TEHRAN: Armed bandits killed four members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard in fighting in a southern province.
An official report said the clash between Guard members and the bandits happened Friday night in the Gounic district of Sistan and Baluchistan province.
The site of the fighting is some 1,250 km southeast of the capital Tehran. It did not elaborate.
The province has been the scene of occasional clashes between Baluch militants and Iranian forces. Security forces have also fought with drug traffickers in the province, which is on a major smuggling route for Afghan opium and heroin.

BEIRUT: Two endangered bears who were living in poor conditions in a Lebanon zoo have been flown to an animal sanctuary in the US after they started to lose weight and suffered from other health issues.
Rights association Animals Lebanon said it managed to persuade their owner that “the bears deserved better” given the creatures’ deteriorating condition.
Lebanon’s economic crisis, considered the worst in its modern history, has affected animals as much as humans.
Families have given up their pets, unable to feed them in light of sharp rises in the dollar exchange rate. Zoos have also been affected, with animals facing malnourishment and owners no longer able to secure their basic needs.
Animals Lebanon said the two Syrian brown bears, called Homer and Ulysses, had been trapped for more than 10 years in a zoo in the southern city of Tyre.
“There are six bears still waiting to be rescued in the north of Lebanon, Bekaa and Beirut,” the association’s director, Jason Mier, told Arab News.
Previous attempts to get the bears to the Colorado Wild Animal Sanctuary had failed due to the pandemic, roadblocks, banks freezing assets, and the wait to obtain the sanctuary’s confirmation to receive the creatures.

The sanctuary cares for more than 650 lions, tigers, bears, wolves and other animals — including a fox and a wallaby rescued by Animals Lebanon.
Animal rescue organization Four Paws offered to help bear the cost of the animals’ trip to Colorado.
Mier said: “There are six zoos we are aware of in Lebanon. In 2017, we passed the Animal Protection and Welfare Law, which regulates zoos. These zoos hold endangered wildlife, local wildlife, and farmed or domesticated animals. There are about 30 lions, 10 bears, and 10 tigers. We believe conditions need to be drastically improved at all zoos.”
Dr. Assad Serhal, director of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Lebanon, told Arab News that the Syrian brown bear was an endangered species seen in the mountainous area of eastern Lebanon, near the Syrian borders.
In 2019, an environmental activist filmed a brown cub playing on the road in the outskirts of Ersal, in the Bekaa valley. That same cub was previously seen with his mother in 2017 in the same area. This species had not been seen in Lebanon for over 50 years.
The Syrian brown bear lived in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Turkey but, due to illegal and non-organized hunting in Lebanon, the species became extinct.
Serhal said Lebanon was home to several species of wild animal, but that most had been captured by zoo owners across the country.

LONDON: Iran’s intervention in the internal affairs of other countries is a threat to the region and a matter of concern, the chief of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) said on Saturday.
Iran’s nuclear program, ballistic missiles, and its support for militias, must also be included in ongoing talks in Vienna and they should not be limited to reviving the nuclear deal, GCC Secretary-general Nayef bin Falah Al-Hajraf said at a virtual Gulf Research Meeting.
Representatives of Iran and the five world powers still party to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action have been meeting in the Austrian capital since April, with US envoys participating indirectly. An agreement has yet to be reached.
Al-Hajraf added that the current situation in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen represents a clear and direct threat to the security and stability of the Middle East.
The GCC chief said that economic integration is on the list of priorities for the council, as is strengthening the leading position of GCC countries in the region and the world.
He said Saudi Arabia holding the G20 presidency in 2020, the UAE hosting Expo 2020 from October, and Qatar’s hosting of the 2022 FIFA World Cup are examples of this effort.
Al-Hajraf added that the national visions and development plans in GCC countries are creating the appropriate momentum to focus on the future and exploit opportunities.

BEIRUT: A man killed in a queue at a gas station on Saturday was the latest victim of the unprecedented crisis in Lebanon.
Mahmoud Delbani, a 27-year-old Lebanese citizen, was waiting to fill his car with gasoline at 2.30am when an inattentive truck driver crashed into several vehicles lined up at the Coral Petrol Station on the Beirut-South Lebanon highway, an Internal Security Forces traffic officer told Arab News.
Three people were also injured in the accident.
For more than two months the deteriorating economic crisis has caused enormous fuel shortages in Lebanon, with queues kilometers long outside gas stations leading to unprecedented congestion on roads and horrific accidents.
The lines at stations have become known as ‘the queues of humiliation and shame’ due to the long hours that drivers spend waiting to fill their cars.
Local media reported that the 27-year-old man had been looking forward to catching up with his friends after filling his car with fuel.
Hussein, a friend of Delbani from Tyre, in southern Lebanon, said: “He left us too early. What a tragically unexpected and humiliating end to such a loveable and smiley character. I cannot accept what happened! Why did he have to leave that way?”
Tarek, another friend of Delbani, mourned him on Facebook, writing “RIP Mahmoud you will be missed … too early dear but our destiny in Lebanon … innocent people die and stupid politicians have a long life…”
The traffic police have reported a number of recent accidents in petrol queues.
Petrol stations have been running low on subsidized petrol for months, but shortages worsened in June and July as people’s fears of rationing and shortages intensified, leading to a large number of petrol station closures.
A number of fights, heated arguments and shootings have taken place and a petrol station owner was shot dead by an angry customer in north Lebanon.

BEIRUT: Jordan will start vaccinating children aged 12 years and older against COVID-19 from Sunday, the state news agency said on Saturday.
Children can be given the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine with the approval of a guardian with no prior appointment necessary, the agency quoted the health ministry as saying.
The decision comes as Jordan lifted most restrictions at the start of July, reopening gyms, pools and night clubs at hotels after cases dropped from a peak in March when several thousands of new cases were recorded daily.
Total active cases reached 7,489 on Friday with 331 new cases and four deaths.
Since the start of the pandemic, Jordan has recorded a total of 763,437 cases and 9,933 deaths.
Several other countries in the region are vaccinating children, including Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.