3 IRGC Personnel Killed in Southeastern Iran
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Three members of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) were killed in Iran’s southeastern province of Sistan and Balouchestan on Wednesday, after their vehicle was detonated by a booby trap bomb planted by bandits and drug traffickers.
A provincial security official said the deadly incident took place at 6:30 am local time on Wednesday, December 18, near the southeastern city of Saravan.
The three victims were members of the IRGC engineering division working on construction projects in the border area, the official said.
The vehicle carrying the IRGC staffers left a workshop this morning, but was later detonated by a booby trap bomb on the road.
According to the public relations office of IRGC's Quds Base, the engineers were involved in a project to seal part of Iran-Pakistan border in the frontier region of Saravan and that their car hit explosives left by bandits and traffickers on the road.
Earlier on October 25, a group of armed men carried out an ambush attack on a border post in Gazbostan, near Iran’s southeastern city of Saravan, on the border with Pakistan which has almost no control over its side of the shared frontier with Iran, killing 14 Iranian border guards.
On November 17, Iran's interior minister said precise and serious border control in the southeastern province of Sistan and Balouchestan was of utmost importance, adding that in the next six months those parts of the border which are still not sealed will be blocked to illegal crossings.
“Serious and precise protection of Sistan and Balouchestan borders is on the agenda and it will take six months from now to seal the yet unblocked parts of our borders and to control them, especially in Saravan region,” Interior Minister Abdol Reza Rahmani Fazli said.
Referring to the southeastern Sistan and Balouchestan province as “a strategic region,” the interior minister said underdevelopment was the biggest problem in the province and that projects are under study to create jobs and make productive investments.
He said that a major part of the narcotic drugs trafficking is through the Sistan and Balouchestan province, which will be ceased after completing the border seal plan.
Iran's border police commander, too, said on November 16 that some $30 million has been allocated for the security and sealing of borders in the southeastern province of Sistan and Balouchestan, that adjoins both Pakistan and Afghanistan, by the end of the Iranian calendar year.
“The amount is 40% of the total budget allocated to the border guards for the whole year,” said Brigadier General Hossein Zolfaqari.
Pakistan has no tough control over its side of the long borderline with Iran, and has left those sparsly populated areas at the mercy of bandits and traffickers.