Iran Repeats Threats Against Taliban Over Water
Iran’s energy minister says Tehran will not compromise the rights of the nation regarding its water share from the Hirmand River as it battles with the Taliban.
Iran’s energy minister says Tehran will not compromise the rights of the nation regarding its water share from the Hirmand River as it battles with the Taliban.
As the Taliban continues to ignore the threats by the regime and its military authorities regarding Iran's water share, Energy Minister Ali Akbar Mehrabian once more upped the ante against the militant group on Saturday.
"Despite the fact that our water share has not been given, we are taking necessary measures to supply water to the people," he threatened.
Flowing 700 miles, the river - which is called Helmand on the Afghan side - enters Iran's Hamoun wetlands in the Sistan-Baluchestan province after originating in the Hindu Kush Mountains near Kabul. Lake Hamoun used to be one of the world's largest wetlands, straddling 4,000 square kilometres between Iran and Afghanistan.
The river, which both Afghanistan and Iran depend on for agriculture and drinking water, has been the biggest source of tension for years.
Over the years, Iran has accused Afghanistan of restricting the flow of water from the river by building dams over it, a charge that Afghan authorities deny.
This comes as in the past few days, numerous reports have been published about water shortages in different regions of Iran, especially the Sistan and Baluchestan province.
Alireza Ghasemi, the CEO of Sistan and Baluchestan Province Water and Sewerage Company, told IRNA state news agency that the province is facing a water shortage of about 65 million cubic meters per year and all the cities of the province are suffering from water scarcity.
Iran's share from Helmand is 12 times the figure, which the Taliban refuses to give despite threats by Iran.
“The state media claims that some of the teachers and students of Zahedan Dar ol-Olum [also known as Maki Seminary] have forged their identity documents is absolutely false,” Abdolhamid’s office said in a statement published on his official website Thursday, following a recent mass expulsion.
The state-run television (IRIB) reported Wednesday that authorities arrested 132 preachers who were “foreign nationals” and aired brief interviews with three Afghan men, presumably from among the preachers sent back home, who said they had forged identity documents and entered Iran illegally.
The statement from the Sunni cleric came a day after the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) linked Tasnim news agency claimed that fifty percent of the students and some of the teachers of Maki Seminary are “foreign nationals” who are illegally residing in the southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan Province.
The expulsion of seminary students was part of government pressure tactics against Abdolhamid who has been a consistent critic of the Shiite clerical regime since 90 protesters were gunned down by security forces in Zahedan on September 30, 2022.
Abdolhamid’s office said the Afghans sent back to Afghanistan were forced to make false statements about forging identity documents and illegal residence in Iran, threatening to reveal details of security forces’ intimidation.
In an attempt to conceal the mass expulsion, Tasnim claimed that a considerable number of seminary teachers and directors with illegal identity documents and forged identities were spared harsh prison sentences and instead sent back to their home country, attributing the reprieve to “Islamic compassion”.
The outspoken, moderate cleric who has become the unofficial voice of the country’s Sunni population - which is roughly 10 percent of the 88 million population - has come under constant pressure from the authorities recently to stop his fiery Friday sermons.
Abdolhamid has criticized the government for funding and controlling religious seminaries and taking away their independence. Iran's government annually allocates hundreds of millions of dollars to Shia religious seminaries and other religious institutions that play the role of its propaganda arm.
Abdolhamid’s call for a referendum with the presence of international observers to decide the future form of government in Iran has massively angered hardliners. He has expressed more liberal views about the role of women in the society after being criticized by some Baluchi activists for not mentioning women and acknowledging equality of men and women in his controversial Friday prayer sermons.
Iranian authorities often refer to citizens of Afghanistan, millions of whom live in Iran as refugees or economic migrants, as “foreign nationals”.
In April 2022, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said one million more Afghans had entered Iran since the Taliban took power in August the previous year, bringing the number of refugees and economic migrant to five million.
According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), only 780,000 of Afghans residing in Iran are recognized as refugees. Most other Afghans are considered economic migrants who have been an important workforce in Iran.
“We will fight robustly against those who take up arms against us. We will quash those who make the country unsafe, but we must rescue those who need help and are walking into fire,” he said on the sidelines of a meeting with local military and civil officials on Thursday.
The IRGC commander's warning served as a reminder that trouble can break out, as the people in the extremely hot region could engage in protests as they did in July 2021.
He also referred to the oil-rich Khuzestan Province as a place "where all the plans of the enemies come together." Salami enumerated these as "separatism, division among people, transformation of people into what the enemy seeks, and sanctions," adding that the enemy should not be allowed to make any moves in the province.
“We must assist the youth and save our children from the fire of the enemy,” he said, adding that the IRGC must "protect" everyone, whether they are revolutionary and religious or not, "against the massive plots of the enemy" and "save the youth from the claws and cultural war of the enemy."
“Salami has basically repeated his usual threats, with promises of saving those who he says have been unwillingly corrupted by the enemy. But making these statements in Khuzestan now and emphasizing that 'war has not finished in Khuzestan,' although it refers to the Iran-Iraq War three decades ago, is noteworthy,” said an Iranian political analyst who requested anonymity, speaking to Iran International.
“Nothing has been done about the water shortage, just the same as in other parts of the country. Moreover, in the past two years, people have become even poorer because of the policies of President Ebrahim Raisi, who had promised to improve their lives in a short time. So fresh protests could happen anytime again,” he added.
In the past few days, there has been a drinking water outage in some neighborhoods of Ahvaz, the capital of the province, and some other areas in the province.
Thousands protested over water shortages in Khuzestan two years ago in July. Thousands of others joined the protests in other provinces, including neighboring Chahar Mahal va Bakhtiari, Esfahan, Lorestan, and Bushehr. Even as far as the city of Tabriz, the capital of East Azarbaijan Province, people took to the streets in support of Khuzestani protesters.
Regime security forces cracked down heavily on the protests, which soon turned into anti-government unrest and lasted for nearly two weeks. Hundreds were arrested, and at least ten protesters were killed by security forces in various cities in Khuzestan and neighboring provinces.
Numerous dams built on the major rivers of the fertile plains of Khuzestan, and the transfer of water to other areas, including Esfahan Province, to support water-intensive industries such as steel, have been blamed for the water shortage in the province.
At the time, officials admitted that at least 700 villages in the province were affected by water shortage, and water had to be supplied regularly by tanker trucks.
Water issues have been at the center of President Ebrahim Raisi's visits in recent months to Sistan-Baluchestan, Kerman, and Khuzestan provinces, where water shortages have impacted many towns and villages. In these areas, summer temperatures sometimes exceed 50°C, and both drinking water and water for agriculture are very scarce in many areas.
Khuzestan has a population of around 5 million and is the second richest province in terms of GDP after Tehran province. Some of the most important battles in the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88) were fought in Khuzestan, particularly in the marshes around the port city of Khorramshahr, as Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein claimed the province as Arab. Northern Khuzestan is mainly populated by Bakhtiari tribes, while the southern regions are home to Arabs, Lurs, and Persians.
