ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - At least two members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Basij paramilitary force were killed by unidentified assailants in southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan province on Sunday, Iranian state media reported.
“This morning, in a blind and cowardly act, unknown armed assailants opened fire on a guard post on the Zahedan-Bam railway route,” read a statement from the IRGC. Officers Mohammad-Anvar Gomshadzehi and Abdolhossein Baluch, both from the region, were killed in the attack.
The day before, another IRGC colonel was killed during a training mission in Baluchestan’s Saravan border region.
Sistan and Baluchestan province, near the Pakistan border, is one of the only Sunni-majority provinces in Shiite-dominated Iran. A number of Baluchi armed groups operate in the area, primarily the Jaish al-Adl (Justice Army), a group that has waged an insurgency against the Islamic republic.
Jaish al-Adl has carried out a number of suicide attacks on Iranian security forces, killing dozens in the border areas. The group was added to the United States’ list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations in 2019 by the administration of former President Donald Trump. The designation was in response to a deadly attack on the IRGC that left 27 guards dead near Sistan and Baluchestan’s provincial capital of Zahedan.
In December, Jaish al-Adl claimed responsibility for killing at least 11 police officers in an overnight attack on a police station in Sistan and Baluchestan province.
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