5 Iran Border Guards Released from Captivity

A Pakistani border security official (R) and an Iranian border official meet at Zero Point in the Pakistan-Iran border town of Taftan. (AFP)
A Pakistani border security official (R) and an Iranian border official meet at Zero Point in the Pakistan-Iran border town of Taftan. (AFP)
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5 Iran Border Guards Released from Captivity

A Pakistani border security official (R) and an Iranian border official meet at Zero Point in the Pakistan-Iran border town of Taftan. (AFP)
A Pakistani border security official (R) and an Iranian border official meet at Zero Point in the Pakistan-Iran border town of Taftan. (AFP)

Five out of 12 members of the Iranian border guards were released following their abduction in October by militants near the Pakistani border, announced the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

"The five ... who were kidnapped in the Mirjaveh border post by the Jaish al-Zolm (Jaish al-Adl) returned home on Wednesday night. They were released after joint efforts made with the Pakistani side," the Guards said in a statement, Tasnim reported.

The fate of the others remains unknown, but an Interior Ministry official told Iran's ILNA news agency that the others will be freed soon.

The Iranian separatist group Jaish al-Adl said last month it had abducted 12 border guards, which included members of the Guards, on the border with Pakistan in Iran's southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan province.

The area has seen occasional clashes with Baluch separatists and also drug traffickers.

Details were sketchy and Iran has since twice revised the number of the abducted border force, including some from the vaunted Revolutionary Guard.

Pakistan has promised to help free the Iranian guards.

Jaish al-Adl kidnapped five Iranian border guards in 2014, releasing four of them two months later after mediation by local Sunni clerics.

Iran had threatened to hit militant bases in Pakistan unless Islamabad took action to secure its border area, which Tehran says has become a safe haven for anti-Iran groups to operate.



9 Killed in Courthouse Attack in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchestan Province, Iranian Media Report

Iranian security forces. (EPA file)
Iranian security forces. (EPA file)
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9 Killed in Courthouse Attack in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchestan Province, Iranian Media Report

Iranian security forces. (EPA file)
Iranian security forces. (EPA file)

At least nine people were killed in an armed attack by the Jaish al-Adl Baluch group on a courthouse in Iran’s restive Sistan-Baluchestan province on Saturday, including three of the assailants, state media reported. 

Another 22 were injured, according to thereport. 

Jaish al-Adl confirmed the deaths of its three members in the clashes with security forces in Zahedan, the capital of the far southeastern province bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan.  

Sistan-Baluchestan is home to Iran’s Baluch minority, who have long complained of economic marginalization and political exclusion. 

A toddler and a 60-year-old woman were among those killed, as well as three soldiers and law enforcement personnel assigned to the courthouse, the head of the province's judiciary told IRNA. He did not identify the sixth dead person.  

He said the attackers wore explosive vests and carried grenades. It was not clear if they had detonated them. 

Jaish al-Adl, which claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement on its Telegram account, said it had killed at least 30 members of the judiciary and security forces. It said it targeted judges and court personnel, whom it accused of issuing death sentences and house demolition orders to Baluch citizens. 

"We warn all judges and employees of the judiciary that Baluchestan will no longer be a safe place for them and death will follow them like terrifying shadows until retribution," the group said in its statement. 

It blamed security forces for the deaths of civilians, saying they had fired indiscriminately. 

The Baluch human rights group HAALVSH, quoting eyewitnesses, said several judiciary staff members and security personnel were killed or wounded when the assailants stormed the judges’ chambers. 

Sistan-Baluchestan is frequently hit by clashes between security forces and armed groups, including militants and separatists who say they are fighting for greater rights and autonomy. Tehran accuses some of them of ties to foreign powers and involvement in cross-border smuggling and insurgency.