigating Iranian charities in Kosovo, says the Qur'an Foundation of Kosova is linked to Ikballe Huduti-Berisha, one of the leaders of the small Shi'ite community in southwestern Kosovo. Her daughter, Zehra Huduti, caused a stir when she announced on Iran's web-based Nasr TV during a visit to Tehran three years ago that she wanted to "fight Israel and America."

http://www.juancole.com/2016/09/declares-iranian-shiites.html
Admittedly, Saudi Arabia’s “Unitarian” form of Islam, founded in the 18th century by Muhammad ibn `Abd al-Wahhab and popularly known as “Wahhabism,” is one of the more intolerant strands of the religion. In the past, its adherents excommunicated the sultan of the Ottoman Empire and mounted a rebellion against him (sort of like Protestants excommunicating the Holy Roman Emperor). The Saudi Wahhabi tradition is also peculiar in its patriarchy, oppressing women and declining to even let them drive. (But note that Qatar is also Wahhabi and does not have the same policies, so it isn’t just the religious tradition).

One of the challenges to what I have called the “Wahhabi myth,” the stereotyping of Wahhabism as promoting terrorism, is that it isn’t good social science. Many Sunnis influenced by Wahhabism, the Salafis, check out of politics and are quietists. The Salafis in Egypt have been a force in parliamentary politics in the past 5 years. The Saudi citizen population is probably 20 million, and almost none of them are terrorists.

From an outsider’s point of view, Saudi Wahhabism is certainly a much more intolerant tradition than Sunnis; but there have been intolerant Sunnis and Sunni movements (e.g. the Almohads).

That is, Wahhabism is not a static essence but has a history. In the reign of King Abdullah (r. 2005-2015 but the real ruler from the mid-1990s), small attempts were made to reform the Wahhabi tradition. That king founded a university of science and technology that has a mixed-gender student body. He reached out to the 12% of the population, mainly in the Eastern Province, who are Shiites, and effected a reconciliation with some of their previously dissident leaders. These Saudi Shiites were allowed to become powerful through local elections on municipal councils in largely Shiite cities such as Qatif. Shiite rituals were allowed in public in wholly Shiite neighborhoods. At the national level, King Abdullah appointed two Shiites to his 150-member appointive National Consultative Council, the embryo of the future Saudi parliament. He brought the former dissident Shiite cleric Shaikh Safar to Riyadh for a joint t.v. appearance with a Wahhabi cleric (a first).

In King Salman’s reign, all these (admittedly minor) forms of ecumenism have been undone and the kingdom’s rhetoric against Iran and Shiites has ratcheted up, recalling the old Wahhabi intolerance of the 19th century. The recent apogee of this turn to intolerance was the execution of dissident Shiite cleric Shaikh Nimr last winter.

https://warontherocks.com/2016/08/contesting-facts-on-the-ground-in-iraq/
In cross-sectarian areas in the grip of civil war conditions, such as Diyala, persecution of the Sunni is universal and severe. In some areas, like Baghdad, conditions have resulted in fragile mutual restraints whereby the Sunni carefully calculate what behaviors they can risk and where the Shia authorities make sparing use of coercion. In still other Sunni-majority areas (like western Anbar) the Sunni are frequently left to their own devices.
...

Tikrit was a watershed moment in which those Iranian-backed PMF failed at huge cost in lives to take Tikrit city and where the Iraqi government was forced to step in to stop the slaughter and turn stalemate into victory. Iraq’s chain of command called in the U.S.-led coalition backed by Iraqi security forces including some pro-coalition PMF units, who subsequently took the city within days and with minimal losses.

In Ramadi, Cyrus argues the battle might have been swifter and less destructive if Shia PMF had been involved to augment the weak Iraqi security forces executing the battle. But the experience of Tikrit, and also of Bayji and other battles, suggests that the PMF would have fared no better in Ramadi than the Iraqi Security Forces and indeed would have achieved less because of the presence of Iranian-backed terrorist actors within the PMF who themselves reject the coalition’s air support, even were it to be offered.

But it is on the issue of Fallujah’s liberation where the author hangs some stunning findings about the inevitability of a permanent PMF on an exceedingly slender reed. The PMF were not the key actors in that battle, as he asserts. Rather, it was the Counter-Terrorism Service did the heavy fighting in Fallujah city. PMF elements only came in at the tail-end of the battle to occupy areas of northern Fallujah after ISIL resistance had collapsed.

Furthermore, the author presents a very misguided characterization of the PMF as a clearing force that liberates territory and moves on. In fact, the PMF is mostly a holding force, while the army, federal police and Counter-Terrorism Service have taken the lead on the liberation of territory since the Tikrit battle in March 2015. The image of Shia PMF elements genteelly handing off to local Sunni forces just doesn’t track with the reality in many cross-sectarian areas such as as Yethrib, Saadiya, northern Babil and rural Tuz Khurmatu. Instead, predominately Shia PMF stay to dominate the local scene and observe the Sunni populations, while actively discouraging Sunni local security forces from coalescing.

...

The author also cites the involvement of Sunnis in the PMF as a factor that should give comfort, but what Cyrus overlooks is the pretty obvious fact that the stand-up of Sunni PMF units was driven by the United States and coalition members. The U.S. Congress designed  the $1.6 billion Iraq Train and Equip Fund so that it mandates Sunni recruitment into the Iraqi Security Forces and specifically sets money aside for tribal security forces. The coalition has kept prodding and pushing to make Sunni PMF a reality.

http://thediplomat.com/2016/10/the-saudi-iran-rivalry-and-sectarian-strife-in-south-asia/

Oct 5, 2016: Both Riyadh and Tehran exercise soft power to expand influence in the region. That includes sponsorship of madrassas, mosques, and media centers. Of the nearly 285 Islamic seminaries in Pakistan that receive overseas funding, two-thirds get financial support from Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Gulf monarchies, while one-third are sponsored by Shia-majority countries such as Iran and Iraq. “This competition for the minds of young Pakistanis fuels sectarian strife in the country, which is roughly 80 percent Sunni,” notes leading South Asia expert Bruce Reidel.

Meanwhile, Tehran has built one of the largest madrassas in Kabul, the Khatam-al Nabyeen Islamic University, which is reported to be “closely linked with Iran” and “serves as a focal point of Iranian influence activities, including the promotion of velayat-e faghih [Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists].” Saudi Arabia upped the ante by building a $100 million mosque and Islamic Education Center in Kabul.

Tehran also supports the sponsorship of the annual Quds Day (Jerusalem Day) celebration in Afghanistan to draw attention to the “occupation” of Al-Asqa Mosque and the Israeli “oppression” of Palestinians. The rallies routinely feature chants of “Down with America” and “Boycott Israel.”

Iran’s Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology offers scholarships to Afghan and Pakistan nationals to pursue higher education at Iranian universities. The founding of the Imam Khomeini Memorial Trust (IKMT) in Kargil, in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, was inspired by the Iranian revolution and is run by clerics trained in Iran. The IKMT Facebook page features photos of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei meeting with family members of fighters “martyred” in Syria and Iraq.

Saudi Arabia’s execution of prominent Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr in January, following his conviction on terrorism charges, sparked protests by Shia Muslims in the region and around the world, including in South Asia. In Quetta, where Shias have been routinely targeted, protesters held up placards with anti-Saudi slogans and called on Islamabad to reassess its ties with Riyadh. Maulana Kalbe Jawad, secretary general of the Majlis-e-Ulama-e-Hind (MUD), an organization of Shia clerics in India, said al-Nimr’s execution is “not only un-Islamic but will also have serious consequences and eventually bring about the end of the Saudi kingdom.” Jawad, who was alleged in a 2006 diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks to be a paid spy for Tehran, has also lobbied to withdraw India’s accusation of Iran’s role in a 2012 terror attack on an Israeli diplomat in New Delhi, calling the claim a “conspiracy.”

Tehran’s growing outreach within the Indian Shia community has been viewed with growing concern by Riyadh. Diplomatic documents from the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs released last year by WikiLeaks include an appeal to the Saudi government from the secretary general of the terror-tied Muslim World League headquartered in Mecca for more Salafi centers in India to counter Iran’s expanding influence. Saudi-supported ultra-conservative Wahhabi Islam has over the decades attracted adherents across the country, particularly in the Indian states of Kerala and Karnataka, and facilitated indoctrination and recruitment efforts by ISIS and other terror groups.

Controversial Indian preacher Zakir Naik, alleged to be the inspiration behind a July attack on a café frequented by foreigners in Dhaka, Bangladesh, received the prestigious King Faisal International Prize last year from Saudi Arabia’s King Salman for his “service to Islam.” Naik, who has called the 9/11 attacks an “inside job,” is reported to receive funding from Saudi Arabia.

The Sunni-Shia feud that drives much of the violence in the Middle East and has aided the rise of sectarian terrorist groups such as the Islamic State is being replayed in South Asia. Since the start of the Islamic Revolution and Saudi Arabia’s support to Afghan mujahideen fighting the Soviets, the Saudi-Arabia and Iran rivalry continues to deepen Sunni-Shia divisions in the region, radicalizing Muslim communities and creating an environment for the Islamic State and other sectarian groups to flourish.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/08/iran-iraq-syria-isis-land-corridor
Oct 8, 2016: Since their inception, the Shia irregulars have made their name on the battlefields of Iraq, but they have always been central to Tehran’s ambitions elsewhere. By not helping to retake Mosul, the militias are free to drive one of its most coveted projects – securing an arc of influence across Iraq and Syria that would end at the Mediterranean Sea.
...A senior intelligence official said the leg between Tel Afar and Sinjar is essential to the plan. Sinjar is an ancestral home to the Yazidi population, which was forced to flee in August 2014 after Isis invaded the city, killing all the men it could find and enslaving women. It was recaptured by Iraqi Kurdish forces last November. And ever since PKK forces from across the Syrian border have taken up residence in the city and across the giant monolith, Mt Sinjar, behind it. The PKK fighters are being paid by the Iraqi government and have been incorporated into the popular mobilisation units. Iraqi and western intelligence officials say the move was approved by Iraq’s national security adviser, Falah Fayadh. 


http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/opinion/saad-hariri-iran-must-stop-meddling-in-arab-affairs.html 
Sep 22, 2016: On Feb. 14, 2005, a massive bomb killed the former prime minister of Lebanon, Rafik Hariri, my father, along with 22 other Lebanese. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon at The Hague identified five Hezbollahoperatives as suspected collaborators in the murder. If proved, that would mean his assassination was carried out by Iran’s allies in Lebanon, who are financed and controlled by the regime in Tehran.
Three years later, in 2008, Hezbollah moved to occupy Beirut, and after many years of promising that its vast, Iranian-supplied arsenal was intended only to protect Lebanon from Israel, turned its weapons against the Lebanese people.
More recently, Hezbollah has prevented Lebanon from electing a new president and has imposed a devastating gridlock on the country’s government in order to blackmail the citizenry into accepting its demands.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah has sent thousands of young Lebanese men to fight and die in Syria to defend the odious regime of Bashar al-Assad, the brutal dictator condemned in the United Nations and around the world for presiding over the deaths of at least a quarter million of his own people. Mr. Assad — with the help of Iran; its Revolutionary Guards and its proxies; Hezbollah and militias in Iraq and Afghanistan — has created the worst refugee problem since World War II, ruthlessly displacing millions of people into neighboring countries and Europe.
.....
Iranian officials brazenly boast that their country is now in control of four Arab capitals — Beirut, Baghdad, Sana and Damascus — and gloat over their hegemony. Such bluster is an obvious threat, which we in Lebanon know to take very seriously, that Iran wants to expand its influence in the Middle East by sowing discord, promoting terrorism and sectarian hatred, and destabilizing the region through proxies, while pretending to be bystanders.
Contrast this with what Saudi Arabia has done for Lebanon. In the 1980s, while Iran was busy directing its proxy militias in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia helped the country reach a historic agreement to end its civil war. The Taif Accords, named after the city in Saudi Arabia where the Lebanese Parliament met, ended 15 years of carnage.
As Lebanon was trying to rebuild its economy after the civil war, Saudi Arabia stepped in with crucial assistance to the Paris conferences for the financial reconstruction of Lebanon, contributing more than $1.5 billion in aid.
How many schools and hospitals has Iran built in Lebanon? How much help has it provided for Lebanon to rebuild itself? The answer, of course, is little to none, and any such Iranian aid is structured entirely to the political benefit of Hezbollah.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/20/iran-egypt-syria-talks-middle-eastern-alliances-shift
Oct 20, 2016: The Iranian foreign minister personally requested that Egypt attend last weekend’s key Syria talks – a move that has sparked concerns that Cairo is being wooed away from its traditional pro-western stance in the region.


https://www.yahoo.com/digest/20161021/egypts-fight-islamic-militancy-makes-enemies-00161918
http://www.timesofisrael.com/war-on-jihadist-groups-leaves-cairo-caught-between-sunni-allies-shiite-powers
Oct 21, 2016: Egypt has made fighting Islamic militants its overriding foreign policy objective, a decision that has brought it closer to Syrian President Bashar Assad, Russia and Iran, in turn antagonizing its chief financial backer, Saudi Arabia. The policy is risky at a time when Egypt is struggling to contain a homegrown Islamic insurgency and tackling its worst economic crisis in decades. Saudi Arabia, which has helped keep Egypt's economy from collapse with billions in aid, has already signaled its displeasure by holding back promised supplies of fuel.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/syrian-rebels-caution-civilians-aleppo-offensive-100223882.html
23 Oct 2016:
Meanwhile in Lebanon, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah cast the insurgency against Syrian President Bashar Assad as a facade designed to weaken Iran's regional access and make "changes to the map", vowing to stay in the country until it could "defeat the apostate project."


http://dailym.ai/2fj1SA9
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/11/02/iran-claims-its-sending-elite-fighters-to-infiltrate-us-europe.html
2 Nov 2016:
“The whole world should know that the IRGC will be in the U.S. and Europe very soon,” Salar Abnoush, deputy coordinator of Iran’s Khatam-al-Anbia Garrison, an IRGC command front, was quoted as saying in an Iranian state-controlled publication closely tied to the IRGC.



http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/world/middleeast/iran-saudi-proxy-war.html 
20 Nov 2016:
Saudi Arabia sought to match Iran’s reach but, after years of oppressing its own Shiite population, struggled to make inroads with those in Iraq.
“The problem for the Saudis is that their natural allies in Iraq,” Dr. Gause said, referring to Sunni groups that were increasingly turning to jihadism, “wanted to kill them.”
This was the first sign that Saudi Arabia’s strategy for containing Iran, by fostering sectarianism and aligning itself with the region’s Sunni majority, had backfired. As Sunni governments collapsed and Sunni militias turned to jihadism, Riyadh would be left with few reliable proxies.


https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20161129-iranian-official-predicts-establishment-of-iran-led-international-islamic-government-this-century/
http://ara.tv/w924j

29 Nov 2016: The world is heading towards establishing a global Islamic government headed by Iran Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, Iran’s top military adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has said.

Safavi, who served as commander of the Revolutionary Guards from 1997 to 2007, said the US has begun to retreat on the military and political levels.

He said the world will witness the emergence of a global Islamic government with its axis in Iran.


http://dailym.ai/2hoEOkk
8 Dec 2016:  Iran opens military theme park for children

ara.tv/w4qsw  

26 Dec 2016: Commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, has hailed the ‘victory’ in Syria’s Aleppo claiming that the city represents a frontline for ‘Islamic revolution’ in his country.

According to him, Iranian authorities view the evacuation of citizens from Aleppo and the destruction of the city as “victory”. Jafari also said that Tehran now views its security outside its borders.

“Our security has surpassed our geographic borders,” he said, adding that “exporting Islamic revolution” is one of the achievements of his country led by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Well-known Iranian agencies, which have Arabic and English pages, such as Fares News and Tasnim News did not translate the paragraph in which Jafari made this statement as such a statement contradicts with Tehran’s official position that it only supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and consults with him on what it describes as “terrorism” in Syria.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9801/iran-child-soldiers 
Jan 2017: Iran trains child soldiers


http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/iranian-backed-terrorism-in-bahrain-finding-a-sustainable-solution

2017: Against this backdrop, the prison break at the Jau Reformation and Rehabilitation Center was seen as shocking new evidence that advanced militant cells are not only present in Bahrain, but are becoming operationally active. According to the Interior Ministry, the incident was preceded by drone reconnaissance of the jail facilities and involved the bribing of one or more prison workers. Four to six attackers gained access armed with AK-type assault rifles and pistols, which they used in a firefight with watchtower guards. They killed one guard as he arrived for his shift, then tried to execute another on their way out of the facility.

Currently, four young men are being investigated for supporting the breakout, but none of the escapees has been recaptured. Nine of the ten Shiite convicts ranged in age from twenty-four to thirty-one years old; the tenth was a bit older at thirty-seven. Eight of them were serving life sentences, and the other two had long sentences as well, all on charges of militancy. Escapee Muhammed Ibrahim Mulla Redhi al-Tooq, sentenced to twenty-eight years, is described by the Bahraini government as the triggerman for the July 28, 2015, bombing that killed two policemen and injured six outside a girls' school in Sitra. Local authorities characterize all of the men as among the most dangerous terrorist suspects they had in custody.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/germany-indicts-pakistani-man-accused-spying-iran-175928266.html 
2 Jan 2017: German prosecutors have indicted a Pakistani man on charges of spying for an Iranian intelligence agency.
Federal prosecutors said Monday that the 31-year-old, identified only as Syed Mustufa H. due to German privacy rules, was in contact with the unnamed spy agency since 2011.
In a statement, prosecutors said the man began spying on the former head of a group that promotes German-Israeli relations by July 2015 at the latest.
He is alleged to have received money in return for passing on information obtained about the ex-head of the German-Israeli Society.
The suspect faces up to five years imprisonment if convicted of espionage.

http://gandhara.rferl.org/a/28269784.html
http://www.voanews.com/a/group-linked-to-syrian-war-recruiting-banned-in-pakistan/3698987.html

30 Jan 2017: Pakistani recruits are promised financial incentives and Iranian citizenship, analysts say. The IRGC organized a rally in Tehran last summer to honor fallen Pakistani fighters in Syria.

“We have thousands of fighters in the brigade…fighting in front lines,” Abu Talib Musawi, a Pakistani fighter in Syria, told the Tehran-based conservative Panjera magazine. VOA could not independently verify his account.

A Facebook page, which bears Ansar ul-Hussain name, lambasted the Pakistani government’s decision to ban the organization. The page pledges allegiance to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“We are proud that you are our leader,” the Facebook post reads.


http://pakistan.asia-news.com/en_GB/articles/cnmi_pf/features/2017/02/22/feature-01 
2017: 

Fighters recruited in Pakistan also move towards Iran disguised as Shia pilgrims.

"Last year in Quetta and at the Zero Point border crossing in Taftan, security forces arrested 39 Shia pilgrims over their alleged links with Zainebiyoun," the Pakistani defence official said, adding that the investigation was on-going.

Pakistani security agencies are closely monitoring the movements of Shia pilgrims in the country to discern whether they have any links with Zainebiyoun, confirmed Muhammad Abdullah Khalid, an Interior Ministry official in Islamabad.

"Pakistani security agencies are working to unearth the support network of Shia militants in Pakistan," he told Pakistan Forward.

"It is a serious concern for our national security that Pakistani citizens are being used in the Syrian war for sectarian gains," he said.

Pakistani Maritime Security Agency personnel on February 8 arrested 13 suspected militants, including three Iranians, in two boats off the coast of Jawani beach, near Balochistan, Khalid said. "These suspects were illegally moving in Pakistani jurisdiction."

"The 13 suspects ... are under a high level of investigation, and the initial interrogation proved that these people were trying to facilitate the transport of recruits from Balochistan to Syria," he said.

"Earlier, in March 2016, two Shia fighters recruited via Zainebiyoun were also held in ... Quetta," he said, adding that police arrested them after after their return from Syria.

"According to our counter-insurgency officials, fighters recruited undercover in Pakistan for the war in Syria are being paid Rs. 60,000 [$573] to Rs. 110,000 [$1,050] per month," he said.

http://www.rferl.org/a/28343743.html 
3 March 2017: Iran Devotes Complex To Housing Families Of  Afghan Troops Killed in Fighting In Syria


https://www.memri.org/reports/irgc-commanders-our-main-aim-global-islamic-rule
March 2017: IRGC Commanders: Our Main Aim Is Global Islamic Rule

http://www.mei.edu/content/io/irgc-chief-iran-s-revolution-expanding-and-helping-establish-global-islamic-government 
15 March 2017: 
The chief commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.) says Iran’s revolution has now “crossed borders,” is expanding, and has defeated the “Arrogance” – a term Iranian leaders use for the United States. “This revolution has now turned into an instrument for the expansion of the Islamic revolution and promotion of the God’s religion around the world,” Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari told a gathering of I.R.G.C. commanders and top clerics on Tuesday. He  boasted that Iran’s regional proxies – what he termed as the “resistance front” – are exporting Iran’s revolution across the region, and stressed that Iranian youth are also more motivated now to defend the revolution, including in foreign countries, than they were during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. He further explained that the country’s “Islamic revolution is at its third stage, which is the establishment of the Islamic government” around the world. “The main threat to our country is the danger of antirevolutionary vision based on American Islam that exists in the country,” he warned, in an implicit criticism of Iranian politicians and activists who advocate for improving ties with the West. 


http://www.mei.edu/content/article/io/iran-supported-militia-groups-intensify-anti-us-propaganda-iraq 
16 March 2017:
On March 16, a spokesman of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Force (P.M.F.), accused the U.S. military and intelligence of supporting the leader of the Islamic State and trying to rescue terrorists trapped in western Mosul. “Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is a protégé of America. His actions and movements are supervised by this country’s [U.S.] intelligence service,” Ali al-Husseini, who is also a commander of Iraqi Shiite militia group al-Hashd al-Turkmani, said an exclusive interview with I.R.G.C.-affiliated Tasnim News Agency. “Al-Baghdadi is an American puppet, and this is undeniable. I believe Americans know where he is but they hide him,” he continued. The militia leader further alleged that American forces in Iraq were trying to transfer Islamic State fighters from Iraq to Syria and Libya.   
....
Jawad al-Talabwi, the commander of Asaib Ahl al-Haq, another powerful I.R.G.C.-linked P.M.F. group, last month accused the U.S. military of providing assistance to the Islamic State terrorists in the city of Tal Afar. Akram al-Kaabi, the chief commander of Harakat al-Nujaba, an Iraqi group that fights under the leadership of I.R.G.C. Quds Force Qassem Soleimani in both in Iraq and Syria, also threatened on March 11 that his forces would not allow American forces to take credit for victories against the Islamic State in Iraq. 


http://bigstory.ap.org/article/291f2d0792db41b581fb46d11fc2485b/pakistani-sentenced-prison-germany-spying-iran 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/pakistani-sentenced-to-prison-in-germany-for-spying-for-iran/2017/03/28/f4576330-13d3-11e7-bb16-269934184168_story.html?utm_term=.d8ab4597fad4 
28 March 2017: 

BERLIN — A German court has sentenced a 31-year-old Pakistani to four years and three months in prison for spying for Iran by seeking out possible Jewish and Israeli-related targets for attacks in Germany and France.

The German news agency dpa reported Tuesday that Haider Syed Mustafa was convicted by a Berlin court for collecting extensive material on the former head of the German-Israeli Association and on a French-Israeli professor from an economic university in Paris, for the elite Quds Force unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. No attacks were carried out.

Mustafa, who came to Germany in 2012 to study for an engineering degree at the University of Bremen, received more than 2,000 euros (2,170 dollars) for his spying activities which included shooting hundreds of photos and creating presentations on the potential targets. He refused to testify during the trial.

http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/syriasource/beyond-syria-iran-and-future-conflicts-in-the-middle-east-and-central-asia 
27 March 2017: 
Although non-Syrian fighters have been documented on all sides of the conflict, Iran seems to support the largest numbers of foreign fighters, comprised of a diverse group of Shia proxies helping Tehran achieve its military goals in Syria. This is reflected in publicly available coverage of funeral services held in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon for Shia Afghan, Iranian, Iraqi, Lebanese, and Pakistani nationals killed in combat in Syria.

The sources of this research include, but are not limited to, Ahl al-Beit News Agency’s (ABNA) coverage of funeral services held in Iran for Shia Afghan, Iranian and Pakistani nationals killed in combat in Syria, Arabi Press’ release of information about Lebanese Hezbollah fighters killed in combat in Syria, and Moassessa al-Shohada, Harakat al-Nujaba, and Kataeb Seyyed al-Shohada’s reporting on Shia Iraqi combat fatalities in Syria.

Between January 2012 to March 25, 2017, about 473 Iranian nationals were killed in combat in Syria. In the same time period, 587 Shia Afghan nationals, at the very least 86 Shia Iraqi nationals, 1047 Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, and 136 Shia Pakistani nationals were killed in combat in Syria. These actual death tools are likely slightly higher. Iran and its proxy forces do not report every casualty, and in fact try to cover up the actual number of deaths to prevent bad publicity about the military campaign and prevent opponents from estimating their actual forces. 


https://www.iranhumanrights.org/2017/04/iranian-sunni-cleric-and-critic-of-irans-involvement-in-syria-released-from-detention/ 
12 April 2017: 

Molavi Fazl al-Rahman Kouhi, an outspoken Sunni cleric in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan Province, was released from detention on $31,000 USD bail on April 10, 2017 after being questioned for a week in the Intelligence Ministry’s office in the capital city of Zahedan, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) has learned.

According to the Baloch Activists Campaign (BAC), Kouhi, the Friday prayer leader of Peshamag had issued a fatwa (Islamic religious ruling) against fighting in the Syrian civil war and accused Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of “taking advantage of poor Sunni youths” by dispatching them as soldiers to the war-torn country.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-bahrain-iran-insight-idUSKBN17K0VC 
18 April 2017:
 At a wake in Iran's holy city of Qom in February, a small group of Bahraini emigres and clerics mourned a young militant killed in a gun battle with Bahrain's security forces.  
The eulogy was delivered by an exiled Bahraini cleric who has called for the island's Shi'ite Muslim majority to uproot the Sunni Al Khalifa monarchy in a holy war. 
 “The choice of resistance is widening and spreading on the ground,” said the cleric, Murtada al-Sanadi, who has been named by the United States as a "specially designated global terrorist" backed by Iran.
...
Sanadi, the security documents say, receives funding from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and commissioned Ghasra to organize the military training of Bahraini militants in Iran by the IRGC and in Iraq by the Hezbollah Brigades militia.  
The Ashtar Brigades announced an alliance with the Iran-backed Hezbollah Brigades via an online statement in February.


https://www.dawn.com/news/1329387/ 
26 April 2017:

At least eight Iranian border guards were killed in clashes with armed rebels Wednesday on the frontier with Pakistan, Iranian state television IRIB said on its website.

It said the clashes broke out in the Mirjaveh region of Sistan-Baluchistan province, without giving details.

Four border guards were killed in July 2016 in the border region with Pakistan.

Iranian media reports that the Jaish al-Adl militant group, accused by Tehran of links to Al Qaeda, carries out regular attacks in Sistan-Baluchistan.

http://www.urdu.shiitenews.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=46849:2017-04-29-07-27-44&Itemid=230 
 29 April 2017:

ایران کے صدر حسن روحانی نے وزیراعظم نواز شریف کو رواں ہفتے کے آغاز میں 'سرحد پر باغیوں کی جانب سے حملے' کے خلاف احتجاجی خط لکھ دیا، جہاں جھڑپ کے نتیجے میں ایرانی گارڈز کے 9 اہلکار ہلاک ہوگئے تھے۔

دوسری جانب ایرانی وزارت خارجہ  نے پاکستانی سفیر کو بھی طلب کرکے احتجاج ریکارڈ کروایا۔

صدر حسن روحانی نے صوبہ سیستان کے علاقے مرجاوا میں بدھ (26 اپریل) کو گارڈز کے ساتھ ہونے والی جھڑپ کے حوالے سے اپنے پیغام میں کہا کہ 'ہم توقع رکھتے ہیں کہ اس دہشت گرد حملے کے ذمہ داروں کو گرفتار کرکے سزا دی جائے گی'۔

ایرانی نیوز ایجنسی 'مہر' کے مطابق صدر روحانی کا کہنا تھا کہ 'پاکستانی حکومت کی جانب سے ضروری اقدامات کے نہ ہونے کے باعث ایران کو بڑے جانی اور مالی نقصان کا سامنا کرنا پڑا'۔

دوسری جانب وزارت خارجہ کے ترجمان بہرام قاسمی نے سرکاری نیوز ایجنسی کو بتایا کہ احتجاج ریکارڈ کرنے کے لیے پاکستانی سفیر کوطلب کیا گیا تھا۔

خبر رساں ایجنسی 'ارنا' کے مطابق ان کا کہنا تھا، 'ایران کو توقع ہے کہ پاکستان ہمارے 9 گارڈز کو ہلاک کرنے والے ذمہ دار دہشت گردوں کو گرفتار کرنے اور سزا دینے کے لیے سنجیدہ اقدامات کرے گا'۔

قاسمی کا کہنا تھا کہ 'سفیر آصف علی خان درانی کو یہ پیغام پہنچادیا گیا ہے'۔

واضح رہے کہ ایرانی عسکریت پسند گروپ جیش العدل نے حملے کی ذمہ داری قبول کرنے کا دعویٰ کیا تھا، جو ماضی میں ایران میں سنی اور بلوچوں کے خلاف تعصبانہ رویے کو نمایاں کرنے کے لیے ایرانی سیکیورٹی فورسز کے خلاف کارروائیاں کرتا رہا ہے، تاہم ایران  نے ان دعووں کو مسترد کردیا ہے۔

اس گروپ نے 2015 میں 8 گارڈز کو ہلاک کیا تھا، جبکہ اس سے دو سال قبل 14 گارڈز کو بھی ہلاک کیا تھا۔

خیال رہے کہ ایران کا صوبہ سیستان-بلوچستان منشیات اسمگلروں کا اہم گڑھ ہے جو طویل عرصے تک بد امنی کا شکار رہا۔

https://www.dawn.com/news/1330458
2 May 2017:

BAMIYAN: Jawad Langari’s brother, Imam Ali, had only been in Iran for four months when he was given an ultimatum by the Iranian police: go fight for Syrian President Bashar al Assad or be deported to Afghanistan.

The 22-year-old was told he would be given up to $700 a month and residence in Iran if he agreed to join the more than 20,000 other Afgh­ans conscripted by Tehran to fight Jab­hat al Nusra, often referred to as the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda. Ali earned less than $300 a month in a Tehran shoe-making factory, so the offer proved difficult to reject.

“In Iran there is only suffering for Afghans,” he later told his older brother about his decision to join the Fatemiyoun Brigade, a force thousands of men strong, and comprised almost entirely of Afghans, that has been stationed in Damascus, Aleppo and Idlib.

http://urdu.shiitenews.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=46896:2017-05-02-14-19-23&Itemid=235 
2 May 2017:

31 سالہ سعودی شہزادے نے یہ بات سعودی نجی ٹی وی 'ایم بی سی کے ساتھ ایک انٹرویو، جو منگل کی رات کو مکمل طور پر نشر کیا جائے گا، پرومو انٹرویو میں انہوں نے کہا کہ "میں کس طرح ایران کے ساتھ بات چیت کر سکتا ہوںجبکہ وہ (ایران )شیعہ نجات دہندہ امام مہدی کی آمد کے لئے زمین کی تیاری کر رہا ہے اور ' مسلم دنیا کو کنٹرول کرنا چاہتا ہے۔

واضح رہے کہ امام مہدی علیہ سلام کا نظریہ مخصوس شیعہ مسلمانوں کا نہیں بلکہ پوری امت کا مسلمہ نظریہ ہے، آل سعود کے اس شہزادے کی جانب سے جاری ہونے والے کلمات سے ظاہر ہوگیا ہے کہ سعودی عرب پر قابض بادشاہ خاندان کا دین محمد ی (ص) سے کوئی تعلق نہیںہے، اور وہ امام مہدی (ع) کے خلاف فوج تیار کررہے ہیں۔

اس انٹرویو سے ظاہر ہوگیا ہے کہ آل سعود کے عزائم کیا ہے، یہ بات بھی دھیاں میں رہے کہ امام مہدی علیہ سلام کی آمد کا خوف سب سے زیادہ اسرائیل کو ہے، لہذا آل سعود کے طاقت ور شخص کا امام مہدی کی آمد کو متنازعہ بنانا انکی اسرائیلی دوستی و ہم نشینی کا ثبوت ہے۔

یہاں ہم سوال پوچھنے میں حق بجانب ہیں ہمیں بتایا جائے کہ

اگر ایران امام مہدی کے لئے زمینہ سازی کررہا ہے تو کیا آل سعود نے چالیس ملکی فوج امام مہدی (ع) کے لشکرکا مقابلہ کرنے کے لئے بنائی ہے ؟

شہزادہ سلمان کے اس انٹرویو کے بعد حق و باطل کی لڑائی واضح ہوگئی ہے، لشکر آل سعود دراصل اسرائیل کی ایما پر اسلام کے خلا ف تیار کیا جارہا ہے، کیونکہ امام مہدی اسلام کا پرچم ہاتھ میں لے کرآئیں گے، انکا مقابلہ میں جو بھی ہوگا وہ کفار کا لشکر ہوگا۔

http://www.urdu.shiitenews.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=46913:2017-05-03-13-09-30&Itemid=229 
3 May 2017:

یہ سوال بھی اُٹھا یا جارہا ہے کہ سعودی قیادت میں بنے والے چالیس ملکی فوج کہیں امام مہدی کا راستہ روکنے کے لئے تو نہیں بنائی جارہی ، کیونکہ واضح ہوگیا ہے کہ چالیس ملکی فوج کے پیچھے اسرائیل کا ہاتھ ہے، جبکہ روایت میں ہے کہ امام مہدی جب ظہور کریں گے تو ظالموں کا خاتمہ کرتے ہوئے بیت المقدس (موجودہ اسرائیل) ظالموں سے آزاد کروائیں گے۔

ماہرین کا کہنا ہے کہ یہ اسرائیل کی جانب سے چالیس ملکی اتحاد offensive Strategy بھی ہوسکتی ہے تاکہ ظہور امام مہدی سے دھوکے سے انکےخلاف لشکر بنادیا جائے۔

http://carnegie-mec.org/diwan/69819?lang=en 
4 May 2017:

Four years after Lebanon’s Hezbollah first appeared in Syria, and following the military victory in Aleppo last December, there is great change in Syria’s Shi‘a Twelver community. The community makes up no more than 1–2 percent of the total Syrian population, a few hundred thousand people at most, but has been largely militarized since 2012. It is now demanding a greater share of power, alongside the Alawi community to whom the Assad family belongs.

Iraqi Shi‘a militias, under the banner of Liwa Abul al-Fadl al-Abbas, first emerged in the predominantly Shi‘a suburb of Sayyida Zeinab in Damascus. There, thousands of Shi‘a pilgrims and refugees, most of them from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, had settled starting in the early 1980s, some receiving Syrian nationality.

As Iraq’s battle against the Islamic State raged after 2014, many Iraqi fighters returned home, while others joined Iraqi militias fighting in Syria, such as Harakat al-Nujaba. This gave Syria’s Shi‘a an opportunity to expand their independence under the umbrella of Iran-led armed groups. As a sign of their emerging self-empowerment, the Syrian Shi‘a militias established last year a unit named the 313 Special Operations battalion. However, the overall command of Shi‘a forces in Syria remains overwhelmingly non-Syrian—namely Iranian, Lebanese, and Iraqi. Not surprisingly, tensions have risen within this transnational network as a consequence.

The tensions recently resurfaced in a leaked internal report from Quwwat al-Rida, a Homs-based Khomeinist faction. The report calls for equality between Syrians, paid in Syrian pounds, and Lebanese fighters, who receive their monthly salaries in U.S. dollars. The document, an investigation by the Emergency Committee to Resolve our People’s Situation in Homs, a Quwwat al-Rida-affiliated body, claims that fighters were promised the equivalent of $400–$600; however, due to the depreciation of the pound, their pay has declined to a mere $80. The document demanded attention to “the financial side, and support for the mujahideen, providing security to the families of the injured and martyred, in a way that decreases the difference between them and their Lebanese brothers … to stop the defections to other factions.”

...Unlike the Shi‘a communities in Iraq and Lebanon, the Syrian Shi‘a minority is small and geographically dispersed. That is why Iran cannot afford to leave them divided, otherwise they would not represent a viable Iranian proxy. The Shi‘a militias in Homs and Damascus are the most organized, compared to the ones in Aleppo, Idlib, and Der‘a. Therefore, some sort of unification of their ranks is required, to replicate the Lebanese approach and create a Syrian version of Hezbollah. The recent population transfers of Syrian Shi‘a from the two Idlib towns of Kefraya and Al-Fou‘a to Damascus has reinforced their presence in the Syrian capital.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pakistan-caught-in-the-middle-as-chinas-obor-becomes_us_590bfa74e4b046ea176ae9bd 
8 April 2017:

Prince Mohammed did not spell out how he intends to take Saudi Arabia’s fight to Iran, but a Saudi think tank, the Arabian Gulf Centre for Iranian Studies (AGCIS) argued in a recent study that Chabahar posed “a direct threat to the Arab Gulf states” that called for “immediate counter measures.”

Written by Mohammed Hassan Husseinbor, identified as an Iranian political researcher, the study, published in the first edition of AGCIS’ Journal of Iranian Studies, argued that Chabahar posed a threat because it would enable Iran to increase greater market share in India for its oil exports at the expense of Saudi Arabia, raise foreign investment in the Islamic republic and increase government revenues, and allow Iran to project power in the Gulf and the Indian Ocean.

Mr. Husseinbor suggested Saudi support for a low-level Baloch insurgency in Iran could serve as a countermeasure. “Saudis could persuade Pakistan to soften its opposition to any potential Saudi support for the Iranian Baluch... The Arab-Baluch alliance is deeply rooted in the history of the Gulf region and their opposition to Persian domination,” Mr. Husseinbor said.

Noting the vast expanses of Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan Province, Mr. Husseinbor went on to say that “it would be a formidable challenge, if not impossible, for the Iranian government to protect such long distances and secure Chabahar in the face of widespread Baluch opposition, particularly if this opposition is supported by Iran’s regional adversaries and world powers.”

The conservative Washington-based Hudson Institute, which is believed to have developed close ties to the Trump administration, has also taken up the theme of ethnic minorities in Iran. The institute has scheduled a seminar for later this month that features as speakers Baloch, Iranian Arab, Iranian Kurdish and Iranian Azerbaijani nationalists.

Saudi Arabia may already have the building blocks in place for a proxy war in Balochistan. Saudi-funded ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim madrassas operated by anti-Shiite militants dominate Balochistan’s educational landscape.

“A majority of Baloch schoolchildren go to madrassas. They are in better condition than other schools in Balochistan. Most madrassas are operated by Deobandis and Ahl-i-Hadith,” said one of the founders of Sipah-i-Sabaha, a virulent anti-Shiite group that is believed to enjoy Saudi and Pakistani support.

Although officially renamed Ahle Sunnah Wa Al Jamaat after Sipah was banned in Pakistan, the group is still often referred to by its original name. The co-founder, who has since left the group but maintains close ties to it, was referring to the Deobandi sect of Islam, a Saudi backed ultra-conservative, anti-Shiite movement originally established in India in the 19th century to counter British colonial rule, and Ahl-i-Hadith, the religious-political group in Pakistan with the longest ties to the kingdom.  The co-founder said the mosques funnelled Saudi funds to the militants.

The co-founder said the leaders in Balochistan of Sipah and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), a Sipah offshoot, Maulana Ramzan Mengal and Maulana Wali Farooqi, enjoyed government and military protection because their anti-Shiite sentiments made them targets for Iran. He said the two men, who maintained close ties to Saudi Arabia, travelled in Balochistan in convoys of up to ten vehicles that included Pakistan military guards. Policemen stand guard outside Mr. Mengal’s madrassa, the co-founder said.

“Ramzan gets whatever he needs from the Saudis,” the co-founder said. Close relations between Sipah and LeJ, on the one hand, and pro-government tribesmen in Balochistan complicate irregular government efforts to reign in the militants. So does the militant’s involvement in drugs smuggling that gives them an independent source of funding.

Iran has accused the United States, Saudi Arabia and Pakistani intelligence of supporting anti-Iranian militants in Balochistan, including Jundallah (Soldiers of God), an offshoot of Sipah. Jundallah, founded by Abdolmalek Rigi, a charismatic member of a powerful Baloch tribe, was one of several anti-Iranian groups that enjoyed US and Saudi support as part of US President George W. Bush’s effort to undermine the government in Tehran. 

Mr. Rigi was captured when a flight he took from the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek to Dubai was diverted at Iran’s request to Sharjah in 2010.  He was executed in Iran. Pakistani forces have at times cooperated with Iran in detaining militants, including Mr. Rigi’s brother, Abdolhamid Rigi, but have often insisted that they are overwhelmed by internal security problems, and could not prioritize securing the border with the Islamic republic. “Our policy has been consistently anti-Iran,” said Khalid Ahmad, an author and journalist who focuses on militants.

Jundullah’s US contact point in the early 2000s was reported to be Thomas McHale, a 56-year-old hard-charging, brusque and opinionated Port Authority of New York and New Jersey detective and former ironworker, who had travelled to Pakistan and Afghanistan as part of his work for a Joint Terrorism Task Force in Newark. Known for his disdain for bureaucratic restrictions, Mr. McHale maintained contact with Jundallah and members of the Rigi tribe in an off-the-books operation. 

Mr. McHale, a survivor of the 1993 attack on New York’s World Trade Towers, had made a name for himself by rescuing survivors of the 9/11 attack on the towers. He played himself in Oliver Stone’s movie, World Trade Center, in which Nicolas Cage starred as a Port Authority police officer.

Jundallah ambushed a motorcade of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005 but failed to kill him. 

Mr. Rigi’s boyish, grinning face became as a result of the ambush the defining image of Baluch jihad in Iran. A year later, the group bombed a bus carrying Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Jundallah and associated groups such as Jaish al-Adly (Army of Justice), another Sipah offshoot, have since targeted Iranian border posts, Revolutionary Guards, police officers, convoys and Shiite mosques. 

General Sharif and Pakistan’s position were not made easier with the recent killing by Jaish al Adl militants operating from Pakistani Balochistan of ten Iranian border guards and with Iran’s expressions of displeasure with the general’s appointment as commander of the Saudi-led military alliance.

US officials insisted in Mr. McHale’s time that government agencies had not directed or ever approved Jundallah operations. The US designated Jundallah as a terrorist organization in 2010, but that did not stop Sunni Muslim militant anti-Iranian operations. In what analysts see as an indication of Saudi influence, Jaish al-Adel issues its statements in Arabic rather than Baluchi or Farsi.

In response, Iran has attacked the militants and raided villages in Balochistan. Arif Saleem, a 42-year old villager recalls being woken in the wee hours of the morning in November 2013 when bombs dropped just outside the mud walls that surround his family compound in Kulauhi, 67 kilometres from the Pakistani border with Iran. Located in a district that is an epicentre of a low-level proxy war with Iran, Kulauhi’s residents survive on subsistence farming and smuggling. “Some buildings collapsed. Luckily, none of the kids were inside those. The blast was so strong, we thought the world was ending,” said Saleem, convinced that Iranian planes from an airbase on the Iranian side of the border carried out the bombing.

The spectre of ethnic proxy wars threatens to further destabilize the Gulf as well as Pakistan. The Baloch insurgency in Pakistani Balochistan has complicated Chinese plans to develop Gwadar and forced Pakistan to take extraordinary security precautions. A stepped-up proxy war could embroil Indian-backed Chabahar in the conflict. The wars could, moreover, spread to Iran’s Khuzestan and Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province.

Writing in 2012 in Asharq Al Awsat, a Saudi newspaper, Amal Al-Hazzani, an academic who has since been dropped from the paper’s roster after she wrote positively about Israel, asserted in an op-ed entitled “The oppressed Arab district of al-Ahwaz“ that “the al-Ahwaz district in Iran...is an Arab territory... Its Arab residents have been facing continual repression ever since the Persian state assumed control of the region in 1925... It is imperative that the Arabs take up the al-Ahwaz cause, at least from the humanitarian perspective.” Other Arab commentators have since opined in a similar fashion.

http://sunnionline.us/english/2017/04/15/7482/
15 April 2017:
“Sunnionline.us” reported that a member of Velayat Satellite TV channel had accused Mawlana Abdol-Hamid to be ‘Nasebi’ “who are the worst human beings on the earth”. He also termed the imam of Sunnis in Iran to be ‘immodest’ and alleged him for holding ‘many wives, cars and houses and collaborating with gangs and criminals’.
The insulting remarks of Abolqasemi, the member of Velayat TV came after the trip of Shaikh Abdol-Hamid for taking part in a juridical conference and performing Umrah in the two holy cities where he met some influential scholars.
Velayat TV is the only private satellite TV channel that has been managing and operating its activities inside Iran from Qom. Its director is Ayatollah Qazvini under the patronage of the influential Shia Marja’, Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi.


http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1880JY
12 May 2017:
 The two institutions embody a contest for influence in Senegal, and more widely in Africa, between Iran-backed Shi'ites and Saudi-funded Sunnis. It's one strand of a broad power struggle in which each side is spending millions of dollars to win converts. At stake is huge political influence, on a resource-rich continent that has often served as the theater for rivalries between world powers.
....
    Iran's supreme leader Khamenei supervises the activities of Al-Mustafa, which is based in the Iranian city of Qom and has branches in 50 countries. Thousands of students from across Africa receive enough Iranian money to enable them and their families to visit Qom while finishing their studies, said the son of a cleric based there who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Al-Mustafa in Dakar receives 150 students a year and gives them free tuition, a stipend and breakfast, its director of studies Chiekh Adrame Wane told Reuters. Graduates repay the generosity by promoting Iran online or in books, said a professor based in Qom. In countries like Somalia, Iran pays for weddings and home furniture, including a TV and a fridge, if both couples are Shi'ite or newly converted to Shi'ism.


https://twitter.com/AmirTaheri4/status/862980295561293824
12 May 2017:   Following  More Exiled Iranian #Baluch Sunni scholar Maulana Abdul-Ghani Shahuzehi assassinated by "Tehran agents" in Quetta, Pakistan, his family report.


https://www.ft.com/content/dd033082-49e9-11e7-a3f4-c742b9791d43
5 June 2017:
The Financial Times spoke to people involved on both sides of the hostage swap deal, including two government officials in the region, three Iraqi Shia militia leaders and two Syrian opposition figures. Around $700m was paid both to Iranian figures and the regional Shia militias they support, according to regional government officials. They added that $200m to $300m went to Islamist groups in Syria, most of that to Tahrir al-Sham, a group with links to al-Qaeda. Those who spoke to the FT said the deal highlighted how Qatar has allegedly used hostage payments to bankroll jihadis in Syria. But to its Gulf neighbours, the biggest issue is likely to be the fact that Doha could have paid off their main regional rival, Iran, which they accuse of fuelling conflicts in the Arab world. This particular saga began when an Iranian-backed Iraqi Shia militia, known as Kata’eb Hizbollah, kidnapped the Qataris in December 2015. Three Iraqi militia leaders say the hostages were held in Iran. Kata’eb Hizbollah is an Iraqi group but it is seen as having links with Iran’s main regional proxy, Hizbollah, the Lebanese militant group. The latter is helping Iran back Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, in his country’s six-year conflict. Two regional diplomats said they believed one of the Iraqi group’s motives for the kidnapping was to give Hizbollah and Iran leverage to negotiate the release of Shia fighters kidnapped by the radical Sunni group Tahrir al-Sham in Syria. Tahrir al-Sham, in previous iterations, was an al-Qaeda branch. It claims it has broken the connection, but the international community still views it as an affiliate.



http://www.bbc.com/urdu/regional-40763957?SThisFB
29 July 2017:

پاکستان کے صوبہ بلوچستان کے ایران سے متصل ضلع پنجگور میں ایرانی فورسز کی مبینہ فائرنگ سے چار افراد ہلاک اور پانچ زخمی ہوئے ہیں۔

پنجگور میں انتظامیہ کے ایک سینیئر افسر نے فون پر بی بی سی کو بتایا کہ یہ واقع ایران کی سرحد کے قریب چیدگی کی علاقے میں پیش آیا۔

سینیئر افسر کا کہنا تھا کہ فائرنگ کا نشانہ بننے والے پاکستانی شہری ہیں۔

سینیئر اہلکار کے مطابق مارے جانے اور زخمی ہونے والے افراد اپنے مال مویشی کے ساتھ اس علاقے سے گزر رہے تھے ۔

ان کا کہنا تھا کہ سرحد پار سے مبینہ طور پر ایرانی فورسز نے ان پر فائرنگ کی۔

فائرنگ کے نتیجے میں ان میں سے چار افراد ہلاک اور پانچ زخمی ہوئے ۔

انہوں نے بتایا کہ ہلاک افراد کی لاشوں کو پوسٹ مارٹم اور زخمی افراد کو علاج کے لیے ہسپتال منتقل کیا گیا۔

سینیئر افسر کے مطابق تمام افراد گولی لگنے سے ہلاک اور زخمی ہوئے ہیں۔

رابطے میں مشکلات کے باعث اس واقعے کے حوالے سے ایرانی حکام کا موقف معلوم نہیں کیا جاسکا۔

سرکاری حکام کے مطابق پنجگور میں پہلے بھی ایران کی جانب سے فائرنگ کے واقعات میں لوگوں کی ہلاکتیں ہوتی رہی ہیں۔

گزشتہ ماہ پاکستانی حکام نے سرحدی خلاف ورزی کرنے کے الزام میں پنجگور ہی کے علاقے میں ایک ایرانی ڈرون کو بھی مار گرایا تھا۔

بلوچستان میں پانچ اضلاع کی طویل سرحد ایران کے ساتھ لگتی ہے۔

https://twitter.com/AmirTaheri4/status/919945766982115328
16 Oct 2017:
IRGC chief Gen. Jaafari: Our first task isn't defending Iran's borders, that's task of regular army; ours is to expand Islamic Revolution.


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/16/opinion/saudi-iran-strategy.html
16 Nov 2017:
 Saudi Arabia may exaggerate Iranian intentions and power, but Western and Asian countries typically understate them. The Iranians themselves are clear about how they view the region: “No decisive actions can be taken in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, North Africa and the Gulf region without Iran’s consent,” Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s president, reportedly boasted last month. Tehran may not be in full control in Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut, but thanks to its proxies and allies, it can decisively shape their battlefields and politics.
....
Fundamentally, who prevails in the rivalry between Tehran and Riyadh comes down to capacity and competence. Iran has the networks, expertise, experience and strategic patience required to fight and win proxy wars at low cost and with plenty of disingenuous deniability. The Saudis simply don’t, which is why seeking to beat the Iranians at this game is dangerous and costly.
Iran has another strength: It has demonstrated that it will be there for its friends and allies in good and bad times. Saudi Arabia does not have the same constancy. Just ask Syrian rebels, Iraqi tribal leaders and Lebanese politicians. 



http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/fikraforum/view/the-iranian-zeitgeist-success-in-arab-media 
The interest of the Iranian-led “Resistance Axis” in the Sunni setting is not mobilization, but the opposite: to ensure that Sunni audiences are not attracted to any opposing recruitment hostile to Iranian pursuits. Towards such purpose, the Iranian-led effort proclaims an embrace of issues believed to be central to Sunni political consciousness, where such a consciousness exists—supporting the Palestinian cause and declaring enmity to Israel, resisting neo-colonialism and external interventions, endorsing the quest for just governance—or merely seeking to satisfy the demand for a local Islamic identity, where no active Sunni political consciousness is noted.