Attack sites in Sistan and Baluchestan. Red: Zahedan police patrol ambush — Grid 41R KN 9282 6487 — 1 KIA, 3 WIA. Amber: Rask IRGC vehicle attack — Grid 41R LK 4007 0290 — repelled. Sources: Tasnim, Khaama Press, APA, PressTV, Caliber.az. Graphic: StrategyBattles.net

Unidentified gunmen opened fire on a police patrol in the city of Zahedan on Wednesday morning, killing one officer and wounding three others. The attack was confirmed by both the Sistan and Baluchestan provincial police information center and Tasnim News Agency, Iran’s state-aligned outlet. The slain officer was identified as Sergeant Major Mohammad Reza Nezamdoost, with three colleagues transported for medical treatment.

The patrol was actively engaged in maintaining public security when armed assailants opened fire without warning before fleeing the scene. Iranian authorities launched an immediate operation to identify and detain those responsible. As of publication, no group has claimed responsibility for the Zahedan attack.

A second attack unfolded the same day in Rask (Grid 41R LK 4007 0290), a small city approximately 350km south-southeast of Zahedan in the Sarbaz Mountains, where it sits alongside the Sarbaz River on the road linking Chabahar Port to the national road network. According to PressTV, militant elements targeted an IRGC vehicle with the intent to destroy it. IRGC officers responded in time and repelled the attack. No IRGC casualties were reported.

Rask has featured in previous militant operations. It was among the locations targeted in the devastating April 2024 Jaish al-Adl simultaneous strikes that killed 16 Iranian soldiers, and it appeared again in the September 2024 multi-city attack wave. The town’s position on the Chabahar corridor makes its road network a consistent militant target. The Rask incident is sourced from PressTV alone and should be treated as a single-source item pending corroboration.

At dawn on Sunday 26 April, Iran carried out the execution of Amer Ramesh, a 19-year-old Baloch man, at Zahedan Central Prison. The execution was confirmed by Tasnim News Agency, the Hana Human Rights Organization, the Baloch rights group Haal Vsh, and the National Council of Resistance of Iran. Iran’s judiciary charged Ramesh with armed rebellion through bombing and ambushing military forces, membership in Jaish al-Adl, and membership in the Baloch Justice Seekers Movement affiliated with fugitive militant Abdul Ghaffar Naqshbandi.

Ramesh was arrested in October 2024 at age 18, during an IRGC raid on a traditional herb shop in Chabahar’s Pir Sohrab district, in which security forces used heavy weapons including RPGs and mortars. Human rights organisations documented that he was denied family visits for eight months, that his confessions were broadcast by state media and alleged to have been extracted under torture, and that he was denied a final meeting with his family before his execution. Rights groups also documented that his family was falsely told he had been killed during the October 2024 raid.

The timing places the Zahedan patrol attack 72 hours after the Ramesh execution. Whether this represents a direct retaliatory strike has not been confirmed and no group has issued a claim linking the two events. The pattern is nonetheless consistent with previous PFF and Jaish al-Adl retaliation cycles following high-profile executions of Baloch militants.

On 10 December 2025, Jaish al-Adl announced its merger with several other Baloch militant factions, including the Nasr Movement, the Pada Baloch Movement, and the Muhammad Rasulullah Group, to form the People’s Fighters Front (PFF), known in Balochi and Persian as Jabheh-yi Mubarizin-i Mardumi. The PFF’s spokesperson is named Mahmud Baloch. The merger followed the killing of Jaish al-Adl founder Salahuddin Farooqui in a joint Iran-Pakistan counterterrorism operation in late 2024.

The PFF has been operationally active since its formation. On 7 January 2026, PFF militants assassinated Mahmoud Haqiqat, the police chief of Iranshahr. On 11 January 2026, fighters killed one Law Enforcement Command officer and wounded another in an attack on a patrol vehicle in Dashtiari County. On 3 March 2026, the PFF claimed an attack on a Zahedan LEC commander, its first claimed strike in the provincial capital since the group’s formation. On 16 March 2026, five law enforcement officers were killed in a separate ambush in Taftan County, with no group claiming responsibility.

A UN report has also documented cooperation between the Islamic State Khorasan Province and Jaish al-Adl, with ISKP having provided suicide bombers to Jaish al-Adl for the April 2024 Rask and Chabahar attacks. Whether that relationship has carried forward into the PFF structure remains unclear.

Hengaw Organisation for Human Rights documented in April 2026 that forces affiliated with the Zeynabiyoun Brigade, an Iranian-backed Afghan Shia militia, have been deployed to Zahedan, Zabol, and Chabahar. Armed members carrying the group’s flags have appeared in the streets conducting public shows of force. The deployment sits alongside the broader presence of Hashd al-Shaabi forces in Iran’s Kurdish border areas, which Reuters reported in April as part of an IRGC strategy to suppress internal unrest across multiple ethnic minority regions simultaneously.

The introduction of non-Persian, non-Baloch proxy militia forces into Zahedan carries its own escalatory risk. The city already carries acute historical trauma from the September 2022 Bloody Friday massacre, in which over 90 Baloch civilians were killed by security forces following Friday prayers. Visible armed presence by foreign proxy militias in Sistan and Baluchestan’s provincial capital is a significant departure from prior practice and could inflame local grievances further.