The recent suicide attack in the south eastern province of Sistan and Baluchistan in which ‎a car was used for the first time in the explosion is an unprecedented event in the Islamic ‎Republic of Iran.‎

Even though suicide attacks had taken place against Iranian officials in 1981 (which ‎involved hand grenades) but this bombing in Sistan and Baluchistan where the majority ‎of the population is Sunni appears to be the first of its kind in which a car was used.‎

The attack took place amid special operational and symbolic environment which is ‎reminiscent of suicide attacks by groups commonly known as Salafi or Takfiri. These ‎groups, whose operations are associated to specific characteristics, have by now been ‎well identified by the international public opinion. In the world today, images of ‎executions (particularly beheadings) of hand-tied hostages in front of cameras while ‎some Quran verses are heard, or images of car bombings driven by suicide drivers, ‎normally convey a common meaning to the viewer: Salafi terrorist operations, or what in ‎the West is known as Al-Qaida.‎

An important characteristic of such operations, regardless of whether they take place in ‎Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, or any other place on earth, is that they are all displayed to ‎take place in a heroic religious setting with jihadist symbols. More precisely, there have ‎been very few, if any, suicide operations by these groups against victims whose crimes ‎are portrayed to be issues like “violations of people’s rights”. Most, if not all, of these ‎killings are portrayed to take place against forces or individuals whose principal “crime” ‎has a religious undertone such as “invasion of Muslim lands”, “animosity with the ‎religion of God”, etc.‎

It is in this light that the recent suicide attack in Iran carries certain important warnings. ‎This event took place in an environment of such intense religious tension that is rare even ‎in the conflict-ridden region of Baluchistan.‎

It is because of this atmosphere that the negative role of Ahmadinejad’ administration in ‎allowing the region to come to such a new phase of security unrest becomes critical. Of ‎course this region has been wrought with poverty, corruption, injustice, dissatisfaction of ‎local residents with authorities, which have always been contributing to the social ‎tensions that include armed clashes between ethnic groups and government agents. But ‎the dangerous initiatives of the Ahmadinejad administration in Sistan and Baluchistan ‎have aggravated these issues to unprecedented levels of religious tension. A shocking ‎example is the mind-boggling decision of the government to tear down a Sunni religious ‎school in Zabol known as Abu-Hanifeh.‎

The claim of the Jondollah armed group, that has assumed the responsibility of the recent ‎suicide bombing, is that their recent operation was an act of revenge for the destruction of ‎this religious school in Zabol. It is a clear sign that through its act of bulldozing a ‎religious school, the central government in Tehran has in fact unleashed a very dangerous ‎potential and prospects in the region. Let’s not forget the unmatched uproar of Sunni ‎Friday prayer Imams – who are directly appointed by the leader of the Islamic regime and ‎always have the strongest calls for patience with the central government - over the ‎bulldozing. These cries were so laud that cleric the Sunni prayer imam of Chahbahar in ‎Baluchistan, publicly protested that “so long as we are alive we shall not allow the ‎government to confiscate our mosques and schools from us”, and called on the leader of ‎the regime and its president to apologize to the Sunni population while compensating for ‎the destruction of the religious school. In another statement, the Sunni prayer imam of ‎Zahedan (capital of Sistan and Baluchistan) issued a warning threat: “An unjust life is not ‎acceptable for us and if anybody desires it we shall deliver it to them,” adding that if ‎these created problems for the Sunnis were not addressed, it was possible that for the first ‎time members of this minority “would not participate in the upcoming presidential ‎elections.”‎

The majority of Baluch Sunnis, whose most moderate clerics raised these protests over ‎the destruction of the Abu-Hanifeh school in Zabol, are the very same people who have ‎over the past decade looked for any “excuse” to remain optimistic about the central ‎government. This optimism reached its peak when during the presidential elections of ‎‎1997, the respectful words of a presidential candidate who called for respect of Sunni ‎minority rights raised the turnout of the Sunnis to unprecedented levels and in some of ‎the province’s towns constituted more than 90 percent of the votes cast for Mohammad ‎Khatami. It is instructive that even during the 2001 presidential election when many ‎small and large towns populated with Persians and Shiites majorities had already lost ‎much of their hope for change, more than 70 percent of the population of Sistan and ‎Baluchistan participated in the elections, and again, Kahatmi received over 90 percent of ‎the votes in some towns. This way, a great majority of the province’s people voted for ‎Khatami who had merely expressed respectful words for them while they remained in ‎near-absolute poverty and faced aching employment discrimination, and even Khatami’s ‎attempts to appoint a few Sunni governors had been met with incredible opposition by ‎conservatists. Even more surprising is the fact that during the 2005 presidential race when ‎reformist candidate Mostafa Moin was criticized for his “chick” promises such as “the ‎foundation of the Democracy and Human Rights Front” which his opponents claimed had ‎no attraction for the masses, his highest votes came from Sistan and Baluchistan province ‎in the first voting round (Ahmadinejad received less than 47 thousand votes compared to ‎Moin’s 479 thousand, which may explain the reason for Ahmadinejad’s policies towards ‎the deprived province!)…‎

There is a general observation about the countries in transition which is that many of their ‎governments prioritize security but neglect the social and political aspects for ‎implementing law and order, which then in turn becomes the very source of threat to the ‎national security. It appears that what is going on in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan ‎province and the workings of the Ahmadinejad administration is an example of the ‎repetition of the same unfortunate problem: Now, Ahmadinejad’s government, which ‎claims to be the “first” in implementing major tasks in the country, is also witness to the ‎first automobile suicide bombing in Iran’s history.‎

‎---‎ • This article is first published in The Media Line website.‎