DUBAI (Reuters) – At least three people were killed in a bomb attack in Iran’s southeastern port city of Chabahar on Thursday, state TV reported, adding that many others were injured.
“This morning a bomb inside a car exploded near a police station in Chabahar. Three people were killed and some others were injured,” Chabahar’s acting governor Rahmdel Bameria told state TV.
“The suicide attacker set off the explosion after stopping at police headquarters in Chabahar.”
Mohammad Hadi Marashi, deputy governor for security affairs, told state TV that two police officers were killed in the attack. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
TV also reported shooting in the area, which is located in the mainly Sunni province of Sistan-Baluchestan that has long been plagued by unrest from both drug smuggling gangs and separatist militants.
Images posted on Twitter purported to show thick smoke rising from the area. Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the videos.
In 2010, two suicide bombers killed at least 28 people, including some of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, at a Shi’ite Muslim mosque in southeast Iran, an attack Iranian leaders said was backed by the United States.
The attack was claimed by a Sunni Iranian separatist group Jundullah (or Soldiers of God), which has claimed responsibility for bombings in the past.
Tehran accuses its key regional rival Sunni Saudi Arabia and the United States of funding most of these groups, a charge Riyadh and Washington deny.
Iran says militant groups have safe havens in Pakistan and has warned it will hit their bases there if Islamabad does not confront them.
Chabahar is a free trade zone and the site of an Indian-backed port complex which is being developed as part of a new transportation corridor for land-locked Afghanistan.
