10 border police officers killed in attack in restive southeast Iran

Ten Iranian border guards were killed in an attack in restive southeastern Iran, state media quotes the interior ministry as saying, in the latest clash with suspected Sunni Muslim militants.

The 10 were killed in an ambush in an area that borders Afghanistan and Pakistan and has long been the site of clashes between Iranian security forces and Sunni militants as well as drug traffickers.

They were killed during an attack on “police vehicles” in Sistan-Baluchistan province’s Taftan county, the Mehr and Tasnim news agencies report, without saying how it was carried out.

No group immediately claims responsibility for the attack, which occurred some 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) southeast of the capital Tehran.

The official IRNA news agency, citing a police statement, reports the death of “10 personnel in two patrol units” in what it called an ambush.

Sistan-Baluchistan borders Pakistan and Afghanistan, and is one of the most impoverished provinces in the Islamic Republic.

It is home to a large number of the Baluch minority, an ethnic group spread between Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan who practice Sunni Islam in contrast to the country’s predominantly Shiite population.

The province has experienced recurring clashes between Iranian security forces and rebels from the Baluch minority, radical Sunni groups and drug traffickers.

Today’s attack was one of the deadliest attacks in the area in recent months.