Commander Lauds High Security along Iran’s Borders

Commander of the Iranian Border Guard Units General Hossein Zolfaqari said that the security status along Iran’s borders is in desirable conditions and insecurities decreased in the last Iranian year (ended March 19).

“In the last year, we witnessed a decrease in insecurities at Iran’s borders,” Zolfaqari said on the sidelines of a forum attended by the country’s border guards commanders on Monday.

He said that the country witnessed a 6% increase in killing outlaws while death toll and casualties among Iranian border guards decreased 24% in the last Iranian year, indicating the border guards’ growing power and helpful military training.

Iran shares open borders on the West with Iraq and Turkey, on the East with Afghanistan and Pakistan, on the South with the Persian Gulf littoral states and the Sea of Oman, on the North with Armenia and Azerbaijan and the Caspian Sea, and on the North East with Turkmenistan.

Iran, located at the crossroad of international drug smuggling from Afghanistan to Europe, has taken new security measures in its border provinces following several attacks by terrorists and drug traffickers at its Eastern and Western borders.

According to the statistical figures released by the UN, Iran ranks first among the world countries in preventing entry of drugs and decreasing demand for narcotics.

A majority of insecurities at Iran’s Eastern borders pertained to the operations conducted by the terrorist Jundollah group in recent years, but after Iran arrested a large number of its members and hanged its leaders, the US-backed group was dismantled.

In the most recent clashes, four members of the terrorist Jundollah group were killed by Iranian security forces in the country’s Southeastern Sistan and Balouchestan province.

The Jundollah group has claimed responsibility for numerous terrorist attacks in Iran. The group has carried out mass murder, armed robbery, kidnapping, acts of sabotage and bombings. They have targeted civilians and government officials as well as all ranks of Iran’s military.

In one of the worst cases, the terrorist group killed 22 citizens and abducted 7 more in the Tasouki region on a road linking the southeastern city of Zahedan to another provincial town.

In 2007, Jundollah kidnapped 30 people in the Sistan and Balouchestan province and took them to the neighboring Pakistan.

Jundollah claimed responsibility the same year for an attack on an Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) bus in which 11 IRGC personnel were killed.

In another crime in October 2009, the Pakistan-based terrorist Jundollah group claimed responsibility for a deadly attack in the Sistan and Balouchestan province which killed 42 people among them a group of senior military commanders, including Lieutenant Commander of the IRGC Ground Force Brigadier General Nourali Shoushtari.