ISLAMABAD -- The war with the U.S. and Israel has emboldened Iranian militants who are weakening Tehran's control in a remote southeastern province, with insurgents seizing territory near the Pakistan border, some analysts say.

In recent months, Sunni militants in Iran's Sistan and Baluchestan province have intensified ambushes, roadside bombings targeting Iranian security forces and attacks on security installations. ACLED, a global conflict monitor, recorded 70 armed attacks by Sunni militants in the province from January through the first week of October, saying such cases are "already at the highest annual level in at least a decade." Separately, Human Rights Activists News Agency, a U.S.-based Iranian human rights news organization, has documented 94 deaths from militant attacks since March.

On Sept. 23, Brig. Gen. Hossein Zarifi, a top commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was killed during a security operation in Saravan, a city near the border with Pakistan.

Some attacks have been carried out by an alliance called the People's Fighters Front, also known by its Persian acronym JMM. According to Long War Journal, a U.S.-based security publication, the group comprises organizations such as Jaish al-Adl, the leading Sunni Baloch militant organization, the PADA Baloch Movement, Harakat-e Nasr Balochistan, and the Mohammad Rasulullah group.

According to JMM's founding charter, shared online, the group's declared objectives include ending Iran's current clerical system in the Shia-majority country, protecting the political, cultural and religious rights of the Baloch population, which is largely Sunni, and bringing about broader political changes.

Armed militancy in the province gained prominence in the early 2000s with the emergence of Jundallah, which translates as Soldiers of God, a separatist Sunni militant group led by Abdolmalek Rigi. Following Rigi's execution by Iran in 2010, the movement splintered, and Jaish al-Adl emerged around 2012 as its principal successor, continuing attacks on Iranian security forces.

Two analysts have told Nikkei Asia that, with the rising number of attacks, the militant group could attempt to seize territory in Sistan and Baluchestan province if the U.S. launches a full-scale attack on Iran after Americans vote on Tuesday.

"The Iran-U.S. conflict again gave insurgents in this region an incentive to attack Iranian security forces, as they are now also preoccupied with preparing to fight another war against the U.S.," said Umer Karim, an associate fellow at the Riyadh-based King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, referring to the short-lived conflict in 2025 as a precedent.

Karim added that this time the U.S. would focus on supporting the Baloch insurgents to take over territory. "This would present Iran with a unique challenge of a war on its home turf," he said, "making it difficult to fully focus on its attacks against targets across the [Middle East] region or against U.S. installations." Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based think tank, agreed, noting that the insurgents see an opportunity in Tehran's preoccupation with confronting the U.S. and Israel.

"They may calculate that Iran's weakened security capacity gives them greater freedom to operate," he said. "Growing instability along the Pakistani border could disrupt vital trade routes and force Iran to divert security resources eastward.

"The greater danger is that a prolonged war could turn localized grievances into a broader challenge to national cohesion [in Iran]." The Baloch ethnic minority in Sistan and Baluchestan province makes up an estimated 2% to 4% of Iran's population, according to the International Crisis Group.

Vatanka, also the author of "Iran and Pakistan: Security, Diplomacy and American Influence," said the underlying causes of tension are ethnic, economic and sectarian grievances, and resentment toward Tehran's security policies. "The war has aggravated these tensions by stretching Iran's security apparatus and deepening economic hardship in an already marginalized region," he said.

A deteriorated security situation in Iran's southeastern province could negatively affect Pakistan. With many experts noting that Pakistan's Balochistan province, which neighbors Iran's Sistan and Baluchestan province, is already destabilized, Karim warns that Islamabad could lose a "security partner" in the border region.

"In case of heightened violence on the Iranian side and weakening of the Iranian state's writ," he said, "Pakistan will no longer have a security partner to coordinate on the Iranian side." Adnan Aamir is a contributing writer.