ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Two Iranian police officers were killed and another was wounded when gunmen opened fire on a patrol in Iran’s southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan province on Monday, provincial police said, the latest in a string of attacks and clashes involving security forces in the restive province.
The attack targeted a patrol from the Nokju police station on the Bampur-Iranshahr road as officers were conducting security patrols, according to the Sistan-Baluchestan police public relations office. The force identified the two officers killed as Amirhossein Ghasemi and Nezam Dastgoshadeh.
Police said another officer was wounded and security forces were searching for the attackers. No group immediately claimed responsibility.
Monday’s attack is the latest in a series of deadly security incidents across Sistan-Baluchestan in recent weeks, with police, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) personnel and members of armed Baluchi groups killed in attacks and clashes across the province.
Baluchi rights monitor Haalvsh said the patrol consisted of three vehicles traveling on the Bampur-Iranshahr road when gunmen opened fire. It said one vehicle was directly hit and another overturned, while the third managed to leave the scene. Haalvsh initially reported that at least three people in one of the targeted vehicles had been killed, but later noted that provincial police confirmed two officers dead and another wounded.
The latest attack follows an assault on a police checkpoint in Rask on Thursday that killed First Sergeant Alireza Sanchouli. Iranian authorities did not identify the attackers, and no group immediately claimed responsibility.
A day later, Iranian security forces carried out operations around the villages of Bidlad and Shushgim in Rask County following an attack on an intelligence office elsewhere in the province. Haalvsh reported hours of gunfire and explosions, while Iranian state-affiliated media confirmed armed clashes in the area.
The province has also seen heavier clashes in recent weeks. Brigadier General Hossein Zarifi, commander of the IRGC’s Shahid Sajjad Operational Base in Saravan, and Ahmad Herati Zera’ati, the base’s intelligence chief, were killed during fighting in late September. The IRGC confirmed Zarifi’s death in a statement carried by the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim news agency.
Sistan-Baluchestan borders Pakistan and Afghanistan and has long faced attacks by armed Baluchi groups and security operations by Iranian forces. Jaish al-Adl, one of the best-known armed groups operating in the region, has said it fights for greater political, religious and economic rights for Iran’s predominantly Sunni Baluch minority. The group has carried out repeated attacks on Iranian security forces.
Iranian authorities routinely accuse armed groups operating in the southeast of receiving foreign support, including from the United States and Israel. The IRGC used similar language following the recent Saravan clashes, describing those involved as “mercenary terrorists” linked to Iran’s adversaries.
Sistan-Baluchestan is among Iran’s poorest and least-developed provinces, with longstanding economic and infrastructure disparities compared with much of the country.
