Two Iran Guards killed in aircraft crash during combat
An Iranian Revolutionary Guards general and pilot were killed in an aircraft crash during an anti-terror operation in the country's restive southeast, state media reported on Monday.
The "ultra-light gyroplane" of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps "had an accident while conducting combat operations" in a border area, IRNA news agency said.
It said the crash happened in Sirkan, a city in Sistan-Baluchistan province, and identified the dead as General Hamid Mazandarani, the commander of the Nineveh Brigade of Golestan province, and Hamed Jandaghi, a pilot of the IRGC ground forces.
Iran's armed forces have been mounting an operation in the region since October 26, when 10 police officers were killed in an attack claimed by Sunni Muslim militants.
They have killed several militants and arrested others during the operation, according to Iranian media outlets.
Sistan-Baluchistan borders Pakistan and Afghanistan, and is one of the most impoverished provinces in the Islamic republic.
It is home to a large number of the Baluch minority, an ethnic group spread between Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan who practice Sunni Islam in contrast to the country's predominantly Shiite population.
The province has experienced recurring clashes between Iranian security forces and rebels from the Baluch minority, radical Sunni groups and drug traffickers.
Also on Monday, another Guards member succumbed to injuries he suffered during a helicopter crash in late October, Iran's Tasnim new agency reported.
That crash occurred during "an operational mission" in the southern province of Fars, the report said, without elaborating.
Former president Ebrahim Raisi was killed in May when his helicopter crashed into a mountainside, triggering snap elections in the country.
The ultra-conservative president was accompanied by then foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and six other people who were all killed.
Source: Agence France Presse
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