Iranian Regime Under Pressure as Rebel Attacks Escalate in Southeast

A newly formed coalition of Iranian opposition groups has launched a series of armed attacks against the clerical regime across the restive southeastern provinces of Sistan and Baluchistan and Kerman.

The six attacks claimed by the coalition, known as the People’s Fighters Front (JMM), have deepened instability in the region and raised urgent questions about whether armed resistance to Tehran could expand. The violence has also renewed debate over the regime’s ability to maintain control of Sistan and Baluchistan, a predominantly Iranian Sunni province.

Iran is overwhelmingly Shiite Muslim, while the country’s Sunni minority has faced decades of discrimination. Sistan and Baluchistan is the second-largest of Iran’s 31 provinces.

Mardo Soghom, an Iran expert who has written extensively about the Islamic Republic, told News Outlet that unrest among Sunnis could strain the regime’s military and domestic security resources. He said the violence could also have a psychological effect on Iranian forces, following what they experienced during the 40-day operation by the U.S. and Israel. While armed groups would be unlikely to seize control of southeastern Iran, Soghom said, they could significantly erode the regime’s authority.

Soghom added that it remains unclear whether the groups are receiving support from adversaries of the Islamic Republic, including Gulf Arab states, Israel or the United States.

An October report by the Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA) said violence in the provinces had accelerated sharply. The agency recorded 18 incidents during the final 18 days of its reporting period, exceeding the total reported in any previous full month.

JMM emerged as an opposition coalition in December 2025, bringing together several Baloch nationalist organizations and the militant Sunni group Jaish al-Adl.

HRANA reported that at least 63 armed incidents occurred across Iran’s southeastern provinces of Sistan and Baluchistan and Kerman between March 31 and Oct. 10, 2026, amid a sharp escalation in regional violence.

The armed campaign left at least 94 people dead and 33 injured, according to the report, while official sources cited 87 fatalities and 10 injuries.

The Baloch coalition caught the regime off guard on Oct. 14 with the assassinations of female Basij members, including a commander and a police officer, in Sistan and Baluchistan. The U.S. government has designated the Basij a terrorist entity because it operates under the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which Washington has also classified as a terrorist organization.

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Several days before the attack on the female Basij commander, Iranian state-controlled media reported that Nosrat Eftekhari, deputy for Cultural and Social Affairs at the Provincial Law Enforcement Command, had been killed by a roadside bomb in Zahedan, Sistan and Baluchistan province.

Jason Brodsky, policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), told News Outlet that Sistan and Baluchistan has experienced recurring periods of unrest over the years, but that the latest violence represents a notable increase. He pointed out that Mohammad Karami, the current commander of the IRGC’s Ground Forces, previously served as governor of the province and commanded IRGC forces there. Brodsky said Karami’s experience in the region was among the reasons he was promoted to his current position in 2025, given Iran’s sensitive security environment.

Brodsky said he did not see an imminent threat that the groups would seize control of the province. However, he emphasized that preserving Iran’s territorial integrity remains a red line for Iranians, particularly those in the opposition, and that Western capitals should understand this concern.

Khalilullah Balochi, a Baluch activist and journalist, told Iran International that the groups’ operations were not new, but that the intensity of their attacks had increased.

JMM’s attacks against the Iranian regime have drawn growing attention from dissidents and regional security experts.

Navid Mohebbi, a former Persian media analyst in the State Department’s Public Affairs Bureau, told News Outlet that the newly formed People’s Fighters Front had carried out a series of relatively successful attacks against mid-level regime officials and security personnel in Sistan and Baluchistan in recent months. He said the operations had attracted public attention, adding that with the regime executing protesters daily, some segments of Iranian society had welcomed the killing of certain mid-ranking military and security figures.

He warned, however, that “Nevertheless, the Iranian public remains deeply cautious and largely distrustful of such groups. Two major concerns underpin this distrust: the possibility of separatist ambitions and the influence of radical Islamism, which is fundamentally at odds with the increasingly secular outlook of Iranian society.”

Mohebbi sees encouraging signs from the JMM, including “the coalition’s recent statements, unlike the rhetoric traditionally associated with similar groups, contain no explicit references to Baluch separatism. Instead, the coalition has identified its primary objective as dismantling the system of Velayat-e Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist) and liberating the country from its oppression. It has explicitly declared that it seeks ‘an Iran for all Iranians.”’

He continued that “The reality is that these groups lack the capacity to confront the regime in conventional warfare. Through guerrilla operations, however, they can inflict significant psychological blows on the regime and its security establishment. Whether their activities can gain traction beyond Sistan and Baluchistan will depend largely on their ability to sustain what appears to be an effort to earn broader public trust.”

Beni Sabti, an Iran expert at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Israel, told News Outlet the coalition has “a lot of guns” and created an “armed rebellion” against the Iranian regime in the provinces. He said, however, the armed upheaval is limited to the region Baluchistan.

Sabti, who was born in Tehran, said the clerical regime in the capital Tehran does not exercise solid control over the provinces, which resembles parts of South America where some governments lost sovereignty to militias.

He said that there are no reporters in the restive region. As a result, it is difficult to secure accurate news. Sabti said the “IRGC has a headquarters there to fight against these Baluchis.” The JMM coalition “can only continue to harm the soldiers and, from time to time, kill a commander. There are a lot of these local commanders in Iran. It is not like an air force commander.”