ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iranian security forces killed one person and arrested another during a raid in Iran’s southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan province last week, according to Baloch rights groups, amid a recent increase in armed clashes in the region.
Haalvsh, a Baloch rights group, said Saturday that Iranian security forces killed 28-year-old Obeid Zardkouhi and arrested 28-year-old Jasem Jamali during a raid on Zardkouhi’s home on Friday in Iranshahr County. Jamali was taken to an unknown location, the group said.
Oslo-based rights group Hengaw separately reported on Sunday that Iranian forces opened fire without warning during the incident.
In another incident on Thursday, Haalvsh said a vehicle carrying 9-year-old Mohammad Amin Dehqan and his father, Ehsan Dehqan, was fired upon in Jihadabad, Saravan Country, as the father was transporting drinking water.
Haalvsh said the father was wounded and took his son to Razi Hospital, where the boy later died from the severity of his head injuries.
Local sources told Haalvsh that the family had been travelling on a road where heavy clashes had taken place the previous day between Iranian security forces and unidentified armed men.
The rights group said it had received no independent evidence linking the father and son or their vehicle to the reported armed clashes.
Iranian security forces have not issued a public statement on either incident.
The reported incidents come amid a series of armed clashes in Sistan-Baluchestan this month.
On Wednesday, Iranian military and security forces clashed with unidentified gunmen in Jihadabad, Saravan County. Haalvsh reported heavy gunfire and the deployment of additional Iranian forces, including a helicopter.
Three members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) were killed in clashes with Baloch militants in the clashes, according to Iranian media. The People’s Fighters Front said one of its units came under attack by Iranian military and security forces.
Brigadier General Hossein Zarifi, commander of the Shahid Sajjad operational base in Saravan, and Ahmad Herati Zeraati, the base’s intelligence officer, were killed during the fighting alongside four of its own armed group members.
Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency later published a video from the area and quoted provincial security affairs deputy governor Ali Khalilabadi as saying three members of an armed group were killed during an operation there.
Khalilabadi said confronting “armed cells” in southern Sistan and Baluchestan remained a priority for the province's security and law enforcement agencies, according to Tasnim.
