Pakistan's Quiet Fight For Iran's Favor

This story was written by Farhan Bohkhai, reporting for CBS News in Pakistan.

The arrests appear to be the first tangible evidence of a Pakistani response to the February militant attack in Zahedan, Iran, which left 11 people dead — all members of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard.

Iranian officials blamed the attacks on members of Jundullah — Arabic for "Army of God" — a shadowy group of Sunni militants based in Pakistan, and believed to be seeking to intensify attacks inside Iran.

The Zahedan attack prompted widespread concerns among senior Pakistani officials of a slide in already-uneasy relations with the government of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Iranian officials have claimed privately that Pakistan's U.S.-allied military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, has not done enough to curb anti-Iran militants based on Pakistani soil.

In deep background interviews, members of Pakistan's Sunni militant groups have claimed that the number of those arrested is between 100 and 150, including an unspecified number of war-hardened veterans who have previously fought in Afghanistan and Indian administered Kashmir.

Since the Iranian revolution of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, Iran's Shiite clerical regime has looked upon Pakistan with unease. That discomfort has been increased by a long campaign waged by Sunni groups in Pakistan against members of the Shiite minority in that country.

Many Shiite Muslims have looked toward Iran — the world's only Shiite-run, non-secular country — for support.

Attacks by the Sunni groups inside Pakistan have ranged from small-scale attacks on well-known Shiite public figures, including doctors and engineers, to attacks on Shiite mosques. In some cases, Shiite Muslims have retaliated with counter-attacks on Sunni mosques.

A Pakistani militant who was once associated with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, one of the most diehard Sunni militant groups, told CBS News most of the recent arrests took place in Pakistan's Baluchistan province bordering Iran, and in the country's main pro-Taliban province, known as the North West Frontier Provinces (NWFP).

"The arrests have taken place usually when people have been on the road. In some instances, they were quietly picked up when they stopped at a roadside cafe for a meal," said the militant, who spoke to CBS News on condition of anonymity.

A second source, who is also a member of a now-banned Pakistani Sunni group, claimed the arrests may have been prompted by information given to Pakistan by the Iranians. "In many cases, there were people arrested who were widely believed to be anti-Iran for a long time. I believe the Iranians had much to do with identifying these people and making sure they were picked up," he said.

Last month, an Iranian official, who also spoke to CBS News on the condition of anonymity said Tehran had renewed its demand that the Pakistani government clampdown quickly on hardline Sunni groups whose members may have been connected to the February attack in Zahedan. But he also said he was skeptical about the likelihood of President Musharraf responding favorably to the request, as "our Pakistani brothers have never done enough about this anti-Iran problem in the past".

However, a senior Pakistani security official said this week that the government "was determined to do all that's possible to satisfy Iran's concerns". Without confirming the number of arrests in the past two months, he told CBS News: "we have been actively searching for people who are planning anti-Iranian activities."

Analysts believe the arrests may, in the immediate future, enable Pakistan to generate some goodwill in Iran. Looking further down the road, however, there are serious concerns about a possible downturn in relations between the nations should the Bush administration decide to take military action against Iran.

"In the event of a U.S. attack on Iran, the Iranians suspect that the U.S. will use Pakistani soil for any possible ground or air operations, with or without Pakistan's agreement", said Hasan Askari Rizvi, a well respected Pakistani security affairs scholar.

Rizvi said in an interview with CBS News, regardless of any evidence of new Pakistani action to thwart anti-Iran militant groups, Tehran remains concerned over the possibility that its own Sunni minority population, living close to the border, could seek support from militants based in Pakistan.

Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani politician and currently a professor at Boston University, said Iran's concerns were no different from those of Pakistan's other neighbors —namely Afghanistan and India — who routinely criticize Islamabad for its failure to rein in Sunni militants.

Afghanistan's Taliban movement and the separatist movement in India's predominantly Muslim Kashmir region have relied heavily in the past on support from backers among a range of interest-groups in Pakistan. "Pakistan will have to completely shut down Sunni groups at home and stop relying on Islamic militants abroad for Iran to feel fully comfortable about its eastern border," Haqqani told CBS News.