Sistan-Baluchestan | Pakistan

At least five Iranian police have been killed in an ambush in the restive Sistan-Baluchestan province, Iranian media reported on Friday. The unidentified assailants struck two units on patrol near the town of Iranshahr, the Fars news agency said, citing local police. “In this terrorist act, five servants of security and peace were martyred,” it quoted police as saying. Sistan-Baluchestan, which borders Pakistan and Afghanistan, has long been a flashpoint for clashes between security forces and armed groups, including drug traffickers and separatists. The province, which is home to a large Sunni Muslim Baloch minority, is one of the poorest regions of the Shia-majority country. Police said the officers had been on routine patrol when they came under fire. Iranian media published an image of a bullet-riddled police pickup with bodies lying on the ground nearby. An operation was underway to “track down and identify” the assailants, Fars said. No group immediately claimed responsibility. Iran regularly reports de...

At least six people were killed and 22 were injured in an armed attack by the Jaish al-Adl group on a courthouse in Iran’s restive Sistan-Baluchestan province on Saturday, state media reported. Three attackers were killed, according to the report by IRNA. Jaish al-Adl confirmed the deaths of its three members in the clashes with security forces in Zahedan, the capital of the far southeastern province bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan. A toddler and a 60-year-old woman were among those killed, as well as three soldiers and law enforcement personnel assigned to the courthouse, the head of the province’s judiciary told IRNA. He did not identify the sixth dead person. He said the attackers wore explosive vests and carried grenades. It was not clear if they had detonated them. Jaish al-Adl, which claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement on its Telegram account, said it had killed at least 30 members of the judiciary and security forces. It said it targeted judges and court personnel, whom it accused o...