Fourteen Iranian border guards were abducted on the border with Pakistan in the early hours of Tuesday, Iran's state-funded Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported, citing an unnamed official.
According to the source, the abductors are members of an identified terrorist group. "These 14 people were kidnapped around 4-5 a.m. in the Lulakdan border area," the official said. They were reportedly abducted at Mirjave, the Iran-Pakistan border checkpoint.
Seven of them were members of the Basij volunteer paramilitary force, five were regular border guards, and two were members of the Revolutionary Guards.
Lulakdan is a small village in the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchistan, a region regularly targeted by separatist militants and drug smuggling gangs.