Grievance and Flawed Governance in Iran’s Baluchestan

What’s new? As Iran struggles with geopolitical tensions and economic duress, its periphery regions are facing additional challenges. Baluchestan, the southern part of Sistan and Baluchestan province, has experienced recurrent unrest. Many residents feel the government discriminates against them as a religious and ethnic minority. Militancy persists. Environmental concerns compound the difficulties. 

Why does it matter? The central government’s repeated pledges to reduce poverty in Baluchestan through development and improved governance have been undermined by chronic mismanagement, lack of investment and suppression of dissent. Deepening socio-economic disparities, threats of militancy and growing environmental challenges are likely to bring greater strains. 

What should be done? Enhancing popular participation in local governance, making economic reforms and improving environmental stewardship are the best ways to address Baluchestan’s entrenched crisis. But meaningful progress will require considerable support from the central government, notwithstanding the other huge challenges it faces at home and abroad.

Even as it recovers from its twelve-day war with Israel, faces increasing U.S. pressure and contemplates the prospect of renewed UN sanctions, Iran is struggling with domestic challenges that cry out for Tehran’s attention. Among these are the grievances of the Baluch residents of the volatile Baluchestan region. Baluchestan covers most of the south-eastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan. Two thirds of its inhabitants are Baluch – a primarily Sunni group that is ethnically and religiously distinct from Iran’s Persian Shiite majority. The region has seen years of underdevelopment, socio-political exclusion, repression and environmental degradation. It has also seen violence, including on 30 September 2022 – known among Baluch as “bloody Friday” – when state forces killed over 100 protesters. Though unrest has waned, its drivers remain unaddressed, providing grist for separatist groups, one of which provoked a clash with neighbouring Pakistan in 2024. Efforts to advance economic development and political inclusion – and to tackle environmental problems – can help put Baluchestan on a more stable footing. 

Sistan and Baluchestan’s socio-economic deficits are stark. Residents suffer from chronic poverty, high unemployment, poor infrastructure and limited access to basic services such as clean water, health care and education. Governance failures are compounded by the province’s massive size, harsh climate and geographical isolation, contributing to persistent deprivation. Poverty fuels reliance on fuel and drug smuggling, which perpetuates insecurity and criminality. Government efforts to promote licit economic growth in the region have largely failed. The authorities tout the province’s strategic location, as it borders Pakistan and Afghanistan and is a gateway to the Indian Ocean, but ambitions for its development have fallen short. Projects such as the expansion of Chabahar port – intended to turn the region into a trade hub – have been stymied by sanctions, mismanagement and lack of sustained investment.

The Baluch population also contends with structural exclusion shaped in part by ethno-sectarian differences within Iran. Both an ethnic and religious minority, the Sunni Baluch struggle for equal treatment in Persian Shiite-majority Iran. They are underrepresented in provincial and national governance and face restrictions on cultural freedoms and often harsh crackdowns, fomenting mistrust in the elites in Tehran. Recently, there have been positive steps. In October 2024, President Masoud Pezeshkian appointed the province’s first Sunni Baluch governor in more than four decades; he has also taken measures to improve ethnic minorities’ representation in government. Yet Tehran’s alternating tactics of co-opting and sidelining key figures such as Molavi Abdolhamid – an influential Sunni cleric who emerged as a voice of dissent after “bloody Friday” – underscore a dynamic oscillating between attempts at greater inclusion and heavy-handed efforts at control. 

The security situation in Baluchestan remains fraught. Armed separatist groups like Jaish al-Adl, which feed upon socio-political discontent, carry out regular attacks on Iranian forces and other state institutions. Frequent clashes have sparked deadly cross-border confrontations, notably with Pakistan in early 2024. The group even welcomed Israel’s strikes during the twelve-day war in June, framing them as an attack on the “regime” rather than “Iran”. Separatist views are likely marginal among Iranian Baluch, but the underlying grievance is not. Yet the government sees militancy primarily through a security prism, rather than treating it as linked to the economic, social and political problems that fuel separatist sentiment. 

Environmental degradation, driven by climate change, poor water management and interstate disputes, particularly with Afghanistan over the Hirmand/Helmand River’s flow into Iran, poses an escalating concern. Droughts, dust storms and floods have devastated local agriculture and worsened living conditions. Tehran’s responses have focused on finding alternative sources of water in an arid region. Without significant investment in water management, infrastructure and sustainable practices, environmental pressures will deepen socio-economic hardship and could catalyse further unrest. 

Tehran needs a multi-pronged strategy to stabilise Baluchestan. Priorities should include expanding Baluch representation in governance and engaging with local leaders to give them a stronger political voice; investing in infrastructure, education and job creation to promote economic development while curbing reliance on illicit trade; modernising water management, redoubling efforts to resolve water disputes with Afghanistan and improving disaster preparedness in order to improve environmental resilience; and moving away from a preponderantly coercive approach to militancy and toward one that recognises the need to address underlying socio-political drivers of violence, including through transparent accountability for the “bloody Friday” crackdown. 

These steps require resources and political will at a time when Tehran is grappling with severe economic and geopolitical pressures, including frictions with Israel and the U.S. and the prospect of a “snapback” of UN sanctions. Yet neglecting Baluchestan’s challenges will only heighten the risk of instability, at the local level and perhaps at the national and Middle Eastern levels as well. Addressing the province’s grievances ought to be a priority for Tehran – all the more so because the region’s plight is not unique. Indeed, it reflects national trends – economic decline, strained infrastructure, environmental stress and a deepening gap between state and society. Progress in Baluchestan would signal that Tehran is serious about tackling these systemic challenges. Conversely, failure to act risks leaving the region’s discontent to fester, with consequences that could reverberate both inside and beyond its boundaries. 

Zahedan/Washington/Brussels, 19 August 2025

For several months starting in mid-September 2022, protests rocked Iran. They were sparked by the death of Mahsa (Jhina) Amini, a young Kurdish woman who had been detained by the government’s “morality police” (Gasht-e Ershad). Held in Tehran, Amini died in police custody on 16 September 2022.[1] The government reacted to the wave of demonstrations with a violent crackdown that resulted in an estimated 551 fatalities, including 49 women and 68 children. Nearly one in five of these people, or 104 to be precise, were killed in Zahedan, capital of Sistan and Baluchestan province on 30 September, a day that was subsequently dubbed “bloody Friday”.[2] 

Tensions in the Baluchestan region – the southern part of the province of Sistan and Baluchestan – had been building prior to Amini’s death, and protests by the Baluch persisted well into 2023 even as they ebbed elsewhere. The unrest reflected deep-seated political and socio-economic discontent. While the effects of government mismanagement are felt throughout the country, Baluchestan’s inhabitants, like other ethnic and religious minorities, have long felt discriminated against by the country’s ruling elite. As is the case with most parts of the periphery in Iran’s highly centralised system of governance, the region tends to be neglected as a matter of state policy. While the state’s repression and the passage of time eventually brought the demonstrations in Baluchestan to an end, the grievances that animated them remain unaddressed. 

Located in the country’s south east, Baluchestan makes up almost 90 per cent of Sistan and Baluchestan’s territory, and the Baluch people constitute roughly tw0 thirds of its population. The province, geographically among Iran’s largest, is bounded by the Gulf of Oman to the south, with its eastern reaches running along the entirety of the Iran-Pakistan frontier and a small stretch of the border with Afghanistan. Its size and location astride an international waterway give it great geopolitical and economic importance.[3] 

In addition to their Baluch ethnicity, which makes them a minority in a mostly Persian state, the vast majority of Baluchestan’s population are Sunni, which makes them a religious minority as well.[4] By contrast, the province’s Sistani population, who live in the north, share Shiite Muslim practices and the Persian language with the country’s majority and the state apparatus. Not coincidentally, Sistanis have historically enjoyed greater access to political and government opportunities compared to the Baluch, who have faced numerous obstacles stemming from what they regard as structural discrimination.[5]

Successive administrations in Tehran have touted the region’s potential as a hub for commerce and industry, while pledging to redress its longstanding poverty, underdevelopment and insecurity.[1] More often than not, however, these promises have proven hollow. The government of President Masoud Pezeshkian, who campaigned on addressing the grievances of the country’s ethnic and religious minorities and improving conditions in its peripheral regions, appointed the first Sunni Baluch provincial governor in over four decades. The president also made Zahedan the first place in the country he visited following his inauguration in July 2024.[2] But follow-through on these overtures has been lacking. Meanwhile, the Baluch continue to feel isolated and aggrieved, expressing their discontent through sporadic protests and (at the edges of society) separatist violence. 

This report delves into the immediate and long-term causes of discontent in Baluchestan. It complements an earlier study of Iran’s Khuzestan province.[3] It is based on more than 50 interviews since 2023 with experts, activists and residents of Baluchestan, former and current Iranian officials, and foreign diplomats. Women and ethnic minorities were represented among all the above categories of interlocutors – in numbers roughly proportional to their representation in each interviewee cohort. Official sources contain data on both the region of Baluchestan and on the province of Sistan and Baluchestan. This report cites regional-level data where that is available, relying in its absence on provincial-level data as an imperfect proxy. But the interviews and other field research focus on the Baluchestan region. 

The particular explosiveness of the unrest that occurred in Zahedan and elsewhere in Baluchestan in late 2022 owed to the convergence of several factors.[1] Even before Mahsa Amini’s death infuriated the nation, tensions were running high over reports that a senior law enforcement officer in the port city of Chabahar had sexually assaulted a teenage Baluch girl.[2] But after Amini’s death, the anger among the Baluch rapidly increased. On 30 September, Molavi Abdolhamid Esmailzahi, the Sunni Baluch imam of Zahedan’s Makki Mosque, used his pulpit to call upon the authorities to investigate the Chabahar incident swiftly, fairly and transparently to calm popular outrage over the lack of accountability.[3]

But that outrage was already building to dangerous levels. As the prominent cleric ended Friday prayers on 30 September, Baluch worshippers gathered in front of a nearby police station to stage a protest. Clashes with police ensued, soon spreading to adjacent areas, including the mosque and the Great Mosalla prayer hall nearby. According to UN fact finders, more than 100 people were killed and 350 injured.[4] Iranian authorities, who confirmed only 35 fatalities, acknowledged that state forces were responsible for some of the killings, but claimed that other armed elements had killed a number of civilians as well as five state personnel.[5]

As more Iranians rose up in the wake of Amini’s death, provincial and national dynamics fed one another. A wave of “women, life, freedom” protests swept the country. In Baluchestan, these demonstrations became an opportunity to highlight the region’s grievances and its demands of Tehran – namely that it get more resources and have a bigger say in its own governance. Meanwhile, slogans like “Zahedan, light of Iran” were amplified nationwide in support of the protests in Baluchestan.[1] Often consigned to the figurative margins of Iranian politics, the region and its plight moved front and centre, with Baluch taking to the streets every weekend for more than a year after “bloody Friday”.[2]

For the government, the unrest in Baluchestan posed a particular dilemma. In Molavi Abdolhamid it faced an influential critic whose profile grew as he denounced Tehran’s response to the protests and its other failures.[3] “Hold a referendum and meet people’s demands”, Abdolhamid exhorted Tehran. “The country’s current policies have reached a dead end”.[4] These words were not well received by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – the regime’s iron fist at home and the tip of its spear abroad – which issued an ominous threat. In a statement, it warned Abdolhamid that “encouraging and agitating youths against the sacred Islamic Republic of Iran may cost you dearly”.[5] For its part, the hardline media lambasted the cleric for pouring “gasoline on the enemy’s seditious fires”.[6] 

The government took a number of steps aimed at calming the waters. In late 2022, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei dispatched a delegation to speak with Baluchestan elites. The government also offered compensation to the families of those killed and dismissed or sentenced to prison some of the local officers who had been involved in suppressing the protests.[7] 

None of these initiatives, however, seems to have diminished popular indignation at the crackdown. Abdolhamid criticised the government’s envoys for conveying what he described as threats instead of condemning the crackdown and consoling its victims.[8] The imam’s rising profile afforded him slight, precarious leeway to challenge the state; likely for fear of further turmoil, the government did not detain Abdolhamid but instead worked to “discredit” him.[9]

Baluchestan remained a flashpoint for protest and government crackdowns for more than a year after “bloody Friday”.[10] But under President Pezeshkian, who took office on 28 July 2024, the government has sought to apply a softer touch. The president, who is himself from Iran’s Azeri minority and had campaigned on minority rights, engaged directly with Abdolhamid when he visited Zahedan on his first provincial trip. He framed the visit around the theme of “delivering justice”.[11] Abdolhamid publicly thanked Pezeshkian for his efforts to help Iran’s ethnic and religious minorities, while urging the government to address the province’s severe underdevelopment.[12]

Still, the gap between state and society remains wide in Baluchestan. It is a rift that is familiar in much of Iran but perhaps runs deeper in this region, with memories of “bloody Friday” still raw. It is hardly out of the question that the underlying grievances will create the conditions for another pulse of anti-state violence. 

The 2022-2023 unrest in Baluchestan reflected years of accumulated discontent rooted in economic deprivation and socio-political exclusion. Sistan and Baluchestan remains Iran’s poorest province. Its chronic underdevelopment compounds a sense among the Baluch that they are discriminated against as a double minority. Adding to these pressures is a deepening environmental crisis, particularly acute water scarcity. Water shortages, which have repeatedly triggered protests in other parts of Iran, risk inflaming tensions in Baluchestan.

Iranian authorities have long been aware of the challenges facing Sistan and Baluchestan, but their sporadic attempts at remedies have made little headway.[1] Supreme Leader Khamenei – who, prior to the 1979 revolution, had spent time in internal exile in Baluchestan for his criticisms of the Shah’s government – has repeatedly emphasised the need for government support for the area. His 2003 visit to the province, during which he described it as “the key to the development of eastern Iran”, spurred the government to approve several large-scale infrastructure projects and other investments there.[2] Yet even Khamenei has acknowledged that the results have been meagre, lamenting in a speech two decades later: “Had [past] administrations implemented those plans, the province would look completely different today. There was negligence”.[3]

Sistan and Baluchestan is part of a disconcerting bigger picture. Decision-makers in Tehran continue to neglect economic development in far-flung provinces, instead training their attention on the capital and other industrial hubs.[4]Despite occasional government efforts to reduce centralisation – through measures such as granting the provincial governor of Sistan and Baluchestan enhanced authority and allocating the province additional funds – the core-periphery model has remained largely intact.[5]

There are other problems, too. Geographical isolation poses hurdles to every aspect of governance. Sistan and Baluchestan is situated amid vast deserts, remote from the rest of the country.[6] Development projects must be tailored to its expansive size, low population density and harsh climate. Doing so demands significant financial resources, technical expertise and inter-agency coordination.[7] On top of these structural and managerial issues, international sanctions continue to hinder efforts to stimulate the local economy.[8]

For these and other reasons, the province consistently ranks at or near the bottom of national development indices. Poverty and unemployment are rampant: Sistan and Baluchestan is by most metrics the most deprived province in Iran, with twelve of its 26 counties ranking among the twenty poorest nationwide.[1] It has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country and one of the lowest labour force participation rates.[2] Roughly 60 per cent of residents are under the age of 30, and more than 30 per cent of the region’s youth (people aged fifteen to 24) have no job.[3] Household incomes are among the lowest in the country, with most of the earnings spent on basic necessities.[4]

On top of these challenges, thousands of Baluch in Iran are undocumented.[5] Many of those without identification papers belong to families that have been living in the region for generations. They never obtained such documents for reasons including the area’s remoteness, poverty and lack of education (which makes navigating the complex bureaucracy yet more difficult). Others are young men avoiding military service or people who cannot prove that their father was Iranian (given that nationality is patrilineal in Iran).[6] Without ID cards, people are denied basic services – including school enrolment, health care and access to banking.[7]

The province’s lack of development is reflected in the lowest urbanisation rate in the country, and basic infrastructure and essential services are especially lacking in rural areas. Housing conditions in villages are dire: many homes are made from mud or palm thatch, making them highly vulnerable to natural disasters.[8]Nearly 60 per cent of dwellings, according to the Iranian Parliament Research Centre, fail to meet at least one of four housing standards – that is, access to clean water and proper sanitation, adequate living space and climate resilience.[9] Nearly 40 per cent of the province’s villages still lack water supply facilities, forcing residents to rely on unsafe water sources.[10] Wastewater management is nearly non-existent. 

While more than half of the country’s urban population has access to sewage infrastructure, the figure drops to just a quarter in Sistan and Baluchestan, which ranks fourth from the bottom nationally.[11] The lack of adequate sanitation has led to severe water contamination, exacerbating health crises and accelerating environmental degradation.[12] The situation is not much better in the province’s cities: 40 per cent of urban housing is located in slums and shantytowns.[13]

Access to education and health care is also subpar. The province has the highest illiteracy and school dropout rates in Iran.[14] Some children either never enrol in school or quit early to help support their families.[15] Girls may be forced to leave home in early marriages to ease the financial burden on their households – child marriage is more prevalent than in most other provinces.[16] Health care is also in a bad state: the province consistently ranks among the lowest in the country in access to hospitals, clinics and pharmacies.[17]

Poverty and underdevelopment in Sistan and Baluchestan have contributed to the prevalence of illicit cross-border trade. Smuggling, whether of fuel, drugs or other goods, has become a primary means of economic survival for many Baluch. As a former security official put it, “The name of this province has become synonymous with smuggling”.[1]

Fuel, which is heavily subsidised in Iran, is particularly lucrative to smuggle – to the extent that a Baluch sociologist described this black-market trade as the province’s “dominant economic activity”.[2] Officials estimate that anywhere between seven and eleven million litres of gasoline and diesel fuel pass across borders in Sistan and Baluchestan each day – much of it into Pakistan or Afghanistan.[3] Fuel smuggling is so common that the people involved are referred to locally as “fuel porters” (sukht-bar) rather than “smugglers” (ghachaghchi). The term highlights the difference in local eyes between an illicit livelihood pursued out of economic necessity and a crime.[4]

The “fuel porters” face significant dangers. They typically transport fuel in pickup trucks, travelling long and hazardous routes to reach their destinations. Iranian, Pakistani and Afghan border guards often shoot at them; they also risk being injured or killed in road accidents.[5]

The government in Tehran has tried to partially legalise fuel smuggling, hoping that letting residents of border provinces supplement their meagre incomes will discourage them from migrating elsewhere in the country. A former provincial official said the state stepped up these efforts in the 2010s, when the economy came under increasing strain from water scarcity that undermined agriculture as well as international sanctions.[6] Since then, the government has introduced several fuel quota schemes, always based on the same premise: authorising people living within 20km of a border to sell a certain amount of fuel on the other side.[7]

But while fuel quota programs are popular in areas facing high unemployment, they are limited in scope.[8]Moreover, lack of transparency has led to widespread abuse and corruption, including falsification of records and capture of quotas by powerful intermediaries.[9] The former provincial official said:

Many of those who receive fuel quotas as “border residents” do not actually live near the border. Some are wealthy truck owners who profit by selling their surplus fuel. The primary beneficiaries are often individuals with close ties to the authorities. Others are government-affiliated institutions that generate revenue by selling fuel, sometimes even bringing it in from neighbouring provinces. Meanwhile, the actual fuel porters earn the least and are the ones most exposed to danger.[10]

For these and other reasons, the fuel quotas have not worked as intended. They have not created sustainable legal job opportunities.[11] They have proven ineffective in tamping down illicit activity: according to a local official, only 10 per cent of fuel smuggling has been channelled through the government-designed schemes.[12] Large-scale smuggling by organised networks persists.[13] Lastly, the programs risk reinforcing harmful stereotypes of Baluch as inveterate bootleggers.

Trafficking in narcotics, particularly synthetic drugs, presents another challenge. The province’s proximity to drug production hubs in Afghanistan has made it a prime smuggling corridor. The drug trade has drawn in more and more local people, as traffickers hide shipments in urban residential areas – and use residents themselves as couriers.[14] Poverty, underdevelopment and, in some cases, alleged official complicity have fuelled the practice.[15] According to a former interior ministry official, “The province’s association with drug trafficking is a major deterrent to attracting investors”.[16]

Smuggling of other commodities is also widespread. The province’s lengthy land and maritime borders, coupled with inefficiency and corruption in customs, have turned it into a funnel for contraband. According to official statistics, at least one quarter of the smuggled goods entering Iran get in via loopholes in customs enforcement.[17] The rest comes in at “invisible docks” or through land crossings where there is no customs oversight.[18] These sites, some reportedly under the control of state and military-affiliated entities, have been publicly acknowledged by officials at the highest levels, including the presidency.[19] Their existence highlights not only systemic corruption but also the challenges inherent in enforcing anti-smuggling measures in a region where illicit trade has become entrenched.

To be sure, Tehran has made efforts to encourage licit economic growth through infrastructure investment, but these have had limited success. For example, the government has sought to capitalise on Baluchestan’s location along Iran’s southern coast to turn it into a transport hub – particularly by attempting to develop Chabahar as part of a trilateral initiative involving Iran, India and Afghanistan. Launched in 2016, the project aimed to enhance Chabahar’s port facilities and rail links.[1]

The Chabahar project was announced at a hopeful moment for Tehran. It came about in the aftermath of the 2015 nuclear deal, when then-President Hassan Rouhani’s administration thought it could seize the opportunity created by sanctions relief to lift Iran’s economy out of isolation. Meanwhile, Afghanistan needed better transport links to international destinations, and India was aiming to counterbalance its rival Pakistan’s growing ties with China at Gwadar port (which sits just across the Pakistani border with Iran) and expand its influence in Afghanistan.[2]

But even before the U.S. under President Donald Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal in May 2018, initiating a “maximum pressure” campaign that brought crippling new sanctions, Western firms were hesitant to engage in the project or provide the necessary equipment. The geopolitical uncertainties were simply too big to overcome.[3] Progress in developing Chabahar has therefore remained limited – doing little to stimulate an economic revival in Baluchestan.[4]

Underdevelopment and poverty in Baluchestan deepen the strong sense of ethnic and sectarian discrimination in the region.[1] Baluchestan’s people feel that they have long been shunted to the sidelines of civic and political life in Iran. This sentiment, which predates the 1979 Islamic Revolution, is linked to the fact that the ethnic Baluch who make up the majority of the region’s population speak the Baluchi language and have close cultural ties to co-ethnics, who live mainly in Pakistan.[2] Their ethnic and linguistic distinctiveness has contributed to a longstanding gap between them and the Persian-speaking majority in the rest of the country.[3]

When the Islamic Revolution turned Iran into a Shiite theocracy that institutionalised religious authority within the state, the new order deepened the sense of exclusion among the predominantly Sunni Baluch, most of whom follow the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence.[4] Many of their clerics, called molavis, were educated in Deobandi seminaries in Pakistan, shaping their distinct religious identity. 

Like other ethnic-religious minorities in Iran, the Baluch have long expressed frustration with their inadequate representation in provincial and national leadership bodies. Few persons of Baluch (or indeed any Sunni) background serve at the national level, where key decisions are made, something which Baluch see as a sign of distrust and disregard.[1] Baluch often compare themselves to the smaller Sistani community concentrated in the north of the province, which is Persian-speaking and Shiite, and appears disproportionately represented in provincial government, particularly at the upper levels, despite being a demographic minority.[2] The central government’s appointment of non-local officials to senior roles in the province has also raised local concerns.[3] Baluch were pleased when a particular demand – namely, that a Sunni Baluch be appointed provincial governor – was finally met under the Pezeshkian administration, after being pressed for 45 years.[4]

Tehran has also imposed cultural restrictions on the Baluch community. The authorities justify this approach by citing unspecified security concerns – a stance similar to that which it has taken toward other minority groups. For instance, it prohibits the use of any language other than Persian as the medium of instruction in schools. While the Iranian constitution allows for teaching minority languages as subjects, in practice, the government resists the introduction of Baluchi and other non-Persian tongues into the official curriculum.[5]

Tehran’s approach to religion in Baluchestan is a mixed bag. On one hand, the state has demonstrated a degree of tolerance for Sunni practices in the region and has even engaged Sunni clerics as intermediaries to help maintain influence within the community.[6] On the other hand, at times it places restrictions on prominent religious figures such as Molavi Abdolhamid, limiting their travel abroad or to other Sunni-majority provinces, again citing unspecified security concerns.[7]

UN experts investigating the 2022 protests have reported that the Baluch, along with Kurds and LGBTQ+ persons, were treated with “aggravated discriminatory intent” by Iranian authorities, adding that “considering decades-long deep-rooted structural and institutional discrimination and marginalisation of these groups, the state created a permissive environment for such criminal conduct”.[8] The state tends to conflate political protest with separatist aims in border regions where minorities predominate, including Baluchestan.[9]Yet despite Tehran’s preoccupation with security, it has failed to stop the rise of militant groups, particularly in Baluchestan. The socio-political exclusion and economic hardship faced by the Baluch have contributed to the emergence of separatist groups like Jundallah and Jaish al-Adl, which claim to advocate for Baluch rights through armed resistance, and which Tehran alleges receive foreign support, including safe haven.^[10]

The separatist attacks on government forces underscore how local grievances can manifest as violence and even escalate into cross-border fighting. Clashes with Jaish al-Adl have killed tens of government personnel in recent years, and in early 2024 precipitated a sharp but short-lived spike in hostilities between Iran and Pakistan.[1] That episode was triggered by a mid-December 2023 Jaish al-Adl attack on a police station in the Iranian city of Rask, which killed eleven and injured eight. Government officials vowed to avenge what they claimed was a foreign-backed operation.^[2] On 16 January 2024, Iran fired missiles and drones into Pakistani territory, purportedly hitting two Jaish al-Adl bases.^[3] The Pakistani government strongly condemned the Iranian strikes, which it said had killed two children and injured three others.^[4] It proceeded to launch counterstrikes into Sistan and Baluchestan, citing “credible intelligence of impending large-scale terrorist activities” by Pakistani Baluch militant groups it claimed were based on Iranian soil.^[5] Iran’s government reported nine fatalities, whom it said were foreign nationals.^[6]

With neither Tehran nor Islamabad keen to escalate hostilities further, the tit-for-tat exchange ended there and both sides agreed to step up “close coordination on counter-terrorism”.^[7] In April 2024, then-President Ebrahim Raisi travelled to Pakistan, releasing a joint statement with his Pakistani counterpart that underscored the importance of bilateral engagement on cross-border concerns. Days later, the Revolutionary Guards and Pakistani army moved to bolster military-to-military cooperation by exchanging liaison officers in the Iranian and Pakistani Baluch regions.^[8]

Nonetheless, Jaish al-Adl continued to conduct operations against Iranian government forces. These notably included simultaneous attacks on the Revolutionary Guards and law enforcement facilities in Chabahar and Rask in April 2024, which reportedly killed at least ten troops and eighteen Jaish al-Adl members, and injured more than three dozen civilians.^[9] In October 2024, a Jaish al-Adl raid killed ten Iranian border guards.^[10] Soon thereafter, the Revolutionary Guards, working alongside other state services, launched a campaign dubbed Martyrs of Security across Baluchestan – later claiming to have killed or detained dozens of “terrorists”.^[11]

Citing what it referred to as the government’s discrimination against Sunni Baluch, Jaish al-Adl described its attacks as part of a “defensive jihad”.^[12] In a similar vein, it treated the Israeli strikes in June (which it openly welcomed) as an opportunity to instigate an armed uprising. Little appears to have come of it, and communal leaders like Molavi Abdolhamid denounced the Israeli campaign.[13] Indeed, while Jaish al-Adl appears capable of mobilising forces and carrying out occasional attacks, officials and experts appear to broadly concur that its separatist agenda appears to be of marginal interest to the Iranian Baluch.[14] Still, Tehran has alleged that adversaries such as Israel and the U.S. back the group in order to foment unrest, most recently after a Jaish al-Adl attack on a Zahedan courthouse in late July. It also claims that Jaish al-Adl is “linked to and supported by” the ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Islamic State-Khorasan Province.^[15]

In an underdeveloped province plagued by neglect and a sense of exclusion, where grievances have at times manifested in unrest and militancy, growing water scarcity could deepen public discontent. 

Sistan and Baluchestan has been grappling with water shortages for three decades. Climate change has compounded the arid province’s environmental challenges. Droughts are lasting longer; conversely, flooding is becoming more frequent. Poor water management and transborder water disputes have worsened the problem. Water consumption, from both renewable and non-renewable sources, has steadily increased, causing “water bankruptcy” in which usage exceeds renewable supply.[1] Without intervention, the province faces a protracted environmental crisis that will threaten its ecosystems and communities.

The sources of water scarcity are multiple and overlapping. Rising temperatures and sporadic rainfall patterns have depleted both surface and groundwater reserves across the province.[1] The majority of rainfall is lost to evaporation before it can generate runoff or recharge underground reserves.[2] During periods of heavy rainfall, inadequate infrastructure prevents effective water storage.[3] As a result, significant volumes of rainwater are wasted as they flow into the desert, the sea or neighbouring Pakistan, running too quickly to soak into the soil and replenish aquifers.[4] What is not lost may be subject to mismanagement.[5] Highlighting the lack of downstream infrastructure to distribute water held in reservoirs, the province’s former governor acknowledged in 2020 that “most of the [reservoirs behind] dams built in Sistan and Baluchestan in recent years have turned into evaporation pans”.[6]

Fixing that problem would be no small challenge. The province’s vast size and dispersed population pose difficulties for water distribution.[7] More than one third of its villages lack access to water supply facilities.[8] Even in areas where they exist, drinking water availability remains inconsistent, particularly because of drought conditions and outdated infrastructure.[9] As a result, residents are forced to rely on tanker trucks, collection of rainwater or residual floodwater, which is often unsafe, as their primary sources of drinking water.[10] Meanwhile, reports of corruption and mismanagement help explain delays in completing water distribution projects that might alleviate hardship.[11]

A related issue is that Iran’s agricultural sector, which accounts for 70 to 90 per cent of national water consumption, is highly inefficient.[12] The expansion of farms reliant on highly subsidised water, low-efficiency irrigation systems and water-intensive crops has put immense pressure on the province’s dwindling water resources.[13] Over the past few decades, government policies aimed at achieving food self-sufficiency have led to an increase in overgrazing, ploughing and water use for agriculture. The result is more water scarcity and environmental degradation.[14] Economic isolation under sanctions has further reinforced a strategy designed to ensure food security. A former interior ministry official cited “the drive for self-sufficiency” and “the overexploitation of water reserves” as factors contributing to the drying of the Hamoun wetlands, which consist of three shallow, predominantly freshwater lakes: Hamoun-e-Helmand, which lies inside Sistan and Baluchestan, Hamoun-e-Puzak, which sits almost entirely inside Afghanistan, and Hamoun-e-Saberi, which straddles the Iran-Afghanistan border.[15]

Aside from mismanagement, a longstanding dispute between Iran and Afghanistan over the Hirmand (Helmand) River is making water scarcer in the province. The river, which originates in Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush mountains and flows over 1,000km before entering Iran, is the primary water source for the Sistan region and feeds the strained Hamoun lake system.[16]

Claims and counter-claims by Tehran and Kabul concerning the river’s use continue to mount. Tehran accuses Kabul of violating the 1973 Afghan-Iranian Helmand River Water Treaty by failing to deliver the agreed-upon water quota to Iran.[17] Iranian officials also argue that Afghanistan’s construction of several dams, including the Kajaki and Kamal Khan projects, has significantly reduced the river’s flow into Iran, periodically drying up Hamoun and devastating its ecosystems and its communities.[18] The Afghan authorities counter that the reduced water flow is attributable to persistent drought.[19] But Iranian officials reject that argument, pointing to satellite imagery showing substantial water accumulation behind Afghan dams, as well as diversion, to support their allegations.[20] An Iranian provincial official alleged that, in recent years, Afghanistan has allowed floodwaters to spill into Iran only when it cannot contain them.[21]

Hamoun’s desiccation has compounded Sistan and Baluchestan’s longstanding ecological challenges. A reduction in water and humidity in an already arid region has led to loss of vegetation cover and exposed vast stretches of fine silt, transforming the region into a dust storm hotspot.[1] Whenever Hamoun’s lakes dry up, dust emissions surge by an average of 40 per cent, peaking at 80 per cent in some areas.[2] The situation is particularly dire during the so-called 120-day winds, a powerful series of disturbances that sweep through the province during the summer months.[3] These storms degrade air quality, pose severe respiratory risks and damage both farms and water sources.[4]

As surface water dwindles, provincial residents and other Iranians must rely more on alternative sources, notably groundwater extraction. Over the years, both legal and illegal well drilling has intensified across the province.[1] Over-extraction, coupled with persistent drought, has led to declining groundwater levels, lowered water quality and heightened the risk of land subsidence.[2] 

With accessible groundwater facing critical conditions in the province, authorities have begun digging ultra-deep wells, drilling down as far as 3km in search of what is known as “fossil water”.[3] This method, however, has sparked significant controversy, as extracting fossil water is resource-intensive, requiring advanced and costly technology.[4] Often, the water is highly saline or contaminated, making purification both technically challenging and financially burdensome.[5] More critically, excessive extraction could permanently deplete fossil water reserves that took thousands of years to accumulate.[6] While proponents cite successful deep-water extraction projects in other countries, many experts warn of its long-term risks of exhausting water reserves.[7]

Large-scale projects to desalinate water from southern shores, including near Chabahar, and transport it inland represent another ambitious attempt to address chronic water shortages.[8] Such projects involve significant financial and environmental costs, ranging from damage to marine life to high energy use and ecosystem disruption.[9] While the government is expected to conduct thorough environmental assessments before launch, experts and activists have questioned whether it will pay sufficient attention to the findings.[10] Unless efforts to improve water use efficiency precede large-scale supply projects, such investments risk reinforcing unsustainable consumption patterns.

While there is no proven direct link between climate change and conflict, climate-related pressures – such as drought, extreme heat and water scarcity – can interact with political and socio-economic stressors to increase the risk of instability. In Iran, water shortages have already triggered large protests, notably in Khuzestan, where a combination of mismanagement and social grievances, including among the Arab minority, fuelled widespread unrest.[11] In Sistan and Baluchestan, environmental problems have also sparked demonstrations, though smaller ones.[12] Still, the potential impact of water scarcity on a province already under the strains described above should not be underestimated. 

The challenges that Baluchestan faces are familiar to many of the regions on Iran’s periphery, though in some respects they are bigger than in most others. Baluchestan suffers not only from the underinvestment, poverty and climate shocks that affect the province of Sistan and Baluchestan as a whole, but also from ethnic and sectarian tensions that have fuelled a small but non-negligible separatist movement – and periodically bubbled over into cross-border violence. Tackling all of these issues at once is not realistic. But beginning to address certain cross-cutting challenges could help move things toward a more stable status quo. 

First, it is hard to imagine making serious inroads on the situation in Baluchestan without improving governance. Ideas about how to do so have been circulating among experts and policymakers, but these are at best uncertain. One proposal, which has been repeatedly floated, would involve dividing the province of Sistan and Baluchestan, as was done to the north-eastern province of Khorasan in 2004. Proponents of such remapping contend that it would facilitate more effective administration and better targeted approaches to local problems. Critics counter that it would do little to address the region’s challenges, evinced by continued mismanagement in Khorasan.[1] 

Indeed, regardless of whether the province’s boundaries are redrawn or not, engaging Baluch residents is the sine qua non for effective planning of policies that address local needs. Tehran has seemed reluctant to move in this direction. It has oscillated between attempting to co-opt or confront figures like Molavi Abdolhamid, depending on whether they are aligned with or opposed to its policies. This approach will not foster a productive dynamic. The same can be said of what local observers characterise as the government’s “artificial elite-making”: namely, empowering locals who owe their political and economic standing to fealty to Tehran, rather than to a record of representing local interests.[2] An approach that is likely to yield more local buy-in, as well as generate a greater diversity of local perspectives when it comes to problem solving, would be to give greater agency to the population, including through increased involvement of qualified Baluch technocrats and experts in provincial administration.

Secondly, in seeking to empower local officials and reduce the central government’s micromanagement of provincial and regional affairs, it will be important to achieve the right division of labour and resources between centre and periphery. This exercise is both delicate and highly consequential for provinces like Sistan and Baluchestan, which cannot match what the state can – or at least, should – provide. If doing more to share power with border provinces and regions becomes an alibi for leaving them to their own devices in terms of resources and capacity, then their situation will hardly be improved. 

A new initiative for “provincial diplomacy” that Iran’s government has been touting runs this risk. It is ostensibly aimed at giving officials in border regions greater authority to engage directly with neighbouring countries, with the aim of enhancing cross-border cooperation and regional development. Announcing the concept in February, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi asserted that “border provinces will resolve border issues and problems related to smuggling, border crossings and the movement of goods and travellers themselves”.[3] In the aftermath of the twelve-day war, during which Israel allegedly tried to decapitate the political leadership in Tehran by targeting a high-level national security meeting, President Pezeshkian delegated his executive powers to provincial governors, primarily to ensure continuity of government in case of a future conflict but also to enhance bureaucratic processes.[4] For such efforts to succeed, however, the government must match them with the resources and expertise provincial officials need. 

Thirdly, Tehran will need to revisit its heavy-handed approach to security to clear the way for positive change in Baluchestan and elsewhere. To that end, the state could take an overdue step by ensuring broader accountability for those involved in the “bloody Friday” crackdown, which remains a deeply traumatic and unresolved episode among the Baluch. The state did prosecute several officers for unlawful killings, handing down prison terms of up to ten years to some and dismissing others from service. But given the opacity as to the identities of those under trial, and the charges against them, UN experts assessed the response as “inadequate”, saying it raised “serious concerns as to whether state investigations were conducted in good faith”.[1] A credible process requires transparent, impartial trials, with penalties that reflect the gravity of the offences, particularly in cases involving the killing of civilians. Equally essential is the provision of redress for all those who were killed or injured – whether through compensation for victims and their families or accountability for the culprits through legal or material means. 

Regrettably, the Islamic Republic’s default response to dissent – in Baluchestan and other regions – has been to see it uniformly as a danger to state security, even when it consists of peaceful protests and demonstrations. It thus tends to respond with repression and restrictions, which both fail to address socio-economic sources of discontent and risk compounding them instead.[2] This mindset also means that the central government tends to see minority populations in border provinces as potential threats to a greatly exaggerated degree. As a former Baluch parliamentarian noted, “Even in positions such as customs officers and security guards in the free trade zone, most personnel are non-Baluch”.[3] 

Tehran’s tendency to perceive security concerns as a reason to under-invest in Baluchestan and other regions on Iran’s periphery has helped entrench their lagging development. The prevailing view in Tehran seems to be that security is a prerequisite for development. While insecurity can indeed pose risks to investment, in practice, they cannot be sequential and must go hand in hand, reinforcing each other, lest the region in question slide further into deprivation and its population despair of engaging in licit livelihoods. Significant investment is required in everything from schools and hospitals to port facilities that harness Baluchestan’s location for the betterment of its population. 

A promising area for investment is the region’s railways, which should be connected to the national network to help turn Baluchestan into a transit hub, given its proximity to borders and the sea. In 2024, the government announced a special budget allocation for Sistan and Baluchestan, earmarked for developing transport links and local industry.[4] It was a step in the right direction, but to ensure that the funds are used effectively, Tehran should conduct regular impact assessments set against clearly defined objectives to spur local job growth, engage the private sector and ensure there are robust safeguards against corruption, waste and nugatory projects.[5] It will take years to undo decades of mismanagement and underinvestment, but the lack of effort in that direction is worsening conditions in a province already on the edge. 

Fourthly, the authorities will need to take on the difficult but essential work of addressing the region’s climate crisis. Rising temperatures, sporadic rainfall, over-extraction and poor planning have converged to make water scarcity a major crisis in Sistan and Baluchestan – and an increasingly pressing concern nationwide.[6] Scientific data from the past century shows that, since the 1990s, the Middle East has warmed at twice the average global rate, leading to more frequent and severe heat waves, floods, dust storms and droughts, a trend likely to continue or worsen.[7]

Failing to implement environmentally sound policies will only deepen the crisis, further imperilling both Baluchestan’s fragile ecosystems and its already vulnerable communities. To ensure long-term resilience in the region, the government should adapt and improve water management strategies, such as improving storage efficiency (eg, investing in covered or underground facilities) to prevent evaporation and allocate resources to maintain and upgrade infrastructure. There are also options for water demand management, including tariffs for municipal and industrial uses, quotas for agriculture, and technologies such as remote sensing and smart metres that can help monitor users’ compliance with policies. 

It is also essential to continue efforts with neighbouring countries to find better solutions to sharing scarce water. Though Tehran and Kabul have engaged on resolving water disputes, they have failed to secure an understanding that would address Iranian concerns about the downstream impact of dam construction in Afghanistan.[1] What the two countries need is international support to strengthen infrastructure and adopt science-based water management.[2] While trying to come to terms, the government should also step up efforts to improve resource management in Iran. It should attempt to mitigate the impact of the drought and flooding cycles. Adopting heat-resilient water management strategies, upgrading water distribution infrastructure, integrating expert-driven environmental impact assessments into project planning, and borrowing best practices from regions with comparable climates are all promising avenues to explore. The government could then apply the lessons from Baluchestan where relevant elsewhere in the country. 

It also bears mention that sanctions, though not the main cause, have compounded Baluchestan’s environmental crisis.[1] Iran has limited access to the cutting-edge technology, expertise and money it so urgently needs for climate adaptation. It should be able to tap the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility for such funding.[2]

More critically, sanctions resulting from Iran’s standoff with the U.S. have pushed environmental concerns to the margins of Iran’s policy agenda, forcing the leadership to adopt survival strategies that put short-term political and economic stability over sustainable water management.[3] To the extent that nuclear talks yield sanctions relief, it could have positive effects on government efforts to manage climate change. Conversely, continuation of tensions between Iran, on one hand, and Israel and the U.S., on the other, could only exacerbate Baluchestan’s predicament. 

Finally, while Sistan and Baluchestan faces challenges specific to the province, many of the hurdles it is confronting are endemic to Iran as a whole, requiring national reforms. Issues such as corruption and mismanagement, social and cultural discontent, political infighting, and the gap between state and society are pervasive.[4] President Pezeshkian has been more candid than most Iranian leaders in acknowledging these problems, but so far, his government has made little progress in resolving them. Economic concerns are ubiquitous and getting worse.[5] The resource crisis is also becoming one of the country’s most acute challenges, with frequent water and power cuts highlighting the government’s failure to provide these services consistently. Citizens have responded with protests across the country, though not yet on a massive scale.[6]

The question of international sanctions looms over it all. The expansion of U.S. sanctions in the Trump administration’s renewed “maximum pressure” campaign could tighten the squeeze on Iran’s economy.[7] The restoration or “snapback” of pre-2015 UN sanctions, which could be triggered by the 2015 nuclear deal’s European participants in coming weeks, could deepen Iran’s diplomatic isolation and heighten tensions with the West.[8] Conversely, sanctions relief as part of an agreement over Iran’s nuclear program could unlock the funds and foreign expertise needed to make badly needed infrastructure upgrades, including in Baluchestan.

The challenges that Baluchestan confronts are a layered mass of local issues; difficulties faced by many areas on the country’s periphery; and problems that afflict Iran as a whole. There are steps Tehran can and should take to promote development, more inclusive governance and better environmental stewardship in Baluchestan. Yet so long as the central government is preoccupied with geopolitics, and possibly even bigger crises at home, it could be slow to give this far-flung region the resources and attention that it needs – even as it urges national unity at a post-war moment. A deal between Tehran and Washington that relieves the economic strain created by sanctions could create more space for the Iranian government to begin getting its house in order, including with respect to Baluchestan and other border regions. But in any case, the government needs to begin chipping away at Baluchestan’s plight, which has implications for national and regional stability, and which the passage of time will only worsen. 

Zahedan/Washington/Brussels, 19 August 2025