10 security personnel dead in Iran attacks: TV

Terrorist attacks in southeastern Iran near Pakistan killed 10 Iranian security personnel, state media reported on Thursday, doubling an earlier toll.

The number of dead is almost as large as from a similar attack in December The attacks hit the Sistan-Baluchistan province which has for years faced unrest involving drug-smuggling gangs and extremists.

"The case of the terrorist attacks was closed with the martyrdom of 10 members of the security forces," and the killing of 18 "terrorists", state television said.

Majid Mirahmadi, vice-minister of the interior, had earlier told the channel that five members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the police died during two night-time attacks against a Guards base in Rask and a police post in Chabahar.

"The terrorists had planned to seize military bases," Mirahmadi later told state television, adding that "none of them survived" the clashes.

He added that the assailants appeared to be foreigners

The number of assailants killed in the clashes also rose from the 15 which General Mohammad Pakpour, who heads the Guards' land forces, had announced on television.