TEHRAN -- Four members of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) were martyred in the country’s southeast and the killers fled to neighboring Pakistan after coming under fire, the official IRNA news agency reported on Monday.
IRNA gave no further details about the incident in the Saravan area of Sistan-Baluchistan province, a region where security forces clash often with terrorists and drug smugglers.
Citing an IRGC statement, IRNA said three of the martyred were members of the Basij, a volunteer force affiliated with the IRGC.
“The perpetrators of attack ... fled to Pakistan after receiving heavy fire,” IRNA reported, citing a statement issued by the IRGC.
The IRGC Ground Force’s Quds Base said in a statement that Second Lieutenant Muhammad Gouradzi and three Basij members, identified as Rahim Bakhshparaki, Hamidreza Abedi and Mahmoud Nikkhaah, were martyred when they engaged in a fierce exchange of fire with counterrevolutionary elements.
A Saudi- and Western-backed terrorist group, Jaish al-Adl, has previously mounted attacks on Iranian security forces in the area. Iranian authorities say the group operates from safe havens in Pakistan.
Last month, a top IRGC commander warned of the enemies’ plots to create chaos in Sistan and Baluchestan province.
Addressing a group of senior Shia and Sunni clerics and elders of Sistan and Baluchestan, Brigadier General Muhammad Pakpour, commander of the IRGC’s