Baloch National Resistance in Iran:

The chief of a branch of Mubaraki tribe, Mir Dad Shah became the first resistance leader of Iranian Baloch movement. He was one of the more daring opponents of Persian rule in the inaccessible Southeastern corner of Iranian Balochistan. Dad Shah started his exploits as early as 1944, harassing Iranian police and army.

On March 24, 1957, Dad Shah and a band of some twenty-four men waylaid and killed an American military aid official and his wife, Kevin and Anita Carroll, and an American contractor Brewster Wilson, who were driving by jeep with tow Iranians to the port city of ChahBahar.  Suggesting that, Carroll and Wilson wanted to size up ChahBahar as a potential military base.

In an effort to quiet the uproar, Prime Minister Hussain Allah resigned. The Shah put a price of $ 10,000 on the head of each member of the Dad Shah gang, dead or alive, and the Pakistan army and police joined the manhunt.

Dad Shah and his men actively attempted to engage the Shah’s forces in combat by staging frequent ambush and that they fought at least three pitched gun battles with Iranian contingents. When they were finally cornered, Dad Shah died in battle, refusing to surrender.

In 1957, Pakistan army and police forces captured Dad shah’s brother, Ahmed Shah and extradited him to Iran, even though no such treaty existed between the two countries. Dad Shah and his brother case marked the first time that a Baloch leader had attempted to rally nationalist sentiment in both Pakistan and Iran around an issue of common concern under the banner of Greater Balochistan. In 1964 exiled Iranian Baloch leaders launched an organization known as the “Balochistan Liberation Front”. Initially the only open Arab support that BLF received was from Iraq and Yasser Arafat’s wing of PLO. Which made a BLF leader Mr. Jummah Khan a member of its central advisory committee. The BLF leader Jummah Khan declared his policy towards Baloch autonomy, stated that, the only way of librating Balochistan is through the armed struggle of the masses” and rejecting the idea of compromise and political solutions, he said, we do not believe in the so-called stage-by-stage pursuit of independence, i.e. first to struggle for linguistic, cultural and political rights as a part of Iran, and then afterward, to struggle for independence. Syria and Egypt gave quasi-diplomatic status during 1965 and 1966 as the representative of provisional Balochistan government in exile to the BLF leaders. Unlike the other Arab States, Iraq had compelling reasons to give priority to its support for the Baloch cause. Iraqi leaders saw the Baloch, as natural allies in their conflict with Tehran.

The Iraqi Baathist regime subsidized Jummah Khan, Mir Abdi Khan, and other leaders linked with the Front for the five years, and Baghdad became the headquarters for intensified radio broadcastings and insurgent activity in Iranian Balochistan.

In March 1975, Baghdad and Tehran signed a peace agreement in which Iran promised to stop its support of the Kurds in exchange for Iraq’s termination of its help to the Baloch and the Khuzistan Arabs. The BLF had a lasting impact on Iranian Baloch attitude.

In December 1978, the prospect of a Tehran regime dominated by Shiite Clerics galvanized the Baloch Sunni Clerics in to unprecedented political activity. Many Baloch who belong to the orthodox Sunni sect of Islam, had turned to their Sunni faith to reinforce their sense of Baloch identity. The religious revolution of Iran proved to turn the secular and political Baloch movement on the religious lines. In the early draft of proposed constitution, Shiite made the state religion under Article 13. In Article 15 the study of Persian as the official language and its exclusive use as a medium of instruction made compulsory. This Article prohibited both the teaching of Balochi as a second language and its use in textbooks.

When a national referendum on the controversial constitution was held in early December 200 Baloch protesters belonging to BPDO (Balochistan People’s Democratic Organization), set fire to the ballot boxes in Iranshahr, stormed Governor-General Palace and abducted and held him prisoner for three days. During the Taliban regime in Afghanistan some of Islamic Baloch militants were busy in training and preparing to start guerrilla warfare against Shiite regime of Tehran and establishing Sunni State of Balochistan