Iran says ‘terrorist groups’ supported from outside the country are targeting security forces.
At least two Iranian security personnel have been killed in separate incidents along the country’s eastern border with Pakistan, adding to a string of attacks near the critical Chabahar port over the past few weeks.
An officer commanding a women’s unit in Iran’s Basij paramilitary force – part of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IGRC) – has been shot and killed outside her home in the Mehrestan district of Sistan-Baluchestan province on Wednesday, according to Tasnim news agency.
Another officer was killed in a separate attack on a police vehicle, also in Mehrestan, which lies close to Iran’s border with Pakistan.
On Wednesday, Haalvash, a rights group focusing on the region’s Baluch ethnic minority in the province, said military helicopters were circling over the city of Iranshahr, adding that the security situation remained tense in several locations.
Iran’s Sistan-Baluchestan province houses the critical Chabahar port on the country’s eastern flank, where US forces carried out air strikes targeting infrastructure and naval control facilities in July.
In recent months, the region has seen multiple attacks staged by groups that Iran’s government says are “terrorist outfits” being funded and supported from outside the country.
Last week, gunmen killed one person and injured three others while attacking a minibus transporting security personnel from a division stationed along the Makran coast, according to the official IRNA news agency.
In a separate incident, IRNA reported that “several terrorists” killed a police officer after attacking a convoy patrolling the area.
Earlier this month, IRGC’s Al Quds Force said it killed at least two suspected attackers and destroyed an alleged “terrorist cell” in an operation near Chabahar port.
The IRGC statement said it had launched the operation after the group killed a member of Iran’s security forces at a checkpoint near the city of Rasak.
IRGC said it had recovered a Starlink device, along with a large quantity of weapons, in the group’s mountainous hideout.