Iranian border guards killed in clash with 'bandits' near Pakistan border

An Iranian border guard keeps watch: authorities are investigating whether the attackers were drug smugglers or armed opposition groups. Photograph: Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images

About 20 Iranian border guards have been killed in clashes with "armed bandits" on the southeastern frontier with Pakistan, Iranian media have reported.

The clashes took place on Friday night in a mountainous region outside the town of Saravan in the south-east Sistan-Baluchistan province, the Irna state news agency reported. The Mehr news agency said "bandits" attacked a border post.

An Iranian prosecutor also announced that authorities had executed 16 "terrorists" in the same province on Saturday in retaliation for the killings.

Mohammad Marzieh, the public prosecutor of provincial capital Zahedan, told the Iranian students' news agency (Isna): "These individuals were executed this Saturday morning in response to the terrorist action of last evening at Saravan and the martyrdom of the border guards."

The exact number of dead has not been confirmed. Different news reports quoted the number of border guards killed at 17 or 18.

A deputy governor of Saravan told state television that six border guards were captured by the attackers.

The media reports gave no more details on the identity of the armed group but security forces have fought drug traffickers before in the border region with Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"The attackers, who saw that conditions were unsafe for their actions, retreated to the country opposite [the border] after the clash," Rajab-Ali Sheikhzadeh, a provincial official, told Isna.

The area also has a history of unrest, with the mainly Sunni Muslim population complaining of discrimination at the hands of Iran's Shia authorities.

Source http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/26/iranian-guards-killed-bandits-pakistan