TEHRAN: Two Iranian civilians were killed in a cross-border attack by suspected insurgents in Pakistan, the Revolutionary Guards said.

“On Saturday evening, a terrorist team... fired (ammunition) from within Pakistani territory towards the Iranian border region of Saravan” in Sistan-Baluchestan province, the Guards said in a statement on their Sepahnews website.

Two local workers were killed in the attack, it added.

Forces from the Quds force — the Guards’ foreign operations wing— killed one of the attackers and wounded two, while others fled back into Pakistani territory, the statement claimed.

The insurgent group was not identified, but for years the region has been the site of frequent attacks by the Jaish al-Adl group, which Tehran says has links to Al Qaeda and is based in Balochistan.

Jaish al-Adl was blamed for an attack in April that killed 10 Iranian border guards in the nearby Mirjaveh region. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani had then written to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, calling for greater efforts to prevent such attacks along the border.

The Guards also said on June 19 that they had killed the leader and four members of another jihadi group called Ansar al-Furqan in the Iranian port city of Chabahar in Sistan-Baluchestan province.

Published in Dawn, July 17th, 2017