At least 10 police officers were killed in an attack on a convoy in Iran’s restive southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan on Saturday, authorities said.
The attack occurred in Gohar Kuh, approximately 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) southeast of the Iranian capital, Tehran. Initial reports described an assault by “miscreants” without providing further details.
HalVash, an advocacy group for the Baluch people of Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan, shared photos and video of what appeared to be a disabled truck with the green stripe used by Iranian police vehicles. One graphic photo showed the apparent corpses of two police officers in the front seat of the truck. HalVash said the attack seemed to target two security force vehicles, with all occupants killed. The truck appeared to have only bullet damage, rather than any explosive being used.
Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported that Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni ordered an investigation into the incident, which it described as causing the “martyrdom of a number of police.”
No immediate suspects were identified, and no group claimed responsibility for the attack, which came after Israel launched a major assault across Iran earlier on Saturday.
The Baluch regions across the three nations have faced a low-level insurgency by Baluch nationalists for more than two decades. Verifying information in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province, long home to violence involving heroin traffickers, remains challenging.
Relations between the predominantly Sunni Muslim residents of the region and Iran’s Shiite theocracy have been strained. Typical attacks involve hit-and-run assaults by militants, like the Sunni militant group Jaish al-Adl, that kill a few security officials at a time. However, mass casualty attacks by militants have occurred in the past, with incidents in April and December of last year resulting in the deaths of several security personnel.
Meanwhile, the Taliban said they are investigating reports that Iranian security forces killed Afghan migrants in the region earlier in October, an incident that threatened to further strain relations between the two nations.
