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'Jaish-ul-Adl' Publishes Images of Abducted Iranian Soldiers

Jaish-ul-Adl carried out a spate of attacks on Iranian security forces in recent years. (File Photo: AFP)
Jaish-ul-Adl carried out a spate of attacks on Iranian security forces in recent years. (File Photo: AFP)
    Tehran, Dubai – Asharq al-Awsat
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'Jaish-ul-Adl' Publishes Images of Abducted Iranian Soldiers

Jaish-ul-Adl carried out a spate of attacks on Iranian security forces in recent years. (File Photo: AFP)
Jaish-ul-Adl carried out a spate of attacks on Iranian security forces in recent years. (File Photo: AFP)

A militant group claimed responsibility for the abduction of 12 Iranian security personnel and soldiers southeast the border with Pakistan, Iran’s semi-official news agency ISNA reported Monday.

"The terrorist group Jaish-ul-Adl has posted two photos... claiming that those in it are the forces abducted" on October 16, AFP reported. The photo shows seven members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and 15 security personnel in their military garb.

Jaish-ul-Adl, formed in 2012, is a successor to the extremist group Jundallah which led the bloody rebellion between 2005 and 2010.

Poor Sistan-Baluchestan province, bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan, where a majority of Sunnis are ethnic Baluchis, has been battling clashes between regime forces and Baloch separatists or militant groups, according to AFP. The Sunni Baloch minority accounts for about 2 percent of Iran's population.

The photos also show a haul of automatic weapons and sniper rifles, rocket launchers, machine-guns, grenades and ammunition, apparently seized from the Iranian forces.

IRGC Ground Force Commander, Brigadier General Mohammad Pakpour, left for Pakistan on Monday to pursue the case of the kidnapped Iranians, according to an IRGC statement.

Meanwhile, Iranian Oil Ministry quoted Minister Bijan Zanganeh as saying that Iranian oil output cannot be replaced by other oil-producing countries if Tehran is hit by US sanctions in November, Reuters published in a report from Dubai.

“As I have repeatedly said there is no replacement for Iranian oil in the market,” said Zanganeh.

In May, US President Donald Trump pulled out of an international nuclear deal with Iran and announced sanctions against OPEC’s third-largest producer. Washington is pushing allies to cut imports of Iranian oil to zero and will reimpose sanctions on Iranian oil and financial sectors in November.

In June, OPEC agreed to boost supply to make up for the expected disruption to Iranian exports. But Iran has repeatedly said that its oil exports cannot be reduced to zero because of high demand levels in the market.

“The market’s knowledge of this inability has raised the prices as the average price (of crude) ... Rising oil prices have slowed down the economic growth of most of the consumer countries, which is affecting the global economy,” Oil Minister noted.

Zanganeh advised Trump “to forgo imposition of sanctions on Iran’s oil exports”, saying that the non-OPEC producers of oil were also unable “to offset disruptions in the market”.

US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, in an interview with Reuters on Sunday, dismissed concerns that oil prices could rise, saying the market had already factored in the losses.

Iran warned that if it cannot sell its oil due to US pressure, then no other regional country will be allowed to do so either, threatening to block the Strait of Hormuz, as referred by Reuters.

Under the 2015 nuclear deal, most international sanctions against Tehran were lifted in 2016 in exchange for Iran curbing its nuclear program.

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Japan, China Trade Barbs over Fighter Jet Maneuvers

China and Japan traded barbs after a Chinese J-15 fighter jet followed a Japanese patrol plane at the weekend. Handout / Japan's Ministry of Defense/AFP
China and Japan traded barbs after a Chinese J-15 fighter jet followed a Japanese patrol plane at the weekend. Handout / Japan's Ministry of Defense/AFP
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Japan, China Trade Barbs over Fighter Jet Maneuvers

China and Japan traded barbs after a Chinese J-15 fighter jet followed a Japanese patrol plane at the weekend. Handout / Japan's Ministry of Defense/AFP
China and Japan traded barbs after a Chinese J-15 fighter jet followed a Japanese patrol plane at the weekend. Handout / Japan's Ministry of Defense/AFP

Beijing condemned on Thursday what it called "dangerous behavior" by a Japanese military plane over the Pacific after Tokyo said Chinese fighter jets flew unusually close to its aircraft at the weekend.

The Japanese government had complained to China over the incident, in which no Japanese military personnel were reported injured.

A Chinese J-15 fighter jet from the Shandong aircraft carrier followed a Japanese P-3C patrol plane for 40 minutes on Saturday, according to the Japanese defense ministry.

Two J-15 jets then did the same for 80 minutes on Sunday.

"During these long periods, the jets flew unusually close to the P-3C, and they flew within 45 meters" of the patrol plane on both days, an official from the Japanese ministry told AFP.

Also on Sunday, Chinese jets cut across airspace around 900 meters (3,000 feet) ahead of a P-3C Japanese patrol plane at the same altitude -- a distance a P-3C can reach within a few seconds at cruising speed, Tokyo said.

"We do not believe that this approach was made by mistake," the Japanese military's chief of staff Yoshihide Yoshida told reporters on Thursday.

"Given it happened for 40 minutes and 80 minutes, for two days in a row, our understanding is that it was done on purpose," he said.

Beijing's foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian hit back at the Japanese description of the events.

"The root cause of the risk to maritime and air security was the close reconnaissance of China's normal military activities by a Japanese warplane," he said.

"The Chinese side urges the Japanese side to stop this kind of dangerous behavior."

'Abnormal approaches'

The incident followed the sighting in recent days of two Chinese aircraft carriers sailing in the Pacific simultaneously for the first time.

Japan said this week the aircraft carriers' activity -- described by China as "routine training" -- showed the expanding geographic scope of Beijing's military.

Yoshida said on Thursday loosening Japan's surveillance, information-gathering or countermeasures against intrusion "would encourage attempts to change the status quo by force".

Tokyo's top government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi earlier told reporters in regard to the fighter jet incident that "such abnormal approaches can lead to an accidental collision, so we have expressed serious concerns" to the Chinese side.

US ambassador to Japan George Glass said on social media platform X that the maneuvers by a Chinese fighter "put Japanese crewmembers' lives in peril".

"Whether it's harassing Philippine ships, attacking Vietnamese fishermen, or firing flares at Australian aircraft, Beijing knows only reckless aggression. Not so much a charm offensive as offensive harm," Glass said.

Similar incidents were last reported in May and June 2014, when Chinese Su-27 fighter jets flew within 30 meters (100 feet) of Japanese military planes in the East China Sea.

Japan summoned the Chinese ambassador at the time, while the two sides traded accusations of blame.

Daisuke Kawai, director of the University of Tokyo's economic security and policy innovation program, told AFP this week that the timing of the aircraft carrier movements could be linked to US-China economic tensions.

"Beijing calculated that the United States would be less willing or able to respond militarily at this precise moment, seeing it as an opportune time to demonstrate its expanding military capabilities," he said.