LATEST: Detained Opposition Leader Rahnavard Has Eye Surgery

A police aircraft crashed in southeastern Iran on Saturday, killing all seven people on board.

The plane went down in a mountainous area near Zahedan, the capital of Sistan and Baluchestan Province. The victims included three senior police officers and a police employee.

The officers were travelling to the area to investigate last week’s killing of four Iranian police border guards by gunmen near the Iran-Pakistan border.

No group has claimed the attack, but the Sunni insurgency Jaish ul-Adl has carried out a series of deadly operations since summer 2013 against Iranian security forces. They include the killing of 16 border guards last October, and the abduction and murder of five guards in February-March.

Iranian officials maintained their denunciation of Pakistan over the latest killings. Interior Ministry Hossein Ali Amiri said on Saturday:

We don’t expect the Pakistani government [to allow] the terrorist operations will be held against Iran from Pakistani soil….The Pakistani government should be held accountable for the terrorist operations.

Detained Opposition Leader Rahnavard Has Eye Surgery

Opposition leader Zahra Rahnavard, held under strict house arrest since February 2011, has undergone eye surgery in hospital.

Rahnavard was accompanied by her husband and fellow detainee, 2009 Presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. No other members of the family were permitted.

Mousavi underwent eye surgery in August, and Mehdi Karroubi, another 2009 candidate who was detained at the same time, had an operation last month.

Report: Activist and Filmmaker Mohammad Reza Nourizad Beaten and Detained

The webpage of filmmaker Mohammad Reza Nourizad claims that he was beaten and detained by police on Saturday, posting a photograph of the injured activist.

NOURIZAD BEATEN

Nourizad was arrested after the disputed 2009 Presidential election when he wrote open letters to the Supreme Leader calling on him to apologize for the crackdown on protesters. The filmmaker was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison in April 2010 and served almost two years before he was freed.