Four ‘terrorists’ killed in attack on Iran military checkpoint

TEHRAN: Four ‘terrorists’ were killed after infiltrating Iran and attacking a military checkpoint in a southeastern border area, officials said.

The attack took place near the city of Saravan, about 50 kilometres from the Pakistani border, in the province of Sistan-Baluchistan, the Islamic Republic’s elite Revolutionary Guards said in a statement.

Revolutionary Guard troops fought off the attack, it said, saying one of the attackers was killed after detonating an explosive vest.

Two members of the Basiji paramilitary force affiliated with the Guards were wounded in the fight, during which one of the attackers was killed after detonating an explosive vest.

The Guards statement said three assailants had been killed but ground forces commander Brigadier General Mohammad Marani later updated the figure to four dead.

He said on state television that the assailants had mounted their attack from “the soil of a neighbouring country” but did not name the country.

In the past, Iran has accused Pakistan of supporting Jaish al-Adl, a jihadist group accused by Tehran of links to al-Qaeda, which has carried out numerous attacks in Sistan-Baluchistan.

Iranian media regularly reports armed clashes between security forces and criminal groups or ‘terrorists’ in the border province, whose residents are mostly Sunni members of the Baluchi ethnic minority.

From 2005 to 2010, Sistan-Baluchistan was destabilised by a rebellion led by a Sunni Baloch group Jundallah, ‘Soldiers of Allah’, whose activities virtually ceased after the execution of its leader in mid-2010.