Iran Urges Pakistan to Arrest Terrorists behind Abduction of Border Guards

In a statement released on Tuesday evening, Qassemi condemned the kidnapping of the Iranian security forces by a Takfiri terrorist group and their transfer to Pakistan.

Islamabad should immediately adopt all necessary measures to help secure the release of the Iranian border guards and arrest “the evil terrorists”, Qassemi said. 

“This evening, the Iranian foreign minister’s assistant in West Asia affairs asked the Pakistani ambassador (to Tehran) and his government to take all measures necessary for the release of the abductees within the framework of bilateral relations, the principle of good neighborliness and obligations under mutual agreements and regulations of the international law,” the spokesman noted.

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Ground Force said on Tuesday that a number of its troops and local Basij forces had been abducted at a border post southeast of Iran on Monday evening.

In a statement, the Ground Force’s Quds Base said a number of local Basij forces and the border regiment forces stationed at a border post in Mirjaveh region in Iran’s southeastern province of Sistan and Balouchestan were abducted on Monday evening after acts of treason and collusion involving an element or elements of the anti-Revolution groups who had infiltrated the country.

It added that the Iranian defense and security forces in the border areas have launched a manhunt to catch the outlaws, terrorists and infiltrators and are taking serious measures to free the abductees.

Later on Tuesday, Brigadier General Pakpour said members of the so-called ‘Jaish-ul-Adl’ terrorist group infiltrated the country from the Pakistani side of the border and took hostage a number of local Basij forces, border guards and two IRGC members.

He said the terrorists took the Iranian forces to the Pakistani territory.