They Came to the Court Building With Guns, Grenades

Unknown attackers launched a gun and grenade attack on a court building in southeast Iran on Saturday, killing at least six people, including a child, and wounding at least 20, according to state TV. The report said security forces killed three of the gunmen in the armed clash in the country's restive southern province of Sistan and Baluchistan, per the AP. The report didn't identify any of the victims. State TV said the attack happened in the province's capital city of Zahedan. Police and security forces immediately took control of the site, about 700 miles southeast of Tehran.

A report by the semiofficial Tasnim news agency, believed to be close to security forces, blamed the attack on the militant group Jaish al-Adl, which wants independence for Iran's eastern Sistan and Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan provinces. The province, bordering Afghanistan and Pakistan, has been the site of occasional deadly clashes involving militant groups, armed drug smugglers, and Iranian security forces.

In October, an attack on an Iranian police convoy in the province killed at least 10 officers. Sistan and Baluchistan province is one of the least developed parts of Iran, where relations between the predominantly Sunni Muslim residents of the region and Iran's Shiite theocracy have long been strained.