Commander: Iran's Borders Largely Blocked to Terrorist Groups
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iran's border police commander said on Saturday that his forces have been able to repel ten terrorist groups which wanted to infiltrate the Iranian territory in recent months.
"Today the battle ground with the terrorist grouplets has been pushed back to the country’s borders and the border police forces have managed to head off ten terrorist grouplets which wanted to sneak into the country," said Brigadier General Hossein Zolfaqari in the northeastern city of Mashhad at a commemoration service for the recently killed border guards.
Iran's border police commander said the terrorist groups get financial and intelligence support from beyond the country's borders. "We have put in place better programs and the forces have been stationed; the aggressors should know that wherever they want to hurt, our reaction will be stronger and more serious," he added.
"According to the existing information two countries give financial support to such groups while three others provide them with intelligence... As a result of measures we have done to control the borders, it is difficult for bandits and armed people to carry out raids without (foreign) support," Zolfaqari said on October 27.
On Friday, October 25, a group of armed men carried out an ambush attack on a border post in Gazbostan, near Iran’s southeastern city of Saravan, on the border with Pakistan which has almost no control over its side of the shared frontier with Iran.
Fourteen Iranian border guards were killed and six were wounded in the terrorist attack.
In a message published on Saturday, October 26, President Rouhani urged the country’s interior minister to immediately form a special committee in cooperation with the law enforcement authorities in order to deal with such cases, and asked the minister to submit a report on the terrorist attack as soon as possible.
Iran and Pakistan signed a security agreement in February, intended to take strict measures to combat terrorism as well as human and drug trafficking and other activities posing a threat to the national security of either country.
