Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz
The Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz (; abbreviated ASMLA) is an Arab nationalist and separatist insurgent group which advocates the secession of Khuzestan Province from Iran and the establishment of an Arab state, a goal which it is attempting to achieve by waging a direct and violent conflict against Iran. Headquartered in Denmark and the Netherlands, ASMLA has claimed responsibility for several assassinations, attacks against energy infrastructure and civilian soft targets, including 2005–06 Ahvaz bombings and Ahvaz military parade attack in 2018. The group is currently classified as a terrorist  organization by the Iranian government. History. In 1999, Habib Jabbar, Habib Asewad Kaabi and Ahmad Mola Nissi established the ASMLA in Europe, financed and sponsored by Saudi Arabia. In September 2012, head of the ASMLA met Mohammad Riad al-Shaqfeh, his counterpart in the Muslim Brotherhood of Syria, indicating a potential cooperation between the two organizations. Organization. According to Casey Donahue, since 2007 the group has operated in two headquarters located in Denmark and the Netherlands, but in October 2015 the ASMLA experienced a schism. Both Dutch and Danish factions use the same name and flag, and continue to claim  they control the 'Martyrs Brigade', ASMLA's military wing. Leadership. The Danish faction is based in Copenhagen and led by Habib Jaber al-Ka'abi (born , Habib Jabor). He was a teacher and principal in schools of Ahvaz and immigrated to Denmark in the mid-1990s. al-Ka'abi holds Danish citizenship and is under full protection of Denmark's security services. On 30 October 2018, the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (DSIS) accused "Iran of plotting assassination on Danish soil", planning to kill the leader of ASMLA, who lives there. The threat of an assassination was the source of a country-wide  police action in Denmark on 28 September. DSIS announced that three persons related to ASMLA are under police protection, and that there still is an active threat. Iran dismissed the accusations. The founding leader of the Dutch faction based in The Hague was Ahmad Mola Nissi, who was killed in November 2017. Nicholas A. Heras wrote in 2019 that after Nissi's death, al-Ka’abi is the sole leader of ASMLA, however Casey Donahue maintains that Nissi was succeeded by Saddam Hattem in June 2018. In October 2020, Iran arrested a leader of the group named Habib Chaab, who was  based in Sweden and holds Swedish citizenship, in Turkey. He was lured by a female agent. Ideology. ASMLA's profile on Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium repository and a piece published by the Jamestown Foundation in 2011 suggest that the group is Ba'athist, the latter also mentioning that in 2007 it had recognized Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri as the successor of Saddam Hussein and the new leader of the Iraqi Ba’ath party. The group refers to Iran as the "Persian enemy" and says that it wants to "liberate Ahwaz lands and people from the Iranian occupation". It pictures the territory of  its proposed state to be beyond Khuzestan Province borders, including Zagros Mountains and the northern coasts of the Persian Gulf. Hamid Dabashi, professor of Iranian Studies at Columbia University, who was born and raised in Ahvaz, states that it is a cosmopolitan and pluralist city with people from different ethnic backgrounds, while the separatists make an exclusive and absolutist claim on the city due to a "decidedly racialised, ethnicised" and "narrow-minded ethno-nationalist" ideology. Military wing. The military wing of ASMLA is named Mohiuddin Nasser Martyrs Brigade (MMDNB). It kept a low profile between 2006 and 2011. In 2019 , an analyst affiliated with the group told the Jamestown Foundation that the military wing of the ASMLA has about 300 members operating inside Iran, but there is no independent verification for this number. The following cells has been named in the group's statements as part of the military wing: Terrorist designation. Iran designates ASMLA as a terrorist organization. As of 2022, no other country has officially listed the organization. In February 2020, Dutch police arrested one ASMLA member in Delft for membership of a terrorist organization and suspicion of planning terrorist attacks inside Iran, despite the fact the European  Union does not consider ASMLA a terrorist group. Earlier, three suspected ASMLA members had been arrested in November 2018 by Police of Denmark, which announced they were "suspected of violating the Danish law... on condoning terrorism". Foreign sponsorship. Iran has accused Saudi Arabia of supporting the group, which the Saudis have rejected. Finn Borch Andersen, chief of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET), told the press in February 2020 that his agency had arrested three members of the ASMLA who have been spying for a Saudi Arabian intelligence service in Denmark from 2012 to 2018. In November 2020, Iranian  Ministry of Intelligence published what it said was secret correspondence between ASMLA and the Saudi intelligence agency General Intelligence Presidency. Nazanin Soroush, writing in a April 2015 issue of "Jane's Intelligence Weekly", comments that ASMLA is likely to receive foreign support from Iran's opponents, and act as a proxy. Rasmus Christian Elling of the University of Copenhagen suggests that the group has probably received support from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, stating "there are certain indications that groups such as ASMLA are receiving support, either from private individuals or state institutions in Gulf countries. It would  be interesting, for example, to know how they can afford to launch TV stations with brand new equipment in places such as the Netherlands and Denmark". In April of 2021 Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) charged three senior members of ASMLA for aiding and abetting terrorism, illegal intelligence activities as well as financing and promoting terrorism in Iran in collaboration with Saudi intelligence.