Four Iranian police officers were murdered on Sunday as militants opened fire on a patrol near the border with Pakistan in the restive southeastern region of Sistan-Baluchistan, according to official television.
“Three policemen were martyred in a terrorist attack on a police patrol unit,” according to state news agency IRNA.
According to state television, a fourth person died later from his injuries. The attack’s circumstances were not immediately known.
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Unrest in the impoverished Sistan-Baluchistan province has included drug smuggling gangs, Baluchi minority insurgents, and extremist groups.
On July 8, two police officers and four assailants were murdered in the province following a grenade and gun battle claimed by the terrorist Jaish al-Adl group.
In May, five Iranian border guards were killed in confrontations with an armed group near Saravan, southeast of Zahedan, Sistan-Baluchistan’s province capital.
According to state media at the time, the attack was carried out by “a terrorist group seeking to infiltrate the country,” but its members “fled the scene after suffering injuries.”
In late May, IRNA quoted a police official, Qassem Rezaee, as stating that “Taliban forces” had opened fire on an Iranian police post in Sistan-Baluchistan, a drought-stricken region bordering Afghanistan. Water rights have been a source of contention between the two countries.
Zahedan was also the site of violent riots last September over the alleged rape of a teenage girl by a police officer, which resulted in scores of deaths.
