Suicide bomber kills two in southeast Iran: revised toll

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TEHRAN, Dec 6, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – A suicide bomber killed at least two
people and wounded many more outside police headquarters in the port city of
Chabahar in restive southeastern Iran on Thursday, according to a revised
official toll.

Chabahar lies in Sistan-Baluchistan province which has long been a
flashpoint, with Pakistan-based Baluchi separatists and Sunni Muslim
extremists carrying out cross-border attacks targeting the Shiite
authorities.

“This terrorist act led to the martyrdom of two members of the police
force,” the province’s deputy governor in charge of security, Mohammad Hadi
Marashi, told state television.

Chabahar city governor Rahmdel Bameri said earlier that four people were
killed and many more wounded when the bomber blew up a car, but later revised
the death toll to two.

“The explosion was very strong and broke the glass of many buildings close
by,” Bameri told state television.

Many nearby shop owners and civilian passers-by, including women and
children, were severely wounded, he added.

Chabahar lies some 100 kilometres (60 miles) west of the Pakistan border
and is home to a large, mainly Sunni Muslim ethnic Baluchi community which
straddles the two countries.

The number of assailants was not immediately clear.

“The terrorists tried to enter Chabahar police headquarters but they were
prevented by the guards and they detonated the car bomb,” Marashi said
without elaborating on how many assailants took part.

Chabahar has a deep-water port on the Gulf of Oman and with Indian
assistance Iran has been developing it as a major energy and freight hub
between Central Asia and India, bypassing Pakistan.