Iran news agency: Gunmen kill 3 Revolutionary Guard members

TEHRAN, Iran – Unknown gunmen on Tuesday killed three members of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in a shootout in a Kurdish area, Iranian media reported.

The report by the semiofficial Tasnim news agency, which is close to the Guard, identified the killed as Col. Shakiba Salimi and two others, Jafar Nezampour and Mohammad Shokri, whose ranks were not given.

It said the three Guard members also killed “several counterrevolutionaries” in the fighting near the Kurdish town of Divandarreh about 63 kilometres (39 miles) east of the border with neighbouring Iraq and 400 kilometres (250 miles) west of the capital Tehran.

There were no details on the affiliation of the gunmen.

The area has seen occasional fighting between Iranian forces and Kurdish separatists as well as militants linked to the extremist Islamic State group. In July, Kurdish militants killed three members of the guard in the country’s northwest.

Iran’s eastern borders have also been the scene of occasional clashes with Baluch militants, too.