Month: January 2024

WASHINGTON — Iran launched missiles and drones Tuesday into Pakistan’s Balochistan province, officially stated to be aimed at the Sunni separatist group Jaish al-Adl, or Army of Justice.

Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan has a porous border with Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan province.

Locals on the Pakistan side of the border say Jaish al-Adl has training camps in Kohe Sabz and the surrounding mountains in Pakistan’s Balochistan province.

Fakhar Hayat Kakakhel, a Pakistan-based researcher and journalist who tracks militant groups’ violence in the region, says, “It’s an anti-Shia outfit that adheres to the Salafi ideology. Jaish al-Adl distributes its messages and propaganda on Telegram channels in the region in Persian and English. The channels operate under different names, including Jaishul Aadal, Al-Furqan and Khorasan Front.”

The Salafi Muslim sect is a separate school of thought within Islamic theology that follows the teachings of the eighth-century Imam Ibn Taymiyyah and his followers. The Salafi school of thought rejects religious innovations and is considered more orthodox than most of the other currents within Muslim religious groups and sects.

Jaish al-Adl is an offshoot of Pakistan-based Jundullah, another group with a history of attacks inside Iran’s southeastern Sistan and Baluchistan province.

Iran substantially weakened Jundullah in 2010 following the execution of its leader, Abdul Malik Regi, after his mysterious arrest.

Jaish al-Adl emerged on the scene about 2012 and has claimed responsibility for scores of deadly attacks targeting Iranian security forces.

The group claimed responsibility for an attack on a police station in December 2023, killing 11 Iranian security personnel in the town of Rask in Sistan and Baluchistan. Following the attack, Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi issued a warning to Pakistan to stop Jaish al-Adl from attacks in Iran.

“Pakistan cannot afford troubles with all neighbors, but the Iranian actions show it has issues with Pakistan,” says Fahim Ullah Khan, a professor at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad.

Iran shares a 900-kilometer border with Pakistan, guarded by security forces on both sides, with rampant smuggling of different goods — especially Iranian petrol and diesel. Most of Pakistan’s fuel comes from the Middle East, but a fair amount of oil is smuggled in across its western border with Iran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, while speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, defended his country’s strike inside Pakistan, saying the target of the cross-border airstrikes on Tuesday night was “Iranian terrorists present on Pakistani soil.”

Jalil Abbas Jilani, Pakistan’s caretaker foreign minister, received a telephone call from Abdollahian Wednesday after Islamabad recalled its ambassador from Tehran following an announcement suspending all high-level engagements with Tehran.

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement the attack “was not only a serious breach of Pakistan’s sovereignty but was also an egregious violation of international law and the spirit of bilateral relations between Pakistan and Iran.”

This story originated in VOA’s Deewa Service.

 
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Islamabad — Pakistan announced Wednesday it was recalling its ambassador to Iran and suspending all bilateral engagements with the country to protest an overnight “unprovoked” deadly cross-border airstrike by Iranian security forces.

The unprecedented move by Islamabad came after Tehran claimed “missile and drone strikes” by the paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Tuesday night destroyed alleged bases of an anti-Iran militant group, Jaish al-Adl or the Army of Justice, in the Pakistani border province of Baluchistan.

“Pakistan reserves the right to respond to this illegal act. The responsibility for the consequences will lie squarely with Iran,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch warned in a nationally televised statement Wednesday.

She said the bombings killed two “innocent children” and injured several other Pakistani civilians. Baloch added that Islamabad had conveyed to the government in Tehran that the strikes were a “blatant breach” of Pakistan’s sovereignty and a violation of international law.

“We have also informed them that Pakistan has decided to recall its ambassador from Iran and that the Iranian ambassador to Pakistan who is currently visiting Iran may not return for the time being,” Baloch said. She added that Islamabad had also suspended “all high-level visits which were ongoing or were planned between Pakistan and Iran in the coming days.”

Iranian Foreign Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, while speaking Wednesday on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, defended the overnight attack.

“None of the nationals of the friendly and brotherly country of Pakistan were targeted by Iranian missiles and drones,” he claimed. They hit “Iranian terrorists on the soil of Pakistan,” Amir-Abdollahian added.

The cross-border raid came after Tehran also struck targets in Iraq and Syria against what it called “anti-Iranian terrorist groups.”

The attack against suspected terrorist targets in Pakistan came hours after Pakistani caretaker prime minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar met with Amir-Abdollahian on the sidelines of the forum in Davos.

The strikes also occurred as Iranian and Pakistani navies were conducting a joint naval training exercise on Tuesday in the Strait of Hormuz and the northern tip of the Persian Gulf to enhance cooperation and forge stronger relations, according to officials in both countries.

Pakistani opposition and hardline groups criticized what they called a muted response by Islamabad to the aggression by Tehran, demanding a military response to it. Others, such as veteran Senator Mushahid Hussain, stressed the need for nuclear-armed Pakistan to show restraint.

“Pakistan’s response is both mature and measured, which is what the situation demands,” said Hussain, who heads the defense affairs committee of the upper house of parliament. “However, the Iranian government must rein in its trigger-happy ‘Deep State,’ the Revolutionary Guards, whose actions are destabilizing the region and damaging Pakistan-Iran relations,” he said.

China urged both countries Wednesday to exercise restraint and stressed that all countries’ sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity should be respected.

“Iran and Pakistan are close neighbors and major Islamic countries. We call on the two sides to exercise restraint, avoid actions that escalate the tension, and jointly keep the region peaceful and stable,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a news conference in Beijing.

Iran and Pakistan share a roughly 900-kilometer-long border, separating the turbulent southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province and Pakistan’s insurgency-hit Baluchistan.

Islamabad and Tehran routinely accuse each other of not doing enough to prevent anti-state armed groups from sheltering on their respective territories and plotting cross-border terrorist attacks against security forces on both sides.

Iran has long pressed Pakistan to crack down on alleged Jaish al-Adl bases in Baluchistan. The militant group from the Iranian Sunni Muslim minority claims to be fighting for greater rights for the community in the predominately Shiite Muslim country.

Last month, a Jaish al-Adl claimed responsibility for killing around a dozen Iranian police forces in a raid near the Pakistani border, prompting Tehran to demand Islamabad move against the group’s hideouts.

The Iranian foreign minister said Wednesday that the previous day’s attack inside Pakistan was a response to the December raid by Jaish al-Adl on the police forces in the Iranian city of Rask in Sistan-Baluchistan.

Amir-Abdollahian said Iran respected the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Pakistan but would not “allow the country’s national security to be compromised or played with.”

For its part, Islamabad alleges that anti-Pakistan ethnic Baluch insurgent groups have established bases on the Iranian side of the border and direct deadly attacks on Pakistani security forces as well as civilians in impoverished, natural resources-rich Baluchistan.
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Although India’s economy is growing at a fast rate, it is still not creating enough employment for its massive young population. The government is wooing global manufacturers to generate more jobs, but opportunities are not keeping pace with demand. As Anjana Pasricha reports from New Delhi, the challenge of finding good jobs is greatest for young college graduates. VOA footage by Darshan Singh.
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NEW DELHI — Indian and Chinese soldiers clashed at least two times in 2022 along their Himalayan frontier where they have been involved in a bitter standoff since 2020, according to new details that have emerged from the Indian Army’s gallantry award citations.

The incidents involved hand-to-hand combat and came as New Delhi and Beijing held a series of diplomatic and military talks to resolve their worst military conflict in decades.

No deaths were reported in these incidents. At least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese troops were killed in clashes in the area two years previously, in mid-2020.

These skirmishes in India’s Ladakh region, the last of which is now known to have happened in November 2022, show that the tensions along the undemarcated border continued much longer than previously reported.

The Indian and Chinese armies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Details of the new clashes emerged after the Indian Army awarded gallantry medals to some of its soldiers, who it said challenged Chinese troops trying to enter Indian territory in at least two incidents in 2022.

In the first incident in January 2022, according to a citation, “several soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army attacked” an Indian Army post in the eastern Ladakh region.

During physical jostling, an Indian soldier wounded at least four Chinese troops and snatched their rifles, “forcing them to go back,” it said.

In the second incident in November 2022, Indian troops pushed back “a group of 40 to 50 soldiers” trying to enter Indian territory. A unit of Indian soldiers attacked and injured them, “thus foiling the enemy’s plan to capture the post,” another citation said.

The citations also said army units of the two countries were involved in a two-day standoff in an unspecified area in 2022.

The military and diplomatic discussions between the nuclear-armed neighbors to resolve the standoff that began in mid-2020 have not resulted in a final resolution yet.

The India-China border dispute dates to the 1950s and the two sides fought a brief but bloody war over it in 1962.
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New Delhi — After working for a year in a private company, Rahul Singh quit and began preparing for India’s civil services entrance examination hoping to qualify for a government job. For nearly two years, the 26-year-old technology graduate, who has joined a tutoring center in the Indian capital, New Delhi, has been studying 12 hours a day hoping to pass the fiercely competitive exam.

“I want job security. A government job makes one feel secure,” Singh said. “If I get one, my whole life will be on track, not just mine but also that of my family.”

Singh is not alone. In the world’s most populous country, tens of thousands of graduates and postgraduates, many with professional degrees, such as engineering, spend years studying at the tutoring centers that have mushroomed in Indian cities, hoping to qualify for a highly sought-after government job. The chances are slim. Less than one-half of 1% of the more than 1 million who take the exam each year pass.

But they are driven by the fear of not landing a well-paying job.

Like Akash Bhardwaj, 25, who was dissatisfied with the $200 a month salary he earned as an accountant in a private company after graduating with a commerce degree. He left that job to try for a government one that he believes will offer both a better salary and job security.

“In the private sector, I would not have got a good package,” Bhardwaj said. He has spent three years trying to pass the civil services examination.

Nearly half of India’s 1.4 billion people are younger than 25, making India’s youth population the world’s largest. Many young people like Bhardwaj and Singh come from rural backgrounds. They get college degrees, hoping to move out of their villages and find a place in the modern economy as their aspirations rise.

India’s economy is growing briskly, about 7% a year, the fastest rate among the world’s major economies. But job opportunities are still too few and the competition too severe – only those graduating from well-known colleges land good jobs.

The unemployment rate for college graduates was 13.4% in 2022-23, according to government data. That is far higher than the overall unemployment rate in the country of 3.2%, according to official estimates.

Economists point out that India’s organized sector, meaning the businesses that are registered with the government, accounts for 8% of the country’s total workforce, with most people finding livelihoods in its vast informal sector.

The government is trying to speed up job generation by wooing global companies hoping to turn India into a manufacturing hub by taking advantage of rising tensions between China and Western countries. Companies such as Apple have increased production in the country.

But job opportunities are not keeping pace with the enormous demand: India needs to create 70 million jobs over the next decade, according to an estimate by global research firm HSBC.

“Now the organized sector is highly mechanized and automated and increasingly using artificial intelligence,” according to Arun Kumar, a former economics professor with New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University. “So, they are actually shedding jobs rather than creating jobs. That is why it is sometimes called jobless growth.”

As India heads into national elections, the dearth of jobs is coming under the spotlight.

Activist Praveen Kashi, who struggled to get a well-paid job when he graduated, has launched a campaign, “One vote, one job.” He says what voters need is jobs, not the welfare measures political parties often use to woo voters.

“We don’t want guarantees for free water, electricity or rations. If we have work, we can buy our food and pay our bills. We want to earn,” Kashi said.

India’s huge young population is seen as a demographic opportunity that will fuel an economy that Prime Minister Narendra Modi says will become the world’s third largest in five years. But experts say India may already be losing out on that potential.

“We need to make the youth very productive, give them good quality education so that they can generate jobs, do creative things,” said Kumar the economist. “Without that, this demographic dividend we can get because of the large youth population will turn into a disaster.”

That is what the young people studying at the Dhyeya coaching institute in New Delhi want to avoid. Most of them say they study for nearly 12 hours a day hoping to make the cut.

“Whatever time it takes, I only want a government job whether it takes one, two or three more years,” said a determined Bhardwaj.

Holding on to that aspiration is not easy. Their families spend thousands of dollars to support them while they study at tuition centers in the big cities.

The pressure on the young people is enormous.

Deepa Panwar, 28, first tried for a career in the armed forces. When that did not pan out, she began preparing for the civil services examination.

“Even if I take one or two days off, I find I have been left behind and struggle to catch up. And when we take exams, despite getting good scores, we don’t qualify. The cut-off keeps rising.”

Creating jobs will be India’s biggest challenge as its working age population hits a billion over the next decade, experts say.

 
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