Pakistan proved right in Regi case: The News

By By Amir Mir
LAHORE: The arrest of the Jundallah chief Abdolmalek Regi by Iranian authorities hardly 24 hours after he had left an American military base in Afghanistan has vindicated Islamabad’s October 2009 stance that the anti-Shia renegade leader was no more hiding in Pakistan and was now operating from Afghanistan.

Regi, being Iran’s most wanted terrorist leader, had claimed responsibility for several major terrorist attacks carried out in Iran in the recent past, including the October 18 suicide bombing in Tehran. He was finally arrested along with his deputy after Iranian fighter planes intercepted a commercial flight over Persian Gulf which was travelling from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan and forced it to make an emergency landing at an unknown location. Informed circles in Islamabad say the most vital tip about the travel plans of Regi leading to his arrest actually came from Pakistan.

The Iranians have already recovered from him his Afghan passport, which according to Iranian Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi, had been supplied to him by the United States. The recovery of Afghan passport has also refuted the October 2009 Iranian claim that Abdolmalek Regi carries a Pakistani national identity card by the name of Saeed Ahmed, son of Ghulam Haider. Regi comes from the Regi tribe of the Baloch in Iran.

Jundallah, or “Army of God”, which is also known in Iran as the Regi group is a rebel anti-Shia Sunni militant group of Iranian Baloch, who claim to represent their minority’s rights in Iran’s southeast province of Sistan-Balochistan. The dedication of the Regi brothers to the cause of Jundallah can be gauged from the fact that one of them -- Abdolgafoor Regi - opted to sacrifice him by executing a suicide car bombing on December 28, 2008, against the headquarters of Iran’s joint police and anti-narcotics unit in the Saravan city. Before the arrest of the 30-year-old Regi, his hideout was believed to be cross-border, in the Pakistani Balochistan. In the wake of the October 18, 2009 suicide bombing in Tehran, Islamabad came under tremendous pressure from Tehran for the arrest and extradition of Regi. Addressing a press conference in Islamabad on March 20, 2009, the ambassador of Iran to Pakistan Mashallah Shakeri accused Pakistan of allowing its soil to be used against Iran and demanding concrete steps to contain its activities. Pakistan consequently maintained that its security agencies were making frantic efforts to dismantle the Jundallah network from Balochistan, adding Regi has already moved to Afghanistan after the June 15, 2008 extradition of his younger brother, Abdolhamid Regi (from Pakistan to Iran), who is now being tried by an Iranian court on terrorism charges.

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