Iran police kill 4 Islamic State suspects during operation

Iranian police have killed four Islamic State suspects, including two foreigners, during an operation in the southern Hormuzgan province.

Police in Iran killed four Islamic State suspects, two of them foreigners, in the southern province of Hormuzgan and seized explosives, guns and the group’s flag, an Iranian news agency said on Monday.

FILE - in this Wednesday, June 7, 2017 file photo, an armed man stands in a window of the parliament building during an attack by militants in Tehran, Iran. Its strongholds in Iraq and Syria slipping from its grasp, the Islamic State group threatened to make this year’s Ramadan a bloody one at home and abroad. With attacks in Egypt, Britain and Iran among others and a land-grab in the Philippines, the group is trying to divert attention from its losses and win over supporters around the world in the twisted competition for jihadi recruits. (Fars News Agency, Omid Vahabzadeh via AP, File) (AP)

A major security operation is underway after 17 people were killed last Wednesday in suicide bombings and gun attacks in Tehran, the first to be claimed by the hardline Sunni Islamist group Islamic State inside Iran, a Shia power.

“Police forces clashed with the four men and killed them in a mountainous area in southern Iran,” the semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted a local police chief as saying.

Two of those killed were not Iranian, he said.

Guns, ammunition, explosives and the flag of Islamic State were seized during the operation, Tasnim reported, citing the police chief.

Hormuzgan, which borders Pakistan and Afghanistan, is home to a Sunni minority and has seen previous clashes between security forces and Sunni insurgent groups.

Iran accuses Saudi Arabia of funding hardline Sunni militants, including Islamic State, and in the wake of last week’s attack pointed the finger at its regional rival. Riyadh has denied involvement in the attacks.