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Extremists Release Captured Iranian Border Guards

by AFP
File Photo. Atta Kenare—AFP

File Photo. Atta Kenare—AFP

Iranian parliamentarian claims the militants released four guards and the body of the fifth.

Iranian soldiers captured by Jaish-ul-Adl rebels near the Pakistani border with Iran in February have been freed, the Sunni extremist group and an Iranian official announced Friday.

According to a media report, however, only four of the five abducted men were handed over to Iranian officials in Pakistan alive. They were accompanied by the body of the fifth, whom the rebels said last month they had executed.

“The soldiers were handed over some hours ago by the small terrorist group Jaish-ul-Adl to Iranian representatives in Pakistan,” said the Fars news agency, quoting an unidentified security official. For its part, Jaish-ul Adl, which operates in southeastern Iran, announced the releases on its Twitter account.

“At the request of eminent Sunni clerics in Iran, the Iranian soldiers held hostage have been freed and handed over to a delegation of clerics,” it said.

The five soldiers, who were serving their 24-month mandatory military service, were abducted in the restive southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan, where Shia-majority Iran has been confronting the Jaish-ul-Adl Sunni rebels.

Last month, the group announced it had executed one of the five, Jamshid Danayifar, and warned of more executions to come unless Iran freed Sunni prisoners. The Iranian authorities immediately denied the execution claim, insisting that all five soldiers were alive.

However, Mehr news agency, citing Iranian M.P. Esmail Kossari, said Friday that four soldiers “and the body of the martyr Jamshid Danayifar have been handed over to an Iranian official in Pakistan.”

The guards are believed to have been taken into neighboring Pakistan after being kidnapped on Feb. 6, prompting Iran to warn it was considering sending troops across the border to free them. The incident strained relations between the neighbors, with Iran denouncing what it said was Pakistan’s inability to secure its own borders.

Border Guards chief Hossein Zolfaghari has admitted that there was “negligence” in the lead-up to the kidnapping, saying those responsible were suspended, with some facing prosecution.

Jaish-ul-Adl took up arms in 2012 to fight for what it says are the rights of Iran’s minority Sunni population. Sistan-Baluchestan, which is home to a large Sunni minority, has been the scene of unrest in recent years fueled by its alleged marginalization in the predominantly Shia Islamic republic.

Jaish-ul-Adl, whose name in Arabic means “Army of Justice,” has claimed several attacks against Iranians in the region. These include the assassination of a local prosecutor and the killing of 14 border guards in an ambush in 2013.

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1 comment

A J (@AJWALMINTON) April 4, 2014 - 6:02 pm

Iran is dragging in Pakistan, though the guards were abducted by Iranian Balochs from inside Iran and handed over in iranian Territory.
If they are claiming that they were handed over the guards in Pakistani territory, then it is confession of Iran that they violated International borders and they entered Pakistani territory without legal permission.

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