EMPIRE OF THE MULLAHS: Iran’s imperial project in the Shatt al-Arab
British patrol on Shatt Al-Arab waterway
The seizure of 15 British Sailors and Marines by Iran was not an isolated incident, but part of a long-running Iranian program to control the Shatt al-Arab. The Narrows: A waterway beset by ethnic cleansing.
- Native Arab population of up to 500,000 "relocated."
- Resistance jailed, forced to confess, and executed.
- Most politically sensitive area in the Middle East.
- Controls oil shipments and trade routes
- Iranian zone is the launch point for Iranian covert operations in Iraq.
- Iran now controlling up to 40,000 agents in Iraq.
HMS Cornwall: The ship that stood silent. Armament: 114mm (4.5 inch) MK 8 gun Goalkeeper close-in weapons system (CIWS) Sea Wolf anti-missile system 2 x Quad Harpoon missile launchers 2 x 20mm Close range guns NATO Seagnat Decoy Launchers
Iran’s capture of 15 British navy personnel at gunpoint on the Shatt al-Arab, purportedly in Iraqi waters, is inextricably linked to the regime’s long-term ambition to impose its territorial control over the strategic waterway and hold Baghdad hostage to Iran’s interests.
The Iranian left bank of the Shatt al-Arab is undergoing a large-scale militarisation program conducted under the auspices of the Arvand Free Zone Organisation (AFZO), a state-run group that aims to extend the Iranian regime’s economic, political and military influence over the Shatt al-Arab and ultimately Iraq. The AFZO’s plans for the military-industrial zone were outlined in a letter issued to indigenous Ahwazi Arab residents living within the zone. This letter informed them that their land would be confiscated by the state. The confiscation program is nothing short of ethnic cleansing for the sake of Iran’s neo-imperialism.
Arab Shia tribes have populated regions on both sides of the Shatt al-Arab for centuries if not millennia. The leaders of the Bani Kaab tribe owned land on both banks of the waterway – most of it in Persia – giving them considerable influence and political autonomy. Any foreign power wishing to gain influence over trade along the Shatt al-Arab had to deal with the Bani Kaab leadership, which controlled the Sheikhdom of Mohammara under British protection.
The Ottomans confiscated assets belonging to the Bani Kaab and Reza Pahlavi deposed Sheikh Kazal, the de facto ruler of the oil-rich Arabistan region, following his military coup in 1925. Arabistan was renamed Khuzestan and Mohammara was renamed Khorramshahr. The area came to prominence in 1980, when Iraq invaded Khuzestan ostensibly to “liberate” the Ahwazi Arabs, although Saddam was no doubt taking advantage of Iran’s post-revolutionary turmoil to seize the region’s massive oilfields. The narrowness of the Shatt Al-Arab waterway also enabled Iran and Iraq to stage large-scale amphibious assaults during the war. In February 1986, 30,000 Iranian troops crossed the Shatt Al-Arab in a surprise attack to invade and occupy Iraq’s Al-Faw peninsula and create a bridgehead for further advances into Iraq.
The Marsh Arabs of Iraq’s Basra province suffered ethnic cleansing and repression under Saddam’s regime while in Iran the Ahwazi Arabs have endured violent persecution under the Pahlavi dynasty and the Islamic Republic. On both sides of the waterway, the governments of Iran and Iraq have viewed the indigenous population as disloyal and a threat to their territorial claims. They were perceived as a threat by Saddam because they are predominantly Shia, while the Iranian regime sees them as having innate pan-Arab sympathies. Ethnic cleansing has been used by both countries as a method of securing control and territorial claims over the Shatt al-Arab.
Ali Afrawi, 17, executed in Khuzestan by Iran for “waging war on God.”
The AFZ is the latest development in the Iranian regime’s campaign to rid the left bank of Ahwazi Arabs and impose its complete control over the Shatt al-Arab. The latest seizure of British personnel is a symptom of this quiet militarisation programme. Land acquisition and ethnic cleansing are intimately bound up with militarisation.
Over recent years, the Iranian regime has confiscated large tracts of land from local Arabs and transferred ownership to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and state-owned enterprises. Around 47,000 hectares of Ahwazi Arab farmland in the Jofir area near the Ahwazi city of Abadan has been transferred members of the security forces and government enterprises. More than 6,000 hectares of Ahwazi farmland north of Shush (Susa) has been taken to “resettle” the faithful non-indigenous Persians, following directives issued by the Ministry of Agricultures and the Revolutionary Guards Corp Command. These policies have forced Ahwazi Arabs into poor shanty towns.
The AFZ is located along the narrowest and most strategically sensitive part of the Shatt al-Arab and includes a large number of Revolutionary Guards naval posts, which are used to patrol the waterway and protect Iranian arms smugglers entering Iraq. It stretches 30km from Abadan along the Shatt Al-Arab to the land border between Basra and Khuzestan. The zone is in three segments: an island and adjacent land measuring 30 square km, a strip of land north of Khorramshahr measuring 25 square km and an in-land eastern segment measuring around 100 square km in area. The total land area of the Arvand Free Zone is around 155 square km and includes Arab towns and villages. At certain points, the zone is literally within a stone’s throw of Basra.
The Shatt al-Arab is the most politically sensitive area of the Middle East. Whoever controls the waterway controls movements from Iraq to the Gulf, including oil shipments, as well as serving as an important trade route for the entire west of Iran. Control over the disputed waterway led to wars between the Persian and Ottoman empires in the 17th and 19th centuries and more recently Iraq and Iran.
The AFZ has seen the mass expulsion of Arabs, the destruction of their villages and the creation of an exclusive military-industrial zone. The expulsion campaign began with the Arab farmers located on Minoo Island, near Abadan. The islanders were bullied by AFZO officials into giving up their land before the official deadline, indicating an increasing sense of urgency associated with establishing the zone. In all, up to 500,000 indigenous Ahwazi Arabs are being displaced by the creation of a 5,000 square km security zone, of which the AFZ is just a part, along the Shatt al-Arab.
The zone’s security element has strengthened covert operations inside Iraq, with the objective of securing an early exit of Coalition troops, influencing Iraq’s political system and using patronage to control local authorities in Basra. The zone is also being used to train, fund and organise militias loyal to Tehran. Mahdi Army leader Moqtada al-Sadr and several Iranian-backed politicians belonging to the ruling United Iraqi Alliance have recently visited the area.
Documents from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps’ (IRGC) Fajr Garrison in Khuzestan, which serves as the organisation’s main headquarters for southern Iran, show that Tehran is employing up to 40,000 agents in Iraq. The information was first revealed in March 2005 by former Iranian agents who defected due to pay cuts and subsequently confirmed by Coalition troops in Iraq. Fajr Garrison hosts the IRGC’s Qods Force, which runs the vast underground network in Iraq. Agents are paid by middle-men, who carry out regular visits to Ahwaz City to obtain payments and be debriefed by Qods commanders.
The regime’s activities in Khuzestan and the left bank of the Shatt al-Arab are related to the rise of militias in Basra and the British government’s discovery that weapons used by insurgents were likely to have originated from the IRGC via the Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah. It is no coincidence that attacks on British troops, a sudden upsurge in militia activity in Basra province and the seizing of British naval personnel on the Shatt al-Arab have occurred at the same time as Ahwazi Arabs are being removed from the area to make way for the AFZ. Greater international attention to the plight of the Ahwazi Arabs would hinder the pace of militarisation along the Shatt al-Arab and stymie Iranian efforts to control Iraq.
I just wished you’d not quote a non-iranian separatist movement.
I’d like to see the captain/admiral of the Cornwall dishonorably discharged. But I wonder if he was just following some effed up rules of engagement.
Why does the world cry about the Palestinian Arabs, and yet not a word is ever heard about the brutalization of the Marsh Arabs of Iraq or the Ahwazi Arabs of Iran? Is it because those particular atrocities don’t involve the Jews?
Though these events are in fact happening and the news must get out, this group: The British Ahwazi Friendship Society is nothing more than a group that supports the efforts of a small and extremely reckless separatist group. They have made a lot of trouble for the innocent people of the province of Khuzestan and have been the cause for a lot more trouble for the Khuzestanis than they deserve. I am shocked and saddened to see that Pajamas Media would actually post their material and promote them as if they were a legitimate group.
It is interesting that some here refuse to deal with the issues raised by this article and instead want to shoot the messenger. This is typical of the regime’s supporters and/or those who hold racist feelings against non-Persian groups in Iran. As for the group I chair, we state quite clearly that we do not support separatism and that we believe in non-violence. Unsubstantiated accusations that we are a “group that supports the efforts of a small and extremely reckless separatist group” are little more than baseless libel that helps serve only the tyrannical regime in Tehran.
Dave,
In the world of satellite comms and the commander’s ability to “reach out and touch someone”, you can bet a paycheck that the CO of the CORNWALL was on the phone getting permission to take the Iranians out, but was denied. You can also bet that, based upon our (as you so eloquently put it) “effed up rules of engagement”, the Iranians knew precisely that would happen. Unless and until we give the commanders on the ground the leeway and room to do their job based upon their judgement and the standing ROE, this will continue to happen – because politicians see war as political, not as a matter of Sailors or Marines’ lives. We give these Captains a multi-billion dollar warship and tell them to employ it to the utmost of their personal and professional skills, but second-guess them and preempt them at every turn. Oversight is good, don’t get me wrong, but micromanagement drives an organization to ineffectiveness.
What a terrific teaching moment.
The Middle East is like one of our multiplex theaters and it looks like a new movie has just opened for public viewing in a brand new theater.
If that’s the case, how about a map with some labels so we can continue to grasp the geography and actors here? It sounds a little like the the Spartans plan to hold out against the Persians in the narrow pass in “300.”
So keep us informed of breaking news as well as bring us up to speed. There are many terms there and in the comments I’ve never heard before.And thanks.
It’s the effed up ROE.
BBC asks: What are the rules of engagement in this type of situation?
Admiral Sir Alan West answers: The rules are very much de-escalatory, because we don’t want wars starting. The reason we are there is to be a force for good, to make the whole area safe, to look after the Iraqi big oil platforms and also to stop smuggling and terrorism there.
So we try to downplay things. Rather then roaring into action and sinking everything in sight we try to step back and that, of course, is why our chaps were effectively able to be captured and taken away.
More at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6491581.stm
“Is it because those particular atrocities don’t involve the Jews?” from poster above…
Or is it because Arabs don’t really give a hoot about other Arabs, (as we see clearly across the Arab world with all its endless tribal hatred and strife and murder) but will happily use any plight of any Muslim as a pretext to conduct ther Jihad of hatred against all infidels, be they Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, or secular…
It’s a all a pretext. Nearly all Arab and nearly all Muslim grievances are manufactured pretexts.
The entire “Palestinian” lie is a pretext to discredit Israel, and to reclaim Islam’s heinous hegemony over the region. History shows us that the reversals of the primitive eating machine known as Islam are few — Spain and Israel represent a few very successful expulsions of Muslims and Islam from former hegemony.
Islam is a war doctrine. It’s also a terror doctrine to soften opposition, and enforce its vice-like grip on those captured populations which it claims. It spreads by the sword — and lives by the sword. It also must be killed by the sword. There will be no moderation of Islam to suit the Westerners. There will be no moderation of Islam to suit the Buddhist Thais. There will be no moderate Islam to suit the Russians, or the Christians of Africa, or the secularists of Europe and Canada.
How did the Cornwall sit by watching as this kidnapping occurred? What kind of rules of engagement were in effect? Didn’t Brit intelligence think that a hostage-grab might be in the works?
Whatever happened to the country that stood up to Hitler when the surrender-monkeys turned tail? Are the Brits the new French?
Since the beginning of the 20th century the British government wants to control the “Shatt Al-Arab” . So I don’t wonder when an Iranian government , islamic or not, wants to show that they are as much entitled to control that area as British forces are. Its is still about oil and nothing else. So many books are written about the role of the Brits in the Gulf area but nobody seems to learn from them.
(As far as I could learn the Iraqi commander of the area confirmed the British marines were in Iranian waters)
Mr. Brett
Are you a citizen of Iran?
The organization cited in this report is a known seperatist organization who is willing to do and/or say anything to achieve it’s goals.
Now there is no doubt that the minority of Arabs in the south of Iran are mis-treated just like the entire Iranian population who live in a prison of 70 million people. This however does not justify PM to legitimize these seperatist organizations.
Muslims know full well that leftists and marxists in the West will believe the version of any story which fits their Marxist ideology, and a poster above conveniently signals his leftist orientation before proceeding… Thanks, pimberg!
After reducing the activities in the Straight down to a Marxist argument over controlling the oil, and whitewashing the role of Islam in the motivations of the religious Islamic priests who run Iran, he tells us this :
“As far as I could learn the Iraqi commander of the area confirmed the British marines were in Iranian waters”
That’s only if you read and believe the questionable assertions of a Muslim enemy who is apologizing for another Muslim enemy…
Here are some questions for poster “pimberg”:
Why credit an “Iraqi commander” and completely ignore the repeated assertions of our allies the British who maintain they were well within Iraqi territorial waters?
Why dismiss the FACT that had this actually been an incursion of the type described by the Iranians, that the normal way most law abiding nations deal with such incidents is to escort the offending vessels and personell out of the area rather than taking them hostage and parading them on television?
What are you, some kind of new age Walter Duranty?
How do you explain carrying water for fascist Muslims in Iran who have brazenly attacked and kidnapped Western soldiers, soldiers who are part of our closest allies military?
Muslims are fully aware that the pathetic Western-loathing leftists in our society will distort stories and adhere to the Islamic grievance theatre which has become part and parcel of the Islamic Jihad against the West.
Wake up, you pathetic fool. Muslim fascists hate radical secular communists as fervently as they do any other type of “infidel”. You’re not immune simply because you parrot their heinous propaganda, or because your willing to whitewash Islamic fascism out of hand without the slightest clue!
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