Observing Iran (catch all historical thread)

[davidbfpo]

A CSM article on Iran's struggle with Jaish al-Adl or Jaish ul-Adl, or Army of Justice alongside the drug smugglers; it's not all brute force there:www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2014/1030/Facing-its-own-Islamic-State-inspired-militants-Iran-wields-a-smaller-stick?

I knew about the smugglers and some insurgency, not that it related to Iran's Sunni minority who live in the south-east, 10% of the national population.

Zahedan is known as Iran’s lawless “Wild West,” where the bleak desert borders of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan intersect. Iranian officials, soldiers, and police have lost some 3,000 men during years of combat with heavily armed drug smugglers along a major opium and heroin route to Europe.

.....a sophisticated attack on border post No. 171 in September. In tactics that mirror those used so effectively by the IS in Iraq, a vehicle packed with 1,300 pounds of explosives caused a “cataclysmic” blast that leveled the outer wall, as 70 insurgents in a convoy of six trucks raced to attack.

Backgrounder by a Norwegain think tank, from May 2014, 8 pgs:http://www.peacebuilding.no/var/ezfl...4fd929c9c8.pdf