ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Two police officers were killed when militants equipped with suicide belts stormed a police station in southeast Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province on Saturday, state media said, adding that all four militants lost their lives during the assault.
“A number of unidentified armed men attacked the police station Number 16 in Zahedan. These people were equipped with suicide belts, and two people detonated [their belts],” IRNA said.
One policeman was initially reported to be killed during the attack by Sistan and Baluchestan prosecutor Mehdi Shamsabadi, but another policeman was reported dead later on Saturday.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said that all four members of the "terrorist team" that attacked the police station were killed.
A number of Balochi jihadist groups operate in southeast Iran, primarily the Jaish al-Adl (Justice Army) group. The militants have waged an insurgency against the Islamic republic and carried out attacks against its forces, especially the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Baluchis are a mainly Sunni ethnic minority in Iran, living predominantly in the Baluchestan region near the border with Pakistan. The region was heavily targeted during the violent crackdown by the IRGC on last September’s nationwide protests. Hundreds of Baluchis were killed by the IRGC during demonstrations in Zahedan and Khash.
In late May, at least five Iranian border guards were killed during clashes with an unnamed armed group in the Sistan and Baluchestan province.
Two years ago, a Jaish al-Adl attack in Saravan killed at least five guards of the IRGC and three others were taken prisoner.
Jaish al-Adl has carried out a number of suicide attacks on Iranian security forces, killing dozens in the border areas. The group was added to the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations in 2019 by the administration of former US president Donald Trump.
The designation was in response to a deadly attack by the group on the IRGC, which killed 27 guards near Sistan and Baluchestan’s provincial capital of Zahedan.
