Iran's Border Guards Seize 30 Horses and Mules Carrying Smuggled Weapons and Ammunition

A commander of the Islamic Republic's Law Enforcement Force reported the seizure of "30 horses and mules carrying a smuggled cargo of weapons, ammunition, and explosive devices in northwestern Iran" by border guards. According to Tasnim News Agency, Qassem Rezaei, the commander of the border guards, announced this news during a visit to Bushehr on Tuesday, August 2, but did not provide further details about the time and exact location of this discovery. However, his statements suggest that these animals were unowned. He described "the transport of this type of smuggling" as a "serious threat" to Iran and criticized some officials who, according to him, support "merchandise and weapon smugglers" and "create a conducive environment for these profiteers' activities." IRNA also reported on this part of Mr. Rezaei's statements, which mentioned that "there are clues linking arms and ammunition smugglers at the northwestern borders of the country to groups we are currently trying to identify." He did not provide more details about these groups, but it seems he was referring to armed parties and groups that are in armed conflict with the Islamic Republic of Iran. This police commander emphasized that "border closure against high threats in the fields of drug, merchandise, and armed smuggling is on the agenda of the border guards." Iran has over 8,000 kilometers of land and maritime borders, and from time to time, there are reports of armed clashes between Iranian military and law enforcement forces and armed groups and drug traffickers, whom the Islamic Republic refers to as "bandits." Most of these clashes occur at the western, northwestern, and eastern borders of Iran. The discovery of the cargo reported by the border guard commander was in an area predominantly inhabited by Kurds and close to the borders of Iraq and Turkey. This area has previously been the site of clashes between the Revolutionary Guards and armed Kurds and militants of the Islamic State (ISIS). Last Friday, it was reported that the Revolutionary Guards killed three "terrorists" in a clash with armed individuals, injuring four others and arresting one. In this clash, one member of the Revolutionary Guards was killed and another was injured. In another part of his statements on Tuesday, the border guard commander announced that the smuggling seizures by his force in the first four months of the year were "more than 10 times" that of the same period last year, adding that "in some targeted goods, the amount of seizures was from six to 15 times higher." Qalandar Lashkari, the former commander of the Bushehr Maritime Border Guard, who was honored on Tuesday, also referred to the "increase in smuggling seizures" in this province, stating that these seizures in 2016 increased by 275% to 400 billion tomans.