The base is located in Zahedan, the provincial capital of Sistan and Baluchestan, and “is fit to accommodate various types of combat, support, and rescue helicopters, as well as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs),” IRNA said.
During the inaugural ceremony, attended by both IRGC chief Hossein Salami and commander of the Guards’ ground forces Mohammed Pakpour, the latter said that the base will support the IRGC’s “various defense, rescue, logistics, and relief missions” in southeast Iran.
A number of Balochi jihadist groups in southeast Iran, primarily the Jaish al-Adl (Justice Army), have waged an insurgency against the Islamic republic and carry out attacks against the IRGC.
In 2021, an attack by the group in the city of 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 area. The administration of former US president Donald Trump added the group to the list of Foreign Terrorist Organisations in July 2019, five months after the group carried out a deadly suicide attack on the IRGC.
The attack killed 27 guards near the Sistan and Baluchestan’s provincial capital of Zahedan.
Amid massive countrywide protests over the death of Kurdish woman Zhina (Mahsa) Amini in morality police custody, the IRGC on September 30 fired at protestors in Zahedan, killing at least 100 and wounding many more.
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