Senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officer killed along with his guards in southeast Iran

By Syed Zafar Mehdi

TEHRAN (AA) – A senior officer of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and his two guards were shot and killed by unidentified assailants in southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province on Wednesday, state media reported.

The slain officer was identified as Colonel Hossein Ali Javidanfar of the IRGC's Salman Corps.

He was reportedly killed while returning home from administrative work on the road connecting Khash and Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan, which borders Pakistan.

Colonel Javidanfar was the IRGC's cultural affairs expert who was on an administrative mission to Saravan city when he was killed along with his two guards by armed assailants, state news agency IRNA said, citing a statement from the public relations wing of IRGC's southeastern division.

Late Wednesday night, the Jaish al-Adl militant group, which has carried out several previous terrorist attacks in the province, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on social media platform.

It occurred a day after the IRGC launched a barrage of missile strikes on what it claimed to be the Jaish al-Adl militant group's headquarters in Baluchistan, the southwestern Pakistani province.

The strikes, according to reports, were in response to a December attack on a police station in the city of Rask in Sistan-Baluchestan, in which 11 policemen were killed.

Jaish al-Adl, an Iranian militant group with alleged bases in Pakistan's border region, claimed responsibility for the attack that has been involved in numerous attacks in Sistan-Baluchistan province, the majority of which have targeted police personnel.

According to Pakistani media, three civilians, including children, were killed in Tuesday's strikes, which the Pakistani Foreign Ministry strongly condemned.

However, Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, while speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, claimed that the attacks were targeted at the Iranian terrorist group, not civilians.

These developments threaten to derail the otherwise friendly ties between Tehran and Islamabad amid massive outcry in Pakistan.