Eleven security personnel killed in Iran police station attack: State TV | News

A number of wounded in taking pictures in province of Sistan-Baluchestan which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan.

A minimum of 11 Iranian safety personnel have been killed in an assault on a police station within the southeastern border province of Sistan-Baluchestan, state tv reported.

Alireza Marhamati, deputy governor of the province, stated on Friday that senior law enforcement officials and troopers have been killed and injured within the 2am (22:30 GMT Thursday) assault within the city of Rask, about 1,400km (875 miles) southwest of the capital, Tehran.

Quite a lot of assailants have been additionally killed in a shootout that ensued with the safety forces, in keeping with state tv stories.

The assault was one of many deadliest in years within the area near Iran’s border with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Jaish al-Adl (Military of Justice), a Sunni armed group, claimed duty for the assault, state media stated. Jaish al-Adl was shaped in 2012 and is blacklisted by Iran as a “terror” group.

Unrest has plagued the impoverished province of Sistan-Baluchestan due to drugs-smuggling gangs, rebels from the Baluchi minority and Sunni Muslim hardliners.

Safety forces often focused

Related assaults have beforehand taken place, together with in July when 4 policemen have been killed whereas on patrol. That assault got here two weeks after two policemen and 4 assailants have been killed in a shootout within the province, for which Jaish al-Adl claimed duty.

In Might, 5 Iranian border guards died in clashes with an armed group in Saravan, southeast of Zahedan, the provincial capital of Sistan-Baluchestan.

State media reported on the time that the assault was carried out by “a terrorist group that was looking for to infiltrate the nation” however whose members “fled the scene after struggling accidents”.

In late Might, state-run information company IRNA quoted police official Qassem Rezaee as saying that “Taliban forces” had shot at an Iranian police station in Sistan-Baluchestan, a drought-hit area. Iran and Afghanistan have been at odds over water rights.

Zahedan, one of many few Sunni-majority cities in predominantly Shia Iran, was additionally the positioning of months-long lethal protests that erupted in September final 12 months over the alleged rape of a teenage woman by a police officer.

Jaish al-Adl and its affiliate teams based mostly in Pakistan have been accused of committing cross-border assaults towards Iranian forces.