TEHRAN: At least five members of Iran’s security forces were killed Sunday in a “terror attack” in the restive southeast, where authorities have been conducting operations against rebels, local media reported.

The Fars news agency reported that in a “terror attack in Saravan county, in the south of the Sistan-Baluchistan province, five members of the security forces were killed”.

Sistan-Baluchistan borders both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and is one of Iran’s most impoverished provinces. It is one of the few mainly Sunni Muslim provinces in Shiite-dominated Iran.

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For years it has faced unrest involving drug-smuggling gangs, rebels from the Baluchi minority and Sunni extremists.

Fars said that after the attack in Saravan, “units stationed in the region were quickly deployed to pursue the criminals”.

Iranian forces launched a major operation in the area after an attack on October 26 killed 10 police officers.

That attack was later claimed by the Pakistan-based Sunni jihadist group Jaish al-Adl (Arabic for Army of Justice).

Local media reported that those behind the October attack have been killed in the current security operation.

Some 15 militants have been reported killed in Sistan-Baluchistan province since the October attack, including three on Sunday, state television said.