Who is Jaish ul-Adl Whom the IRGC Launched a Strike Against Yesterday?

By Al Mayadeen English

17 Jan 2024 21:08

The most recent confirmed attack by Jaish ul-Adl against Iran was in 2019, when they attacked a police station killing 11 people and wounding eight others.

Following the top-tier ballistic operation by the IRGC against militant bases of the terrorist group Jaish ul-Adl in Pakistan's Balochistan province, this short report expounds on the background of this terrorist group and the history of their animosity towards Iran. 

Who is Jaish ul-Adl?

The group, whose name literally translates to the "Army of Justice", is a Salafist separatist militant group, founded in 2012, operating in the mountainous border region between Iran and Pakistan. The group alongside other terrorist groups in the region strives for an independent Balochi ethnostate in the Iranian Sistan and Baluchestan. 

Jaish ul-Adl has claimed a series of violent attacks killing and kidnapping members of Iran's border police in the past. In December, they killed 11 people and wounded eight others in a hit-and-run terrorist operation against a police station in southeastern Iran.  In 2019, Jaish ul-Adl claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing targeting a bus that killed 27 members of Iran’s Islamic Revolution's Guard Corps.

In addition to their suspected involvement in the terrorist operation in Kerman targetting hundreds of civilians during the commemoration processions on the anniversary of the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani. 

Similar to Iraqi Kurdistan, Pakistani Balochistan hosts and funds Iranian separatists in North West and South East Iran respectively. 

In a report on the terrorist group, The Indian Express website theorizes that Pakistan had been allowing these terrorist separatist groups to operate at the behest of Iran's former rival Saudi Arabia: with whom tensions had only relaxed back in March 2023 after the Chinese-mediated rapprochement agreement. 

Iran's decisive multi-pronged operation

On Monday evening, the Iranian Revolution Guards Corps IRGC announced carrying out multiple strikes, using ballistic missiles and drones, on terrorist targets in Syria, Mossad headquarters in Iraqi Kurdistan's Erbil.

In a later statement on Tuesday, it revealed another strike on strongholds belonging to Jaish ul-Adl in Pakistan, a group designated as a terrorist group by Iran.

According to Iranian media, the operation came after long years of communicating with several regional governments regarding terrorist attacks targeting Iran that were originating from their countries, including Iraq.