An Iranian police officer stands guard in Tehran, Iran. A suicide bomber killed Iran’s police intelligence chief in Bandar Lengeh on Saturday. AP
An Iranian police officer stands guard in Tehran, Iran. A suicide bomber killed Iran’s police intelligence chief in Bandar Lengeh on Saturday. AP

Suicide bomber kills police commander in southern Iran, reports say



A suicide bomber killed the head of police intelligence in Iran's southern port city of Bandar Lengeh on Saturday, Iranian state media reported.

The unidentified bomber was also killed and another police officer was injured in the attack outside a police headquarters in the Gulf port city, the media reports said.

Tasnim news agency said the commander “was targeted” in the deadly attack.

“The attacker was also killed,” Tasnim said.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, a rarity in the province located about 1,000km south of Tehran.

The attack came days ahead of the anniversary of two suicide bombings on January 3 in which nearly 100 people were killed at a memorial in south-eastern Iran for Maj Gen Qassem Suleimani, who was assassinated in Iraq in 2020 by a US drone. ISIS claimed those two suicide bombings.

In October, 10 police officers were killed in a “terrorist attack” in an area of south-eastern Iran, Sistan-Balochistan province, long plagued by unrest.

The Pakistan-based Sunni jihadist group JaishAl Adl (Arabic for Army of Justice) claimed that attack.

Updated: December 29, 2024, 4:14 AM