Gunmen wearing police uniform killed more than 21 people on Thursday night near Iran’s border with Afghanistan, the official IRNA news agency reported.
According to Iran’s Police Commander Gen Esmail Ahmadi-Moqaddam, the gunmen stopped the victims and killed them on the Zabol-Zahedan road in Sistan-Baluchistan Province at around 2100 (1730 GMT) on Thursday night.
"People thought they were Iranian police," Gen Ahmadi-Moqaddam said. "Twenty one people have been martyred and seven injured.”
The attackers fled across the border to Afghanistan after the attack, he said.
Gen Ahmadi-Moqaddam blamed the attack on U.S. and British intelligence services.
He said he had information indicating that U.S. and UK intelligence officials had held meetings with the gunmen.
"The said intelligence services had instructed the local bandits on ways of undermining security in the region," IRNA quoted Ahmadi-Maqaddam as saying.
"It appears that a plan to create instability and religious hatred, similar to the bombing of the Shia shrine in Samarra (in Iraq), is being pursued here," he added.
The Samarra attack provoked sectarian violence between Shia and Sunnis in Iraq and threatened to plunge the war-torn country into civil war.
The U.S. and UK have forces stationed in southern Afghanistan as part of a NATO force.
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