Pak-Iran border: Eight Iranian border guards killed

Tehran alleges the terrorists came from Pakistani soil

QUETTA: A day before Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif’s crucial visit to Pakistan in connection with Yemen crisis, eight Iranian border guards were killed in an ambush by armed men near the Pakistan-Iran border on Monday afternoon. Sectarian outfit Jaish al Adl claimed responsibility for the attack.

Iran’s official news agency, quoting Iran’s Sistan-Baluchestan province’s Deputy Governor Mirshekari, said there were clashes between terrorists and Iranian border guards in the township of Negur close to the Iranian port city of Chabahar in the evening.

Mirshekari told Irna that the “terrorists had come from the Pakistani border”, opened fire at the security forces, killing eight border guards and fled back to Pakistan.



Balochistan’s Home Secretary Akbar Hussain Durrani, however, denied the claim, saying that terrorists had not entered from Pakistan as security had already been beefed up along the border area in order to beat back any infiltrators.

“The incident took place in Iranian territory and Balochistan has double check posts along the Iranian border,” Durrani said. “The government, however, will extend its full support in investigating and tracing the culprits.”

He said Kech district’s deputy commissioner would be sent to Iran to help the Iranian investigators if the neighbouring country formally invited. “We had a telephonic conversation with a top Iranian official in Balochistan,” he said. He said it is possible that the attackers may have entered via Mekran Coast from the other side of the Pakistani waters or by land.

Later, a Jaish al Adl spokesperson, who introduced himself as Musa Mujahid, sent a message to local journalists in Chagai district and claimed that the outfit had carried out the deadly ambush.

In February last year, the same outfit had kidnapped five Iranian guards.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 8^th, 2015.