The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) disbanded a terrorist cell in the Southeastern Sistan and Balouchestan province on Monday morning, killing all its members.
"On Monday morning, a terrorist group affiliated to the foreign spy agencies was disbanded in Qasr-e Qand and Nikshahr regions in Southeastern Iran with the decisive action of the forces deployed at the IRGC Ground Force base in the region, and all its (the terrorist group's) members were killed," the public relations department of the IRGC Ground Force's Quds base said in a statement on Monday.
The statement added that the operations were carried out after a series of reconnaissance and chase operations in recent days during which a large cache of weapons, munitions and communication tools were also discovered and seized by the IRGC forces.
In a relevant development in January, Iranian police forces disbanded a terrorist network in Sistan and Balouchestan province.
"After a number of sabotage operations in the Southern part of Sistan and Balouchestan province, 18 members of a terrorist grouplet were arrested in Eastern Iran as a result of three months of round-the-clock efforts by the police forces and the good cooperation of the people in the province," Commander of the Law Enforcement Police in Sistan and Balouchestan Hossein Rahimi told reporters.
Elaborating on the police operations which led to the capture of the terrorists, he said at first two members of the terrorist group were apprehended and their confessions led to the capture of the other members of the group.
"They confessed that they had conducted different operations against the people and the police and received money from a person an Arab state," Rahimi said.
In earlier remarks in November, Rahimi announced that his forces had arrested the terrorists who had killed two police officers in Zahedan city a year ago.
"The crime investigation detectives of the police found some clues about the involvement of a 6-stong gang of armed thieves in this case after months of extensive specialized measures and after gaining enough intelligence," he said.
Noting that the members of the gang used forged documents to travel to Pakistan and Afghanistan, the commander said that the police forces identified the culprits and arrested them in several coordinated operations in Zahedan and Chabahar cities.
Rahimi said that the gang members had confessed that they had killed the two police officers in Zahedan city on 17 June 2013, wounded two people one month earlier, murdered two individuals in Zahedan's Park Mellat, robbed the passengers of a car and wounded three people when they sprayed bullet at the people who had approached the car.
Sistan and Balouchestan province which is adjacent to Pakistan has been the scene of a number of terrorist attacks in recent years with most terrorists escaping to the Pakistani territories.
Four Iranian police officers, including a conscript, were killed in two terrorist attacks on a border post in Sistan and Balouchestan in October.
The tragic event took place in the vicinity of the city of Saravan near the border with Pakistan.