9 Iranian border guards killed in armed clash

Death toll of Iranian security forces has reached nine in the clashes with the armed groups in the southeastern border region of Iran on Wednesday, semi-official Mehr news agency reported.



Four guards were injured in the clashes, which took place at the Mirjaveh border point in Sistan and Baluchestan province, the report said.



The border guards were patrolling when they were targeted, Tehran Times daily reported.



"Our border guards had been targeted from inside Pakistan's soil," Iranian police speaker Saeed Montazerolmahdi was quoted as saying by the daily.



"Our investigations show that long-range arms had been used to launch the attack," he said.



Over the past decades, Iran's eastern and southeastern border had been the scene of clashes between Iranian security forces and armed drug smugglers on the one hand and security forces with the ethnic Sunni rebels on the other.

