At least 11 people have been killed and eight injured in a night-time attack on a police station in southern Iran, state tv said on Friday.
Senior police officers and soldiers were among the fatalities according to the deputy governor of Sistan and Baluchistan, Ali Reza Marhemati.
He said several of the gunmen were killed by police in the shootout.
The attack took place in the early mornings of Friday in Rask town, located nearly 1,400km from the capital Tehran.
Majid Mirahmadi, deputy interior minister, said the attack wounded eight police officers. He said two gunmen were also killed and police are searching the area for the others.
Jaish al-Adl, an armed separatist group that has been launching attacks on Iranian borders since 2013, claimed responsibility for the attack, state media said.
In 2019, the group claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing on a bus that killed 27 members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard force.
The attack is one of the deadliest in years to take place in the Sistan-Baluchistan province bordering Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The region has a predominately Sunni Muslim population, unlike the rest of Iran who are majority Shias. There are often clashes between Sunni militants and security forces in the area.
The province was also the site of heavy crackdowns following nationwide protests over the death in police custody of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, in Tehran who had been detained for not wearing her veil properly.
A similar incident took place in July when gunmen and suicide bombers stormed a police station in Zahedan, capital of Sistan-Baluchistan.
The Jaish al-Adl group claimed responsibility for the attack. State TV reported at the time that "all four terrorists" had died in the raid.
