Two police officers were killed (July 8) when Jaish al-Adl militants equipped with suicide belts stormed a police station in Zahedan, Sistan, and Baluchestan province, “. State-run IRNA reported four armed men attacked police station Number 16 in Zahedan. These people were equipped with small arms and suicide belts, and two of them detonated their belts. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said that all four members of the “terrorist team” that attacked the police station were killed.
Jaish al-Adl has claimed responsibility for the attack claiming that their assailants “successfully targeted 16 police stations in Zahedan, a key factor leading to the catastrophic event known as “Bloody Friday” in Zahedan.
The Zahedan massacre, also known as Bloody Friday, was a sequence of brutal crackdowns on September 30, 2022, starting with protesters gathering in front of a police station near the Great Mosalla of Zahedan, Iran. The protests were triggered by the alleged rape of a 15-year-old Baloch girl in June by Colonel Ebrahim Kouchakzai, the police commander of Chabahar, and the death of Mahsa Amini in September following her arrest by the Guidance Patrol. Security forces reportedly opened fire on the protesters and later on worshippers holding the Friday Prayers in the Jameh Mosque of Makki, causing street clashes resulting in at least 96 protesters killed and 300 injured.
Jaish al-Adl (“Army of Justice”) is an insurgent group active in the Sistan and Baluchestan Province of Iran, primarily among the Baloch minority, along the Pakistani border. The group was founded in 2012 by a core of Jondollah militants, another militant group that the Iranian government effectively crushed. Jaish al-Adl has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks on Iranian security forces to defend the rights of the Baloch people and fight against the perceived discrimination and marginalization of Sunni Muslims in predominantly Shia Iran. Jaish al-Adl’s modus operandi is marked by sporadic, low-intensity armed clashes, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and kidnappings.
In late May, five Iranian border guards were killed in clashes with an unidentified armed group in the province of Sistan and Baluchestan. In 2021, a Jaish al-Adl attack in Saravan killed five members of the IRGC, and three others were taken prisoner.
Jaish al-Adl was added to the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations in 2019 by the administration of former US president Donald Trump following a suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (SVBIED) attack (February 2019) on a bus transporting IRGC members on the road between the cities of Zahedan and Khash in Sistan-Baluchistan Province killing 27 IRGC members.
Iran Dossier In Retaliation for Bloody Friday, Jaish alAdl attacked a police station.