Iran rocket attack kills 8 ‘smugglers’

QUETTA:

Iranian border guards on Monday blew up a vehicle allegedly belonging to drug smugglers near their country’s border with Pakistan. All eight men on board the vehicle were killed. The Iranian border guards took the bodies into custody and shifted them to Zahedan, the capital of Iran’s Sistan-Baluchestan province.

Iranian officials claimed that five of the alleged smugglers were Pakistanis and residents of Taftan Township while three were Iranian nationals. They conveyed the information to Chagai’s Deputy Commissioner Khuda-e-Nazar who also confirmed the incident when approached.

Iranian officials told journalists that the incident took place near Pillar No. 71 close to Taftan Township. Both Iranian and Pakistani officials inspected the site and confirmed the death of eight suspected smugglers. They also recovered a sizeable quantity of drugs from their possession.

It is the first time that the Iranian border forces have used a rocket to blow up a vehicle suspected to be carrying drugs into the Islamic Republic. Earlier, there used to be exchanges of fire between smugglers and Iran’s border guards.

Iran accuses Pakistani officials of providing a safe passage to drug smugglers to use Iran’s route and not taking action against them in the border regions. During the 1980s, Iran had lost more than 3,000 security personnel in a war against the drug mafia, Iranian officials claimed.

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