Members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) marching in a parade. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards killed six militants who had crossed the border from Iraq and intended to carry out operations inside the Islamic Republic, Brigadier General Mohammad Pakpour, the head of the Guards ground forces, said on Sunday, according to state media.

Three more militants were wounded in the clashes, which took place near Oshnavieh and Sarvabad in northwestern Iran, and explosives and weapons were recovered in the operation, Pakpour said.

The Guards issued a statement on Saturday noting that nine militants had been killed in clashes with the Guards in the same area on Friday.

Pakpour did not elaborate on the identity of the militants, but he called them word “terrorists,” which the Guards generally use to mean Sunni Muslim militants who are enemies of Shi’ite Iran.

In June 2017, Islamic State militants carried out coordinated attacks at the parliament building in Tehran and the mausoleum of Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini south of the capital, killing at least 18 people.