Five members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard were killed in attacks by the Sunni separatist group Jaish al-Adl in the cities of Rask and Chabahar in Sistan and Baluchistan province in the southeast of the country, the state-run IRNA news agency reported on Thursday. Eight attackers were also killed.
In Rask, separatists attacked the Republican Guard outpost in that city, and the coast guard headquarters in Chabahar. Hostages were being held in both places, but the Iranian agency did not provide any further details about them.
Jaish al-Adl, established 12 years ago, is one of the separatist groups of the Baluch, a people living in the areas of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. A group considered terrorist by several countries is fighting for an independent Baluchistan. Its leader spoke out against Iran’s support for Bashar al-Assad during the Syrian civil war.
In recent years, the group has carried out several attacks on security and police officers in Iran.
In mid-January, Iran fired at the group’s headquarters in Pakistan, which led to a diplomatic tension between Islamabad and Tehran. Pakistan recalled its ambassador from Tehran and two days later retaliated by also conducting airstrikes against the group – this time within Iran. It was an unprecedented crisis in the forty-year history of both Islamic republics, said the Iran International website. Both countries have repeatedly accused each other of allowing rebel groups to operate from their territories to carry out attacks on their neighbors’ territory.
