Iran says killed eight militants since attack on police in southeast

Iran’s military has killed eight Sunni Muslim militants in an operation in the restive southeast since a deadly attack last month on a police station, state media reported Tuesday.

Sunni militants from the Pakistan-based Jaish al-Adl group killed 10 police officers during a raid on October 26 in Sistan-Baluchistan province – one of the deadliest attacks in the region in recent months.

Sistan-Baluchistan, which straddles the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, is one of Iran’s most impoverished provinces.

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It has long been a flashpoint for cross-border attacks by separatists and Sunni militants, opposed to the authorities in Shia-majority Iran.

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Ahmad Shafahi said “a total of eight terrorists have been killed” since the beginning of operations in the province, according to the official IRNA news agency on Tuesday.

“Fourteen other terrorists have been arrested,” including key figures involved in the attack, he said, adding security forces seized weapons and ammunition.

Shortly after the attack in Taftan county, some 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) southeast of the capital Tehran, a report on the Tasnim news agency said four Sunni militants had been killed and four others arrested.

Late on Monday, IRNA quoted IRGC ground forces commander Mohammad Pakpour as saying the attackers “were not Iranian,” though he did not specify their nationalities.

In early October, at least six people including police officers were killed in two separate attacks in the province.

Jaish al-Adl said on Telegram they had carried out the attacks.

Formed in 2012 by Baluch separatists, the group is proscribed as a terrorist organization by both Iran and the United States.

With AFP

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