Protests in the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan
The intelligence chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan was shot dead in the provincial capital Zahedan.
Confirming the death, the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim news said in addition to Colonel Mousavi, three other members of IRGC and its Basij paramilitary force were killed and 32 of more injured in Zahedan clashes on Friday.
Zahedan was the scene of violent clashes between Iran’s security forces and armed groups that attacked three police stations in the afternoon and started shooting at 16 police stations.
According to unconfirmed reports by local Baluch sources from the mainly Sunni city of Zahedan, at least 42 people were killed and 200 more were injured on Friday as police opened fire at protesters.
Molavi Abdolhamid, the religious leader of Iran’s largely Sunni Baluch population living in the province and Iran's top Sunni cleric, has called on the Law Enforcement forces to crack down on protesters.
The Sunni cleric in Iran, sometimes critical of the government, confirmed reports last Friday about the rape of a 15-year-old girl in June by Colonel Ebrahim Khouchakzai, the commander of the police in the city of Chabahar.
That incident and the current protests in other cities triggered the tensions in Zahedan on Friday.