TEHRAN – At least 11 Iranian security personnel, including RevolutionaryGuards intelligence officers, were abducted on the southeastern border withPakistan on Tuesday, state media reported.
The Guards blamed “terrorist groups that are guided and supported byforeign forces” for the abductions and demanded action from Pakistan.
State news agency IRNA said 14 troops were seized, while local media andother sources gave the number as 11.
The force was “abducted between 4 am and 5 am in the Lulakdan area of theborder by a terrorist group”, IRNA said.
Lulakdan is a village 150 kilometres (90 miles) southeast of Zahedan,capital of Sistan-Baluchistan province which has seen a long-runningseparatist insurgency.
The abduction was carried out by “infiltrators linked to anti-revolutionarygroups”, the Guards said in a statement on their website.
They said operations were underway to find those responsible and called onPakistan “to stamp out terrorists that are stationed near the border” andhelp recover the captive Iranians.
The unit was involved in “a security operation” and included two members ofthe elite Revolutionary Guards intelligence unit and seven Basij militiamenas well as regular border guards, said the Young Journalists’ Club (YJC), astate-owned news website, in an article that was later deleted.
Pakistani security officials told AFP they had been informed of theabduction by Iran.
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“We are in contact with local tribal people and are looking into it so thatwe can take timely action for their recovery,” said a senior securityofficial based in Quetta.
On September 28, the Guards said they had killed four militants who hadslipped across the border.
The province has a large, mainly Sunni Muslim ethnic Baluchi communitywhich straddles the border.
Militant group Jundallah launched a bloody insurgency in the province in2000 targeting the security forces and officials of Iran’s Shia-dominatedgovernment.
The campaign peaked with a spate of deadly attacks from 2007 — includingtwin suicide bombings of a Shia mosque that killed 28 people — but abatedafter the group’s leader was killed in mid-2010.
In 2012, Jundallah members formed a successor organisation called Jaishal-Adl (Army of Justice), which has carried out a spate of attacks on thesecurity forces.
Iran has alleged that the group has received support from the US, Israeland Saudi Arabia, with the complicity of Pakistan. – APP/AFP
