Pointillism in the Middle East

A trap bloggers can sometimes fall into is to assume the answers to everything are open source and available somewhere in the public domain. Such is not always the case, especially when it comes to making sense of intelligence operations.

We often see many dots, but we may not see all of them, and connecting the dots can be a challenge.

But, we can certainly take a swipe at filling in the gaps, can't we.

There was another sign today of unrest in Khuzestan, the southwestern Iranian province that is home to an Arab population. Ahvaz, the provincial capital, was the scene of bomb attacks just last month.

Two grenades exploded Monday in a southwestern Iranian province known for unrest among its Arab population, wounding at least four people, the official Iranian news agency reported.

The grenades went off in restrooms in local government offices in Abadan and Dezful in Khuzestan province, the Islamic Republic News Agency said, citing official sources.

The agency described the blasts as "terrorist acts," saying they wounded two people in each town.

Oil-rich Khuzestan has a history of violence involving members of Iran's Arab minority. Several bombs exploded in the provincial capital of Ahvaz in January and last year.

An Iranian Arab insurgent group, the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz, claimed responsibility for the Jan. 24 blasts, which killed six people and wounded 46. The Iranian government blamed the bombings on Britain and United States, which denied any involvement.

Britain has 8,500 troops in southern Iraq, across the border from Khuzestan, serving in the U.S.-led multinational force.

With British troops just over the border from this province, I am curious as to whether or not the Arab groups in the Iranian groups are receiving any assistance from the British, and/or the US. I especially wonder because of this incident over the weekend. The British embassy in Tehran was attacked by a mob.

Several hundred students threw stones and firebombs at the British embassy in Tehran yesterday in protest at the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Iraq.

A number of windows were broken in the embassy and firebombs went off outside its walls during the two-hour protest.

Eventually, Iranian police wielding sticks dispersed the demonstrators.

Nearly 1,000 students had gathered outside the embassy and held a peaceful protest, chanting "Death to America" and "Death to Britain".

They blamed the two countries for Wednesday's bombing of the shrine in the Iraqi town of Samarra.

As I wrote about here, it seems likely that Iran used the cartoon controversy as a pretext to allow the Danish and Norwegian missions to be attacked, to send a message quite unrelated to the cartoons.

I wonder if this is a similar case. I don't doubt there are Shiites in Iran angry over the destruction of the Golden Dome in Samarra, and given the lack of a US embassy in Tehran, they might strike out at America's partner in Iraq, Great Britain.

However, the protestors would be a convenient pretext for Iran to send Britain a warning to back off on any aid to the Arab insurgents in Khuzestan.

It's hard to believe a regime like Iran would allow such a mob to form and attack a foreign embassy, unless the regime wished to allow it.

Not a lot of dots to work with, true. However, we can only guess at the kind of smoldering war that is going on as Iran ratchets up the tensions in the region, and continues to wage war by proxy.