6 more security personnel, including police colonel, killed amid Iran protests

TEHRAN, Iran

Six more security personnel were killed by armed assailants across Iran on Thursday amid sweeping protests triggered by the death of a young woman in September.

Col. Hassan Yousefi was traveling with another police officer in the northwestern city of Sanandaj when they were attacked with knives and stones, according to the judiciary-affiliated Mizan News.

Yousefi died on the spot, while the other officer was admitted to a local hospital in critical condition.

A video shared on social media showed the victim lying on the road with his head bleeding.

In a separate incident in the northeastern city of Mashhad, two young members of the paramilitary volunteer Basiji forces were stabbed to death by unidentified men.

According to Mashhad Governor Mohsen Davari, a group of armed men on Thursday called on local shopkeepers to close their shutters as part of a three-day protest marking the third anniversary of the November 2019 unrest in Iran over soaring fuel prices.

Soon after, a group of men carrying weapons attacked the paramilitary Basiji forces, stabbing two of them to death and injuring three others, the governor said.

The two slain men were identified as Hossein Zeinalzadeh and Danial Rezazadeh.

CCTV footage posted online showed a knife-wielding man stabbing one of them before striking a few others amid a scuffle.

Ibrahim Gafarian, a Basiji member who was injured, later succumbed to his wounds at a local hospital, authorities said, bringing the death toll in the incident to three.

Months of protests

Police said the attacker had been arrested, without giving his identity.

In a separate incident reported late Thursday, two security personnel were killed in clashes with armed protesters in Bukan, a city in northwestern West Azerbaijan province.

The identity of the slain men has not been revealed yet.

These incidents come amid months-long nationwide protests that have rocked Iran in the wake of the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of the country's morality police.

Fatal attacks on police officers and paramilitary Basiji forces have become increasingly common in recent months, with several incidents of knife attacks and shootings reported across the country.

On Wednesday, at least nine people were killed in separate incidents in the southwestern Khuzestan and central Isfahan provinces, most of them police personnel.

One of the officers, Col. Reza Nasiri, who sustained injuries after two motorcycle riders opened fire in the Khane Esfahan area of Isfahan on Wednesday night, succumbed to his wounds on Thursday, bringing the death toll to three, with seven other fatalities in Khuzestan.

President Ebrahim Raisi has urged security agencies to "immediately identify the perpetrators and leaders" of these attacks and "hand them over to the judiciary."

More than 1,000 people have been arrested in connection with the sweeping protests in the past few months, with trials starting earlier this week.

In preliminary verdicts, a court in Tehran has so far issued five death sentences, while giving prison terms ranging from 5-10 years to many others. The verdicts can be challenged in the appeals court.