By RFE/RL
Iranian officials and state media are reporting that two security guards have been killed by a suicide attack outside a police headquarters in the southeastern port city of Chabahar.
Rahmdel Bameri, Chabahar's acting governor, was among the Iranian officials who said two victims were killed by the December 6 car bomb attack.
Earlier reports said at least three people had been killed and more than two dozen injured by the explosion.
Bameri also suggested that more than one assailant was involved in the attack.
“The terrorists exploded a car carrying explosives at the gate of the [police] headquarters,” Bameri was quoted as saying by the official government news agency IRNA.
Mohammad Hadi Marashi, the deputy governor in charge of security, said the assailants tried to enter the city’s police headquarters but "they were prevented by the guards and they detonated the car bomb."
State television reported shooting in the area shortly after the explosion.
Videos posted online by Iranian news agencies, purportedly from Chabahar, showed thick smoke rising in the area after the blast.
Chabahar is a key port city on the Gulf of Oman about 100 kilometers west of Iran's border with Pakistan.
It is located in Iran's southeastern region of Sistan-Baluchistan, home to a Sunni Muslim minority in largely Shi'ite Iran.
The region has long been plagued by violence blamed on drug smugglers and militant separatists.
Suicide attacks are rare in Iran.
Mohammad Pakpur, the commander of the ground forces of Iran’ Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said the attack had failed.
“This was a blind terrorist attack," Pakpur told the semi-official Tasnim news agency. "it had no results for the terrorists.”
Pakpur also said several hours after the explosion that calm and security returned to the city of Chabahar.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.
