Terror attack in Iranian police station kills 11 officers

A terror attack in an Iranian police station has killed at least 11 officers in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan, an official told state television on Friday. “In the terrorist attack on the police headquarters in the town of Rask, 11 policemen were killed, and others were wounded,” said Alireza Marhamati, deputy governor of the province. A few terrorists were also gunned down during a shootout that ensued with the security forces, the television channel reported. The attack, which occurred around midnight, was one of the deadliest in years for the region close to Iran’s border with Afghanistan and Pakistan. Jaish al-Adl, an Islamist terrorist organisation, has claimed responsibility for the attack. The group was formed in 2012 and has been “blacklisted” by Iran. Unrest in the impoverished Sistan-Baluchistan province – which also borders Afghanistan – has involved drugs-smuggling gangs, rebels from the Baluchi minority and Sunni Muslim extremists. Similar attacks have previously occurred, including on July 23 when four policemen were killed while on patrol. That came two weeks after two policemen and four assailants were killed in a shootout in the province claimed by Jaish al-Adl group. In May, five Iranian border guards died in clashes with an armed group in Saravan southeast of Zahedan, the provincial capital of Sistan-Baluchistan. State media reported at the time that the attack was carried out by “a terrorist group that was seeking to infiltrate the country” but whose members “fled the scene after suffering injuries”. With inputs from AFP