Security personnel respond to a suspected car bomb attack on a police headquarters in the southeastern Iranian city of Chabahar on December 6, 2018. Image: Tasnim News Agency/CC-BY 4.0.

Tragic Attack Claims Lives of Four Iranian Policemen in Troubled Southeastern Region

In a devastating incident on Sunday, attackers opened fire on a police patrol in the restive southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan, near the border with Pakistan, resulting in the loss of four Iranian policemen, as reported by state media.

According to the state news agency IRNA, “Three policemen were martyred in a terrorist attack on a police patrol unit.”

Tragically, a fourth officer later succumbed to his injuries, as revealed by state television.

As of now, the circumstances surrounding the attack remain unclear.

Sistan-Baluchistan, an impoverished province, has been grappling with unrest fueled by drug-smuggling gangs, Baluchi minority rebels, and extremist Sunni Muslim groups.

In another attack on July 8, two policemen and four assailants lost their lives in a grenade and gun battle in the same province, later claimed by the jihadist group Jaish al-Adl.

Back in May, five Iranian border guards were killed in clashes with an armed group in Saravan, southeast of Zahedan, the provincial capital of Sistan-Baluchistan.

State media had then reported that the attack was carried out by “a terrorist group seeking to infiltrate the country,” whose members fled the scene after sustaining injuries.

Notably, in late May, a police official named Qassem Rezaee had been quoted by IRNA, stating that “Taliban forces” had shot at an Iranian police station in the region. Sistan-Baluchistan, already suffering from drought, also shares a border with Afghanistan, and the two nations have been embroiled in water rights disputes.

It’s essential to note that Zahedan witnessed protests last September, marked by numerous deaths, sparked by allegations of a teenage girl’s rape by a police officer.