The recent clashes in Kurram in the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, once called the most “dangerous place on earth,” have generally escaped international notice. Perhaps this is perceived as just a localized tribal territorial dispute. Clashes between Sunni and Shia tribes occurred in Kurram in August 2024, along Pakistan’s northwestern border with Afghanistan, resulting in at least 46 deaths and nearly 200 injuries. The violence erupted due to a land dispute between the Shia-majority Maleekhel tribe and the Sunni-majority Madgi Kalay tribe. A ceasefire was reached after an extensive grand jirga (informal tribal dispute resolution body) involving tribal elders, civilians, and security officials. Despite a temporary halt to the fighting, the region remains tense, with disrupted daily life and ongoing efforts to resolve the land dispute permanently.
Administratively, FATA does not exist any longer; the merger of FATA into the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province of Pakistan has marked a significant milestone in Pakistan’s administrative landscape. This historic move formalized through the 25th Constitutional Amendment in May 2018, aimed to integrate the region into the national mainstream governance framework. The previously defined tribal agencies, Kurram among them, are now designated newly merged districts (NMDs), emphasizing implementing uniform legal and administrative systems. This transition was expected to foster socio-economic development, improve law and order, and ensure the provision of basic services to the residents of these areas, who had long been marginalized. However, how much it has contributed to improving the law and order situation is debatable. Pakistan’s major anti-state group, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan(TTP), has as one of its main agendas, asked for the annulment of the merger of FATA.
Kurram has certainly seen its share of problems since it became, theoretically, the same as any other city in Pakistan; this latest sectarian clash was not the first such incident, nor is it likely to be the last. However, this “Lashkarkashi” or armed mobilization of tribes has deeper implications for security, terrorism, and proxy war in the region. It is just one facet of a complex web encompassing Pakistan, Iran, and the United States.
To understand how a tribal feud is tied into all this, some context is necessary. Geographically, Kurram is hemmed in by Afghanistan to the north, and is almost encircled by erstwhile North Waziristan, Orakzai, and Khyber areas; the Peshawar-Thall-Parachinar Road is the only way in and out of Kurram. Locals have tended to avoid this dangerous route in times of militancy, preferring to use alternate routes in Afghanistan. The Kurram area is mostly inhabited mainly by the Shia Bangash tribe, which makes it anti-Taliban by default. The other tribe, Turi, of Turkic origin, has also constantly been at loggerheads with pro-Taliban, and Deobandi elements in the neighboring areas.
The Shia Hazara tribes have a long history of being targeted by the Taliban as well in the area and are vehemently anti-Taliban. Even though Sunnis and Shias have lived together in the area for decades, the co-existence has not always been peaceful; Kurram has a longstanding history of sectarian feuds between Shia and Sunni tribes, starting in the 1960s and erupting sporadically till now.
Before the emergence of the Taliban in Pakistan however, the feuds were fiercely territorial, often erupting over resources, under the guise of sectarianism. However, after TTP came into existence, a time between 2005-2007, sectarian clashes in Kurram took an even more ominous note. There is a perception within the Shias in Kurram that it was the Sunni tribes that “invited” the Taliban into the area. Hakimullah Mehsud’s TTP group had infiltrated the area at the height of TTP’s ascendancy in Pakistan, and it was said to be at the behest of some Sunni tribes, according to many Shias. This is even though it was mainly Sunni areas outside of Parachinar that were overrun by the TTP, an aspect many Kurram Sunnis mention, as a rebuttal of the Shia perception.
“From 2007 to 2010, frequent large-scale clashes occurred between Sunni and Shia tribes in Central and Upper Kurram. Sunni tribes (Mangal, Moqbil, Para Chamkani, Ali Sherzai, among others) reportedly received support from militant groups like Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, Sipah-i-Sahaba, Lashkar-i-Tayyiba, al-Qaida, and Haqqani fighters. In contrast, Shi`a tribes (Turi, Bangash, among others) were allegedly supported by Iranian-affiliated Kurram Hizb Allah and the Mahdi Militia.”
– CTC Sentinel
Notably, the Shia tribes contained the TTP just outside Parachinar, despite heavy loss of life. TTP blockaded key routes leading into Parachinar, effectively cutting off the city from the rest of Pakistan. This siege led to severe shortages of essential goods and medical supplies, further exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in the region. Nevertheless, Parachinar is one of the tribal cities that was not overrun or even penetrated by the TTP, a fact in which the Shia in Kurram takes great pride, citing this as their service in defense of their homeland.
However, this defense of Parachinar took an immense toll; hundreds were killed and thousands displaced. Despite the difficulties, TTP never really gained traction in Parachinar city.
On the other hand, to fend off an enemy like TTP, the magnitude of militarization of the Shia tribes needs to be considered, a context in which the Al-Zainabiyoun Brigade has a part to play. Also known as the Zainebiyoun Brigade or Liwa Zainebiyoun, it was established by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in 2013, coinciding with the Islamic Republic’s military intervention in Syria aimed at supporting President Bashar Al-Assad. At the time Iran despatched its other proxies to the Syrian regime as well, like Iraq’s Nujaba Movement, Hezbollah, as well as Iran’s Afghan Shite proxy, the Fatemiyoun Brigade or Liwa Fatemiyoun.
Iran implicitly acknowledged its association with the group in January 2020, when the flag of this group was displayed in the background in a media interview, along with flags of other Iranian-backed groups. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force, gave this interview in the wake of the American assassination of Quds Force leader Qasem Soleimani.
The Zainabiyoun Brigade is named after the Sayyidah Zainab shrine, a venerated Shiite pilgrimage site near Damascus. This was attacked by Sunni militants in ISIS heydays, invoking the indoctrination of a large contingent of Shia fighters, to defend the shrine. Reportedly, Pakistani volunteers formed a “Zainabiyoun” unit dedicated to protecting the Sayyidah Zainab shrine. This has shaped the identity of Zainabiyoun Brigade as a “defender of the shrine,” and by implication, of Shia identity.
Initially, recruits in the Brigade were thought to be mainly from Pakistani Shias, notably from the city of Parachinar in Kurram. The devoted Shia from Kurram, and other parts of the country, regularly perform pilgrimage to Iran every year to worship at the sacred shrines there; this religious practice has become a source of recruitment. Many young people stay on to become seminary students in Iran, or get some kind of a job; this coincides with phases of training and indoctrination into the Brigade. Recruitment has been reportedly centered around the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad, while some sources say that Al-Mustafa International University, located in the city of Qom in Iran is also pivotal to this recruitment. Now, the Zainabiyoun Brigade in Pakistan reportedly consists mainly of Shias, mostly recruited from the Shia population of Kurram.
Even though Pakistan has been troubled by this group for years, it has only recently banned it, in April 2024. A significant reason for this delayed reaction has partly been the complex geopolitics of the area. Iran has historically been perceived as a steadfast ally of Pakistan, but this relationship has been strained in recent years.
Over decades, Pakistan has been a target of a proxy sectarian war fought between Saudi Arabia, which backs Sunni groups, and Iran, which is the main sponsor of Shia militant outfits. However, Pakistan’s relations with both countries are inimical to its foreign policy. Saudi Arabia has been a benefactor in terms of exported labor to the kingdom and helped with economic bailouts in Pakistan’s strained economic times, while Iran is symbolic of the unity of the “ummah,” and a bulwark against Indian ambitions in the region.
Pakistan shares a porous border with Iran through its province of Balochistan; the area is a major hub for Iranian goods, and a significant portion of the province’s electricity is supplied by Iran. The Pakistan Petroleum Dealers Association reported in May 2023 that 35% of the diesel sold in Pakistan was smuggled from Iran, driven by rising inflation. Pakistan’s border areas with Iran have been hinterlands for Iranian smuggled goods, which are considered more accessible, cheaper, and of higher quality by Pakistanis living in these areas. All of this and more has worked out over the years, but all has not been well recently.
A major thorn in Iran’s side has been the Baloch Sunni militant group Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice), which has been designated as a terrorist group by Iran, Pakistan, and the United States. Jaish al-Adl has targeted Iran several times, such as the killing of 10 Iranian guards in April 2017, the kidnapping of 12 Iranian security personnel in October 2018, the killing of 11 Iranian police officers in 2023, etc. There have been many other militant attacks, which the Iranians have implicitly or tacitly blamed on Pakistan, and implied that it is not doing enough to stop Jaish-al-Adl.
Events took a nasty turn this year when Iran conducted missile attacks inside Pakistan, allegedly targeting Jaish al-Adl in the Panjgur area of Balochistan. Within 48 hours, Pakistan had responded by launching an offensive in Iran’s Sistan-o-Baluchistan province. Pakistan’s foreign ministry issued an official statement, saying that “Pakistan’s armed forces executed meticulously planned and coordinated strikes against terrorist strongholds in Iran’s Sistan-o-Baluchistan province.” Subsequently, both countries engaged in damage control by diplomacy, to try and ease over the tension that had been escalating. Nevertheless, the situation remains largely unresolved.
In Kurram, years after the defeat of the TTP at Parachinar, the locals remain apprehensive about the impending possibility of another TTP offensive, fuelled by escalating terrorism in Pakistan over the previous three years. There have been reports of TTP permeating again into the area, this time through adjacent Afghanistan, where TTP is now mainly based. This has ostensibly boosted Shia militarization in anticipation of renewed TTP incursions; much of this is driven by the perception that the Parachinar locals have to get ready to defend themselves, once again.
Zainabiyoun Brigade has presumably been ready to comply by militarizing the Shia in Kurram; there has reportedly been increased indoctrination of young people from the area into the group. Spurred by the incentives of jobs that can support their families back home, young men are at times indoctrinated into the group. On return after pilgrimage from Iran, many pick up some level of training by the Brigade.
This has complicated the Gordian knot of sectarianism in the area, often demonstrated by the lethality of sectarian feuds witnessed, whose magnitude in terms of mobilization has become progressively worse. Reportedly, Pakistani fighters, from both Shia and Sunni tribes, maintain large arsenals of weapons. These feuds perpetuate a cycle of violence, whereby young people, perceiving a grievous necessity, are pushed into the arms of one proxy group or the other, the Zainabiyoun Brigade being a major beneficiary in terms of recruitment.
This has border implications; just as the desecration of Bibi Zainab’s shrine prompted the formation of this group, as can the recent surges in the Israel- Palestinian conflict. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a prolonged and complex geopolitical struggle, has significant implications far beyond the immediate region. The conflict has now, more than ever, increasingly become a rallying cry for extremist groups worldwide, who leverage the situation to recruit, radicalize, and justify acts of violence. Graphic images and videos from the conflict zone are disseminated rapidly, evoking strong emotional responses and reinforcing the extremist narrative. This has already rang alarm bells regarding international terror plots; American intelligence sources have stated that the potent Hezbollah apparatus is already mobilizing for such attacks. Hezbollah’s global reach can be estimated by the fact that they were perceived to be present in Kurram as early as 2007 when the TTP started to threaten Kurram. This is probably the time when the seeds of the idea of having an indigenously recruited, mainly Kurram-based Shia militia, were sown in Iran.
The Brigade is not Hezbollah, but it is certainly potent; now a significant group with thousands of fighters, and emulating its larger Shia cousin, the Zainabiyoun Brigade could also be prompted to rejoin the international stage. It needs to be remembered that the Brigade came into the international spotlight in northern Syria, during the Turkish Idlib campaign, when scores of Zainabiyoun fighters were reported killed. Thus, the Brigade possesses international networks connecting the group to the Middle East; these could ostensibly be revived again. Logically, it must already be.
In the Pakistani context, the addition of highly trained young men by the Zainabiyoun Brigade adds fuel to the sectarian conflict brimming in Kurram; the clashes or “lashkarkashi” between Sunni and Shia tribes have consequently been getting more frequent and deadly because of this. The supply of trained warriors and weapons to bolster the Shia tribes by Iran incentivizes these tribesmen to be more aggressive in their stances, adding another challenge to the Pakistani state in addressing the unrest in Kurram.
The Pakistani Government recently discovered that a spate of targeted killings of Sunni high-profile targets, hitherto unclaimed by any terrorist outfit and categorized under “street crimes” were due to the extremist group. Their local chapter Brigade Commander Syed Hussain Mousavi alias Muslim, was held accountable for at least 17 sectarian killings in Karachi between September 2023 and February 2024. There was a lull in the spate of sectarian killings after Pakistani authorities arrested two Zainabiyoun Brigade militants, Waqar Abbas and Hussain Akbar. This also adds a dimension of further instability to the sectarian violence in Pakistan, whereby any Shia mobilization has historically been viewed as a challenge by the Sunni militant groups to retaliate and become more aggressive in their outlook.
The Brigade has not been idle in Pakistan; it has surreptitiously been “hitting” sectarian targets without claiming them, which often brings such terrorist entities into the public eye. By avoiding the spotlight, the Brigade has steadily been at work trying to ignite sectarian violence and tension in Pakistan. The degree of penetration of this group within Pakistani cities, notably Karachi, the financial hub of Pakistan, is only now being discovered. The Brigade chooses targets strategically to cause maximum impact; for instance, in 2019, it attempted to assassinate Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani, a top Pakistani cleric venerated by the Sunni population. The cleric narrowly escaped with his life. The assassin who attempted this was arrested five years after the incident, which belies that the impact of the terrorist group’s activity has only started to sink in with Pakistani law enforcement. Not coincidentally, this comes at a time when Iran-Pakistan relations are frosty.
Sunni sectarian terrorist groups, however, have been at loggerheads with the Pakistani Shia militia for years, and have attempted to hit the Shia community in its heartlands. As early as 2017 for instance, Lashkar-i-Jhangvi al-Alami killed at least 25 people and injured dozens through a terrorist bombing in a crowded marketplace in Parachinar. Lashkar-i-Jhangvi al-Alami at the time stated that it was responding to the Brigade’s activities “to teach a lesson to Shias for their support for Al-Assad.”
Besides its obvious recruitment strategy in Kurram, the Brigade is said to have support in Gilgit Baltistan. However, the local Pakistani sectarian situation is rapidly changing; it will be affected by the global scenario in the context of militant mobilization in response to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. With Iran and the Middle East in a volatile stand-off, and Iran-Pakistan relations at their most tense in years, it is logical to expect that the Zainabiyoun Brigade will continue becoming a bigger player in sectarian terrorism and Iranian proxy wars in the region. Logically, the Brigade must have stepped up its recruitment efforts in the Kurram and other Shia-majority areas of Pakistan.
Thus, the so-called “tribal clashes” in Kurram serve as a microcosm of the broader sectarian and geopolitical struggles in the region, whereby the involvement of the Zainabiyoun Brigade has led to an escalation in both the frequency and intensity of these conflicts. These conflicts, in the guise of tribal feuds, represent a critical flashpoint that could have far-reaching implications not only for Pakistan but also for regional and global security. The fact that these tribal feuds are not recognized widely as the manifestation of a wider mobilization, underscores the urgent need for a comprehensive and sustainable resolution to the conflicts in Kurram.
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The author is a counter-terrorism academic and practitioner.