Suicide bomber kills 2 in Iran's Chabahar
A suicide car bombing followed by an armed assault killed at least two people and wounded many more outside police headquarters in the port city of Chabahar in restive southeastern Iran yesterday.
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.
Immediately after the bomber detonated the car bomb, gunmen attempted to storm the police headquarters but were killed by security forces, Iranian media reported.
Chabahar city governor Rahmdel Bameri said many people were also wounded in the 10 am (0630 GMT) attack.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Chabahar is a strategically important city for Iran. It has a deep-water port on the Gulf of Oman, which, with Indian assistance, Iran has been developing it as a major energy and freight hub between Central Asia and India, bypassing Pakistan.
Due to its importance as a trade gateway for landlocked Afghanistan, it is the only Iranian port to be exempted by the United States from the crippling unilateral sanctions it reimposed earlier this year following its abandonment in May of a landmark 2015 nuclear deal between major powers and Tehran.
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