Gunmen Kill 6 People, including Local IRGC Chief, in Iran Towns

A billboard bearing a picture of Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli air strike on Beirut's southern suburbs on September 27, is displayed in Tehran on September 30, 2024. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)
A billboard bearing a picture of Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli air strike on Beirut's southern suburbs on September 27, is displayed in Tehran on September 30, 2024. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)
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Gunmen Kill 6 People, including Local IRGC Chief, in Iran Towns

A billboard bearing a picture of Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli air strike on Beirut's southern suburbs on September 27, is displayed in Tehran on September 30, 2024. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)
A billboard bearing a picture of Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli air strike on Beirut's southern suburbs on September 27, is displayed in Tehran on September 30, 2024. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)

Unidentified gunmen killed six people in two separate attacks Tuesday in the same province in southern Iran, including a local chief of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), state TV reported.

The head of a town council and two volunteer members of the Guard were also among the dead in the first attack, it said. It occurred after the victims participated in a school ceremony in Nikshahar town, about 1,350 kilometers southeast of the capital, Tehran, the report said.

It identified the town council chief as Parviz Kadkhodaei but provided no other details of the attack in the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchistan, The Associated Press reported.

Two police officers were killed in the second attack, which took place in Khash town in the same province, it said.

No one immediately took responsibility for the attacks.
In September, gunmen killed four border guards in the province in two separate attacks. The militant group Jaish al-Adl, which seeks greater rights for the ethnic Baluch minority, claimed responsibility for one of the attacks, in which one officer and two soldiers in the border guard were killed.



Iran Stops Indirect Talks with US in Oman

This handout picture provided by the Oman News Agency shows Oman's Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi (R) receiving Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in Muscat on October 14, 2024. (Photo by Salem AL-Shukeili / Oman News Agency / AFP) /
This handout picture provided by the Oman News Agency shows Oman's Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi (R) receiving Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in Muscat on October 14, 2024. (Photo by Salem AL-Shukeili / Oman News Agency / AFP) /
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Iran Stops Indirect Talks with US in Oman

This handout picture provided by the Oman News Agency shows Oman's Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi (R) receiving Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in Muscat on October 14, 2024. (Photo by Salem AL-Shukeili / Oman News Agency / AFP) /
This handout picture provided by the Oman News Agency shows Oman's Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi (R) receiving Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in Muscat on October 14, 2024. (Photo by Salem AL-Shukeili / Oman News Agency / AFP) /

Iran has stopped indirect talks with the United States in Oman as tensions remain high over a possible Israeli retaliatory strike on Tehran over an earlier missile attack, the Iranian foreign minister said Monday.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi made the comment to Iranian state media while still in Muscat, Oman.

“For the time being, the Muscat process is stopped because of special situation in the region,” Araqchi said, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. “We do not see any ground for the talks until we can pass the current crisis.”

The US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Iran under new President Masoud Pezeshkian has been signaling it wants to negotiate with the US for sanctions relief. Since then-President Donald Trump pulled America out of the nuclear accord, Tehran has begun enriching uranium to nearly weapons-grade levels and increasing the size of its stockpile. However, US intelligence agencies and officials insist Iran has not begun an effort to build a nuclear weapon.

Meanwhile, Israel has threatened a major retaliatory strike over Iran’s ballistic missile attack earlier this month, the second-such direct assault on Israel by Iran since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.