Blast Kills One in Restless Iranian Border Area

A picture taken on January 13, 2020 shows a general view of a village in Iran's Sistan-Baluchistan region during floods. (AFP)
A picture taken on January 13, 2020 shows a general view of a village in Iran's Sistan-Baluchistan region during floods. (AFP)
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Blast Kills One in Restless Iranian Border Area

A picture taken on January 13, 2020 shows a general view of a village in Iran's Sistan-Baluchistan region during floods. (AFP)
A picture taken on January 13, 2020 shows a general view of a village in Iran's Sistan-Baluchistan region during floods. (AFP)

An explosion killed one person and injured three others on Sunday in a southeastern Iranian town that was the center of bloody unrest last month, Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported.

A Revolutionary Guards statement quoted by the agency blamed what it called “terrorist” groups for the blast in a square in Saravan, near the border with Pakistan.

Earlier this month a UN human rights spokesman said at least a dozen people and possibly up to 23 had been killed in Saravan and other parts of Sistan-Baluchestan province where Revolutionary Guards and security forces used lethal force against fuel couriers from ethnic minorities, and protesters.

The shooting of people carrying fuel across the border led to protests that spread from Saravan to other areas of Sistan-Baluchestan, including the capital, Zahedan.

Iran has some of the lowest fuel prices in the world and there is some fuel-smuggling to neighboring countries.

The impoverished province has long been the scene of sporadic clashes between security forces and separatist militants and smugglers carrying opium from Afghanistan, the world’s top producer of the drug.



US House Speaker Johnson Will Travel to Israel on June 22 

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., during a news conference at the RNC near the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, June 10, 2025. (AP)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., during a news conference at the RNC near the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, June 10, 2025. (AP)
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US House Speaker Johnson Will Travel to Israel on June 22 

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., during a news conference at the RNC near the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, June 10, 2025. (AP)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., during a news conference at the RNC near the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, June 10, 2025. (AP)

US House Speaker Mike Johnson will travel to Israel to address the parliament on June 22, he said on Wednesday.

"Our ties run deeper than military partnerships and trade agreements," Johnson said in an emailed statement.

Punchbowl News, which first reported Johnson's plan, said the House Speaker was expected to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem during the trip.

Johnson did not provide further details on the planned trip.

Johnson announced the visit as Israel presses on with its military campaign in the Gaza Strip, more than 20 months after it launched its offensive there in response to a deadly incursion into Israel led by the Palestinian group Hamas.

On Tuesday, Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Norway imposed sanctions on far-right Israeli cabinet ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, accusing them of repeatedly inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

Israel called the action "outrageous" and said the Israeli government would hold a meeting early next week to decide how to respond.