Two Iranian policemen were shot down in the southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province, near the Pakistan border, amid a series of security force attacks in the southeastern region. The official news agency classified it as a terrorist attack.Assailants have shot dead two Iranian policemen in Sistan-Baluchistan province, state media reported, the latest in a spate of attacks on security forces in the southeastern region.

The attack occurred in the rugged countryside near Iran’s border with Pakistan, the official news agency IRNA reported late Wednesday.

“The terrorist attack on a police unit at Taftan in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan killed two policemen,” IRNA said.

The identity of the assailants and circumstances surrounding the attack were not immediately clear.

Unrest in impoverished Sistan-Baluchistan province, which also borders Afghanistan, has involved drugs-smuggling gangs, rebels from the Baluchi minority and Sunni Muslim extremists.

Similar attacks have previously occurred, including on July 23 when four policemen were killed while on patrol.

Miroslava Salazar, with AFP