According to Iranian media outlets, Morteza Asoudeh was killed at the scene of the incident and Hamed Bazi succumbed to his injuries at a hospital.
Both were members of the Basij (volunteer forces).
At least six people were injured in the incident.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
In an interview with the Persian service of the Fars News Agency, the deputy governor of Sistan-Baluchestan, Rajab Ali Sheikhzadeh, said, “Today, at 12:50 p.m., a person disguised as a policeman, who was standing outside the city’s Imam Hussein (AS) Mosque and mosalla, the Friday prayers ground, was identified by policemen on the scene.”
“After the suicide bomber was identified by the policemen, he ran away and blew himself up outside Chabahar’s Hazrat Seyyed-al-Shohada Clinic in the vicinity of the mosque, which is also the city’s mosalla.”
The Persian service of IRNA quoted eyewitnesses as saying that the suicide bomber had intended to enter the mosque but was stopped by a number of basiji and security forces.
According to their account, he set off his explosive belt a few hundred meters away from the mosque.
Iranian Deputy Interior Minister for Security Affairs Ali Abdollahi told the Persian service of ISNA, “Today, at 12:20 p.m., a person who had intended to carry out a suicide attack… was identified and chased and blew himself up while escaping.”
However, Chabahar Governor General Iraj Heydari provided a different account of the incident during an interview with the Fars News Agency.
He said, “A wicked terrorist had intended to carry out a suicide attack during Friday prayers,” adding, “The terrorist was identified by basijis and policemen and was chased and shot outside the area of the security cordon of the policemen while escaping, and this caused his explosive belt to detonate, and he was killed.”
On December 15, 2010, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device outside a mosque in Chabahar during a Shia religious ceremony, killing 35 people and injuring more than 100 others. Women and children were among the victims.
The terrorist group Jundullah claimed responsibility for the bombing, saying it was retaliation for the execution of the group’s leader, Abdolmalek Rigi, who was hanged in June 2010.
EP/HG
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MNA
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