Eastern Iran holds strategic importance as a linkage between Iran and both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Beyond being a natural corridor for trade and the movement of people, the region serves as a primary conduit for illicit activities such as drug and arms trafficking.
On another level, the ethnic and religious diversity—where Sunni Baluch constitute the majority of the population of Sistan and Baluchestan Province—combined with geography and natural resources, has made this area a sensitive locus in the calculations of the Iranian state.
Since the early twentieth century, the relationship between the central state in Tehran and the Baluch has been marked by tension. Initially, the Shah’s policies treated the region more as a security margin than a space for development, which deepened Baluch feelings of exclusion. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and despite slogans of equality and social justice, Baluch complaints persisted over the lack of political and economic representation and over religious restrictions, reinforcing a sense of sectarian and ethnic discrimination.
These historical accumulations created an environment conducive to the emergence of protest movements that quickly transformed into armed groups with religious and nationalist orientations. In the early 2000s, Jundallah emerged as the first hardline Sunni organization in eastern Iran, influenced by Salafi-jihadist ideologies and by escalating regional conflicts. A set of factors, foremost among them economic decline and the ease of disseminating extremist ideas in a marginalized environment, helped drive these groups to expand.
Statistics from 2016 indicate that about 45% of Sistan and Baluchestan’s population lives below the extreme poverty line and that the urban unemployment rate reached 14.4%, while local sources estimate real unemployment in some areas between 40% and 65%. Despite the absence of precise data on representation in government jobs, local reports point to ongoing structural marginalization of the Baluch, which Tehran denies, asserting that the political and social representation of this group is within natural levels given their minority status in the country.
This report reviews the ideological and organizational features of these groups and analyzes their financial resources, which combine illicit activities with contentious regional support. It also examines their most notable operations, which are no longer confined to limited border strikes but have reached sensitive targets such as security headquarters and courts, including the Zahedan courthouse attack in January 2025.
The report also addresses Iran’s efforts to confront this challenge through security and military approaches as well as political and social initiatives, while highlighting the role of the regional Sunni-Shia conflict in fueling the phenomenon and complicating its treatment.
Ideology and Tools
Hardline Sunni groups in eastern Iran rely on a Salafi-jihadist ideology that calls for implementing Islamic law through armed jihad. These groups view the predominantly Shia Iranian government as a “Safavid regime” that must be overthrown and replaced with a Sunni government.
They adopt extremist ideas hostile to Shia and often deem them “infidels” or “innovators” worthy of fighting.
Organizationally, the groups follow hierarchical structures that depend on networks of small cells, which grants them operational flexibility and complicates the security services’ ability to penetrate them. They use guerrilla tactics such as ambushes, hit-and-run attacks, and suicide bombings. Psychological and media warfare often accompany operations by disseminating images of attacks to project state weakness, which allows small operations to occupy an outsized media space.
Sunni groups employ two parallel discourses: an emphasis on Baluch grievance domestically and an external narrative of “defending Sunnis.”
The goals and motives of these groups vary, ranging from securing the greatest possible political, economic, and cultural rights to establishing an independent Baluch state. There are also groups with broader ideological aims such as overthrowing the Iranian government and establishing a Sunni Islamic state.
Jaish ul-Adl: Founded in 2012 as a successor to Jundallah, which was weakened after the arrest and execution of its leader Abdolmalek Rigi. Jaish ul-Adl claims its goals are “to defend the rights of Sunni Baluch in Iran and to seek the independence of the province of Sistan and Baluchestan.” The group has carried out numerous attacks against Iranian security forces, with some operations causing significant casualties.
Today, Jaish ul-Adl is considered the most active and influential faction among hardline Sunni groups. It embraces an anti-Shia ideology and seeks to achieve nationalist and religious objectives. Recently, Jaish ul-Adl has evolved from traditional ambushes to complex attacks involving bombings and suicide operatives to escalate political and security threats.
Ansar al-Furqan: Established in 2013 following the merger of Harakat Ansar Iran and Hizb al-Furqan and seeks to achieve objectives that extend beyond Iran’s borders. The group adopts a Salafi-jihadist ideology and is linked to al-Qaeda.
Ansar al-Furqan has carried out numerous operations targeting Iranian security forces and infrastructure in Sistan and Baluchestan, in addition to other attacks in different parts of Iran.
The group’s focus on targeting energy infrastructure reflects a strategy aimed at inducing economic and security paralysis in the region.
Jundallah: Founded by Abdolmalek Rigi. The organization carried out numerous attacks targeting security forces and civilians before being significantly weakened by the arrest and execution of its leader in 2010. Despite its disbandment, Jundallah is considered the nucleus from which subsequent hardline Sunni groups in eastern Iran emerged, and its ideas and methods remain prevalent.
Harakat Ansar Iran: Active between 2012 and 2013, then merged with Hizb al-Furqan to form Ansar al-Furqan. Harakat Ansar Iran aimed to oppose the Islamic Republic of Iran and to press for Sunni demands. Despite its short period of independent activity, the movement represented an important transitional stage in the evolution of hardline Sunni groups, with its merger contributing to the formation of a stronger and more cohesive organization.
Jaysh al-Sahaba: A small hardline Sunni group with a notable ideological dimension that focuses on implementing Islamic law within a Sunni nationalist framework and adopts an anti-Shia discourse similar to groups such as Jaish ul-Adl, though it is less organized and less capable of carrying out large-scale attacks. The group is believed to benefit from temporary alliances with other factions to conduct limited operations against Iranian security forces. It concentrates its activity in rural areas far from urban centers to avoid direct confrontation with government forces. Despite the limited number of its operations, Jaysh al-Sahaba forms part of the hardline tapestry and the plurality of ideologies.
Financing: An Interlocking Shadow Economy
The financing of hardline groups in eastern Iran rests on an interlocking shadow economy that combines local criminal activities with cross-border resources. The chain begins with drug trafficking from southern Afghanistan across the Sistan desert to distribution contracts inside Iranian territory, where “transit fees” are imposed on shipments in exchange for protection and connivance.
Local logistical cells on both the Iranian and Pakistani sides form the backbone of these chains, relying on alternate routes, motorcycles, small trucks, and stash points along the axes (Zahedan – Khash – Saravan) extending to the Makran coast to avoid checkpoints.
A portion of these proceeds is converted to cash through informal hawala networks or through purchases of gold and hard currency in border hubs such as Chabahar and Zahedan, which reduces the impact of banking oversight and facilitates payroll and arms procurement.
Fuel smuggling also constitutes a steady revenue stream. The groups purchase subsidized products inside Iran and smuggle them to Pakistan and Afghanistan at wide price differentials, and they impose “protection fees” on convoys of carriers that add to their revenues.
These revenues intersect with local extortion practices that include temporary toll points, forced donations, and the kidnapping of civilians for large ransom payments. In parallel, smuggling networks are used to procure weapons from border markets.
Tehran asserts the existence of “external support,” pointing to havens, funding, and training from regional actors or players inside Pakistan, though the evidence for organized support remains inconclusive and is often entangled with mutual propaganda between Tehran and Islamabad.
In sum, the sources of financing form a hybrid system that grants the groups a degree of continuity and flexibility by securing low-risk local resources that provide the daily financial base, supplemented by emergency inflows earmarked for special operations, which complicates efforts to dismantle financing through any conventional security response.
The Duality of Confrontation and Containment
Authorities in Iran face mounting security challenges in areas where these organizations are active. In addition to ethnic and sectarian tensions, the region suffers from high unemployment rates and low levels of development, creating fertile ground for discontent and radicalization.
Iran employs multiple strategies to combat these groups. Alongside intensifying its military and security presence in the region, especially through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which conducts continuous counterterrorism operations, Tehran seeks to achieve a structural approach to the crisis.
Sectarian and ethnic factors play an important role in shaping Iran’s policy in this area. Sunni Baluch constitute the majority population in Sistan and Baluchestan and share the province with Persians and Sistanis, who largely belong to the Shia sect.
Baluch grievances related to sectarian and ethnic discrimination have increased tension in the region. Although some Iranian officials have acknowledged discrimination against Sunnis, substantive changes on the ground remain limited, indicating resistance from hardline institutions within the state. In parallel, political propaganda, disinformation, and reports that exaggerate poverty or allege bans on mosque construction for the Sunni community proliferate.
The number of members of parliament from Sistan and Baluchestan Province is about eight to ten seats, which varies across terms according to population counts and redistricting, and Sunni figures with tribal standing and influence in the province are usually elected. Tehran maintains that the issue is not “systematic exclusion” but accumulated poverty and underdevelopment in a geographically harsh desert region similar to other remote areas in Iran.
Iran frequently accuses foreign countries such as the United States, Western states, Pakistan, and some Gulf countries of supporting these groups with the aim of stoking sectarian strife and undermining security. In parallel, Iran emphasizes cooperation with Pakistan on counterterrorism and border security by establishing lines of communication, coordinating joint operations, and exchanging intelligence, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps operates visibly in the province.
Iran characterizes groups such as Jaish ul-Adl as “terrorist” and linked to organizations such as Islamic State Khorasan Province and affirms that these groups receive support from abroad. Iran stresses that it has been and remains a victim of terrorism.
Iran’s strict security approach sometimes yields counterproductive outcomes, which the groups exploit to portray events as systematic persecution.
It is also observed that the majority of development projects announced by Iran do not move beyond media discourse, which reinforces the loss of trust among the local population.
Regional Dynamics
The security situation in eastern Iran cannot be treated as a purely domestic file, as it is deeply affected by surrounding regional and international interactions.
Iran–Pakistan relations: Islamabad takes an official stance that condemns terrorist attacks against Iran and affirms partnership on counterterrorism and border security. Despite this, Tehran accuses its neighbor of harboring group elements and allowing them to carry out cross-border operations, which creates ongoing tension that was reflected in reciprocal border shelling in January 2024.
Independent reports indicate that some groups do indeed find sanctuary in Pakistan’s tribal areas without this constituting official support from the political and military authorities in Islamabad.
The regional sectarian dimension: The Sunni–Shia conflict in the region constitutes fertile ground for the discourse of armed groups. The groups exploit sectarian divisions to mobilize followers and attract support, while Tehran uses these attacks to reinforce its narrative that it is a victim of cross-border terrorism, which strengthens its diplomatic leverage. In earlier phases, such as periods of Saudi–Iranian tension, sectarian divides provided propaganda material for these groups to portray themselves as part of a wider struggle between Sunnis and Shias.
The impact of Afghanistan and the return of the Taliban: The return of the Taliban to power reshaped the security environment in eastern Iran.
Drug and arms smuggling networks did not disappear under the prohibition policies announced by the Taliban. They redirected their routes to preserve revenues. The Taliban’s presence in government reduced political barriers to the movement of people and weapons through tribal networks that span countries in the region, and Western sources indicate that it facilitated the movement of experienced fighters to the environs of Sistan and Baluchestan and revived old routes from Helmand and Nimruz toward Iran, which became a theater for the smuggling of heroin and raw materials, according to Global Initiative.
Gulf states: Some Iranian media outlets repeatedly accuse certain Gulf countries of providing financial or logistical support to Baluch groups, but documented evidence remains limited and does not rise to the level of proving official and organized support.
Israel: Official Iranian media present Israel as a backstage actor in the eastern Iran file.
In 2014, the state-run Tasnim agency published reports that spoke of ties between Mossad and Jaish ul-Adl, and former Foreign Minister Amir Abdollahian in January 2024 linked Mossad activity in Kurdistan to the movements of hardline groups inside Pakistan. Despite this, the evidence published so far does not appear conclusive.
Conclusion
The evidence shows that eastern Iran is no longer merely a security file on the margins of the Iranian state. It has turned into an inflamed area where developmental fragility intersects with the crime economy and cross-border extremist organizations.
Despite Tehran’s ability to achieve tactical containment, the structural imbalance persists, which opens the door in the coming months and years to divergent trajectories that range between tense containment and gradual escalation that may reach the regionalization of the conflict and its internationalization.
In the first scenario, violence may remain intermittent and geographically concentrated with temporally spaced strikes that target security and judicial bodies and some local infrastructure. This path is fed by the continuation of the security grip alongside symbolic development projects and the effectiveness of border coordination and intelligence and military cooperation with Pakistan.
In the escalation scenario, some factions are expected to move from classical ambushes to complex attacks that use more advanced explosives and suicide operatives to strike service interests such as courts, power stations, and logistical roads. This would be driven by a deeper coupling with the smuggling economy and by assistance from Afghan and Islamic State Khorasan expertise and capabilities amid repeated clashes and weak coordination between Tehran and Islamabad.
The scenario of regionalization and internationalization is expected to advance if Iran’s relations with Pakistan or the Taliban deteriorate. At that point, smuggling theaters and rear sanctuaries would become more exposed and expansive and would be used as pressure cards.
Addressing this file requires Iran to introduce a basket of political reforms and more serious developmental and administrative initiatives that strike at the roots of poverty and unemployment and expand local political, employment, and security inclusion and activate grievance mechanisms in the judiciary. Easing can be read when promises turn into completed structures.
In the background of all this, the region emerges as a soft underbelly that Iran’s adversaries can invest in to preoccupy the Iranian government domestically. Even in the absence of conclusive public evidence, the logic of shadow warfare remains tempting as a means to magnify the costs of internal security by amplifying narratives of developmental and representational failure.
From an early warning perspective, Tehran can consider any sudden leaps in the quality of explosives and drones, or any change in target patterns toward civil and judicial infrastructure, as well as any surge in financial liquidity in the hands of these organizations, as decisive and important indicators for tracking upcoming inflection points and investigating external interventions that support these organizations across borders.
