The Emirates claims responsibility for the attack in Ahvaz

On 22 September, an attack during a military parade killed 24 people and wounded 60 others, in Ahvaz (Iran).

Ahvaz is the capital of the Iranian Arab region of Khuzestan. On 22 September 1980, the Iraqi President Saddam Hussein tried to annex this population to Iraq. This unleashed a war between Iran and Iraq. At the time, the overwhelming majority of Iranian Arabs opposed the foreign Iraqi invasion. The military procession on September 22 2018 marked the anniversary of this terrible war, funded by the West against the Khomeini Revolution.

Various groups are regularly organizing protests and attacks in Khuzestan:
• the Party of Democratic Solidarity of Ahvaz (supported by the US CIA and the British MI6), is trying to link up different non-Persian minorities in Iran.
• the Party for Liberation of Ahvaz (supported by those who supported the long deceased Saddam Hussein).

Responsibility for this week’s attack was claimed by two groups: the Popular Democratic Front of the Arabs of Ahvaz (which allegedly groups different pro-Iraqi organizations) and by Daesh (which published a video of the kamikaze before the action).

Let us recall that the Hussein regime in Iraq abandoned the state following a secular path by its programme “Return to Faith”. Following the toppling of Saddam Hussein and the US invasion, members of the Iraqi Baath Party were banished from national politics and the national army was dissolved, while Iraq was governed by the Shiites linked to Iran. As the former Vice President, Ezzat Ibrahim Al-Douri the Grand Master of the Nachqbandis Order (a Sufi brotherhood) formed an alliance with the CIA and MI6 to integrate its men into Daesh and to obtain its revenge against the Shiites. This explains how both claims of responsibility led, by different paths, to Washington and London. This is why the Iranian Republic of Iran immediately accused the Westerners and the Gulf States, that sponsor of terrorism, of being responsible for the attack.

However, Professor Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, one of the advisers to the Crown Prince of the United Arab Emirates, declared that his country has succeeded in bringing war to the territory of Iran, claiming, thus, publicly a role in the attack. This type of declaration is not very surprising in the Middle East. In 2015, the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, had publicly congratulated the attacks that had been sponsored in Europe.

The United Arab Emirates position on Iran changed all of a sudden. This was not due to the war in Yemen (where they were fighting against the Hutis supported by Iran) but by the rupture of the Iran deal (JCPoA). Over the last two decades, the Emirates has increased its wealth through measures that the Islamic Republic had to adopt to buffer the US sanctions applied on Iran. The port of Dubai, became the centre of this traffic.

With this change, the two countries became enemies and the bilateral dispute over the possession of an islet situated in the Arab-Persian Gulf was reopened.

The Iranian President, Sheikh Hassan Rohani, promised the Emirates a terrible response, forcing the Emirates Minister of Foreign Affairs, Anwar Gargash, to back off and to deny the prior declarations of the adviser to the Crown Prince.