World
Gunmen kill two police in Iran’s southeast: State media
Assailants have shot dead two Iranian policemen in Sistan-Baluchistan province, state media reported, the latest in a spate of attacks on security forces in the southeastern region.
The attack occurred in the rugged countryside near Iran’s border with Pakistan, the official news agency IRNA reported late Wednesday.
For all the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.
“The terrorist attack on a police unit at Taftan in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan killed two policemen,” IRNA said.
The identity of the assailants and circumstances surrounding the attack were not immediately clear.
Unrest in impoverished Sistan-Baluchistan province — which also borders Afghanistan — has involved drugs-smuggling gangs, rebels from the Baluchi minority and Sunni Muslim extremists.
Similar attacks have previously occurred, including on July 23 when four policemen were killed while on patrol.
That came two weeks after two policemen and four assailants were killed in a shootout in the province later claimed by the Jaish al-Adl militant group.
In late May, police said in a report by IRNA that “Taliban forces” had shot at an Iranian police station in Sistan-Baluchistan.
The Sistan-Baluchistan provincial capital Zahedan was also the scene of deadly protests that flared in September last year over the alleged rape of a teenage girl by a police officer.
With AFP
Read more:
Iran hangs 11 from Baluch minority on drug charges in 48 hours: NGO
Iran’s top Sunni cleric says barred from Hajj by Iranian authorities
Iran, Taliban fight on border with Afghanistan as sound of gunfire heard