In Southeast Iran, mourning the cost of a Sunni insurgency
| Zahedan, Iran
Draped in elegant dark robes and with reverent steps, the woman walks past scores of gravestones set flat in the ground 鈥撀爌art of the toll from more than a decade of a slow-burn Sunni insurgency.聽
In this cemetery near Iran鈥檚 remote border with Pakistan and Afghanistan and beside high rocky hills, the desert wind blows Iranian flags above each grave, and rustles faded fragments of green cloth hung to protect every martyr鈥檚 portrait from bleaching by the sun.
No single death may mean much for Iran鈥檚 long battle with Pakistan-based聽Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice). But its insurgency,聽with its flashes of large-scale bloodletting in mosques and attacks against Iranian soldiers, has caused a chronic sense of insecurity in Sistan-Baluchistan Province,聽an impoverished Sunni tribal region.
Tehran is trying to聽strengthen this neglected region's economy and to deescalate the conflict in order to better focus on more strategic issues facing Iran 鈥� including the Islamic State's challenge to Iraq and the civil war in Syria.聽In a visit to Zahedan last April,聽President Hassan Rouhani vowed to step up investment to ease local grievances, and stated that no Iranians 鈥� be they Sunni or other minorities 鈥� are 鈥渟econd-class citizens.鈥�
鈥淣ow the heads of the country and officials are joining hands and getting rid of local problems, to deal with the enemy outside 鈥� and there are many enemies outside,鈥� says Molavi Abdulqani Barani, a Sunni cleric from Zahedan.聽
At the cemetery, Shima Nezami stops, kneels down, and gently taps her fingers on the grave of her brother-in-law. He died in a double suicide bombing on the Shiite Jamia mosque in July 2010 that killed more than 27 and wounded 10 times that number.
鈥淲e are all living our lives, but you can鈥檛 imagine the loss of this son for the mother and father,鈥� says Mrs. Nezami about Yasir Nezami. He was 23 years old when he died, just four days away from receiving his degree in IT engineering.
鈥淎 lot of people died here for no reason,鈥� says Nezami, still crestfallen. 鈥淲hen anyone sees an opportunity for terrorism, they will take it.鈥�
Only three people died in the first blast; the second explosion, timed to go off 20 minutes later and kill those 鈥撀爈ike engineer Nezami 鈥撀爓ho raced to help, accounted for the rest.聽Militants claimed the attack was in revenge for Iran capturing and聽killing their leader Abdolmalek Rigi聽months earlier.聽
Iranian officers claim to have now made security 鈥減erfect鈥� after a recent surge of attacks from Sunni militants coming from Pakistan 鈥� some of those attacks using tactics similar to Islamic State actions in Iraq and Syria.
But the two long rows of graves here, and the stories behind them,聽mean that not all are convinced.聽Iran鈥檚 previous presidents also vowed improvements, with limited results.聽Jaish al-Adl,聽formerly called Jundallah (Soldiers of God), claims to fight for聽greater rights for Iran鈥檚 minority Sunnis and ethnic Balochis; analysts say they lack popular support.聽
鈥淣obody comes to our city because of insecurity; none of the men [officials] come to our region because of insecurity,鈥� says Nezami, as her husband arrives to pay his respects to his brother, a weekly ritual. 鈥淲e are not capable of moving. If so, we would not stay here another moment."
鈥淭heir goal is to create disunity, but they have not succeeded,鈥� says Shahriar Nezami, more defiantly, of the militants. 鈥淧eople that are wise and more educated know this doesn鈥檛 affect the brotherhood of Sunnis and Shiites.鈥�
Nezami鈥檚 grave is beside that of the man who is seen as a local hero for his actions at the mosque.聽He was the first to notice that an over-size person wearing an all-enveloping burqa was not a woman, but a militant wearing a suicide vest.聽He died preventing the bomber from entering the mosque 鈥撀燼n elaborate structure covered in exquisitely designed blue and green tiles. Today that green metal door is still bent with the force of the blast, and pierced like the marble wall with holes of shrapnel.
