Gunmen kill 6 police officers in southeast Iran

Gunmen ambushed a police convoy in Iran’s restive southeast on Tuesday, killing six policemen, media reports said.

The attack on a road in Sistan and Baluchistan province also left two other policemen wounded, according to yjc.ir, a website affiliated with the state broadcasting company. The report said the Jaish al-Adl militant group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

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The report could not be independently verified. The militants have allegedly been fighting for greater rights for the ethnic Baluch minority in the region. Iran and some other nations consider it to be a terrorist group.

The attack was the second in as many weeks targeting security forces, indicating deterioration of the security situation in the region. Last week’s clashes in three separate areas of the province left 10 Iranian troops and 18 militants killed during the fighting and six more members of the security forces died later in the hospital.

The province, bordering both Afghanistan and Pakistan, has occasionally been the site of deadly clashes involving militants, armed drug smugglers and Iranian security forces. In December, militants killed nearly a dozen police officers in an attack on a police station in the province.

Sistan and Baluchistan is one of the least developed parts of Iran. Relations between the predominantly Sunni Muslim residents of the region and Iran’s Shiite theocracy have long been strained.