TEHRAN, Jan 1: Iranian border officials are investigating a television report that several of its soldiers have been kidnapped by a Sunni Muslim group in the southeast of the country, the foreign ministry said on Sunday. “Border guards are looking into this matter and after obtaining results will announce them through the official channels,” a foreign ministry source told IRNA news agency.

“We are looking at the entire matter,” an interior ministry source said, without confirming if the abduction had actually taken place.

Al-Arabiya television on Saturday broadcast a message from a spokesman of the Sunni group Jundallah, which claimed the movement had kidnapped nine Iranian soldiers in the Saravan region, close to the border with Pakistan.

The Iranian press on Sunday also reported an attack on a police post in the Saravan region, without mentioning the date.

Kayhan said “bandits” had taken 10 policemen prisoner while Jomhouri Eslami reported the attackers belonged to the Aksani tribe who the paper said stand accused of an attack on presidential security forces on Dec 15.—AFP