Iran

An attack on an Iranian police convoy Saturday in the country's restive southern province of Sistan and Baluchestan killed at least 10 officers, authorities said.

Details remain scarce over the attack in Gohar Kuh, some 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) southeast of the Iranian capital, Tehran.

Initially, reports simply described an attack by "miscreants" without more information. But shortly after, Iranian state media said 10 officers had been killed.

HalVash, an advocacy group for the Baluch people of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, posted photos and video of what appeared to be a disabled truck painted with the green stripe used by Iranian police vehicles. One graphic photo shared by the group showed what appeared to be the corpses of two police officers in the front seat of the truck.

HalVash said the attack appeared to target two security force vehicles and all those riding in them were killed. The truck appeared to have only damage from bullets, rather than any explosive being used.

The state-run IRNA news agency said that Eskandar Momeni, the country's interior minister, ordered an investigation into the incident that it described as causing the "martyrdom of a number of police."

Authorities identified no immediate suspects for the attack, nor did any group claim responsibility. The assault came after Israel launched a major attack across Iran early Saturday morning.

The Baluch regions across the three nations have faced a low-level insurgency by Baluch nationalists for more than two decades. Verifying information remains difficult in Iran's Sistan and Baluchistan, which for decades has been home to violence involving heroin traffickers.

The province is one of the least developed parts of Iran. Relations between the predominantly Sunni Muslim residents of the region and Iran's Shiite theocracy have long been strained. Typical attacks involve hit-and-run assaults by militants in the region, like the Sunni militant group Jaish al-Adl, that kill a few security officials at a time.

However, there have been mass casualty attacks by militants in the past. In April, gunmen wearing explosive vests attacks several sites in the province, killing 10 before security forces gunned down 18 militants. Last December, another assault killed 11 and wounded eight others.

Meanwhile, the Taliban said they are investigating reports that Afghan migrants had been killed by Iranian security forces in the region earlier in October, an incident that threatened to further strain relations between the nations.

Arab governments reacted with mostly tepid condemnation of Israeli strikes overnight on Iran, expressing concern that a wider conflict could erupt, but avoiding strong language or taking any concrete action to protest the Israeli strikes.

Iranian officials and government media denied that Israeli strikes on several locations in the country did serious damage to infrastructure, claiming that Iranian air defenses had "stopped a number of Israeli missiles."

Tehran did admit, however, that two soldiers were killed in strikes on Iranian military facilities. Iranian media showed video to rebut reports that major oil facilities had been hit in the strikes.

In the Arab world, both governments and media sided with Tehran to condemn the Israeli strikes, albeit avoiding strong language. The Saudi-owned Asharq Al Awsat newspaper posted a headline that Arab states "condemn Israeli strikes on Iran [as a] breach of international law."

Saudi Arabia and Iran have been on the opposite sides of a number of Middle Eastern conflicts in recent years, most notably in Yemen, Syria and Iraq, and relations between the two countries remain strained.

The Saudi foreign ministry — in a statement carried by the Saudi press agency — called on "all parties to use the highest degree of self-restraint to avoid further escalation," warning against the "dangers of continuing military conflicts in the region."

Riyadh also urged international powerbrokers to exercise their responsibility to "lessen tensions" in the Middle East.

Saudi-owned al Arabia TV showed Iranians in Tehran expressing their views about the Israeli strikes, with one middle-aged man expressing relief the "strikes were over without having resulted in a major catastrophe," and a young woman insisting that she "doesn't think that the Israeli strikes [overnight] would ignite a larger conflict."

In Cairo, the Egyptian foreign ministry issued a statement saying that Egypt is "extremely worried about the dangerous and widening escalation in the Middle East."

Egypt and Iran have not had close relations in recent years, and they have remained strained since the government of former Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi was toppled more than a decade ago.

Egypt also condemned "any actions that threaten stability in the region." Egypt replaced veteran Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri several months ago, and his replacement, Badr Abdel Atti, has taken a more strident tone against Israel than his predecessor.

Additionally, the Egyptian government recently replaced veteran intelligence chief Abbas Kamel, who had conducted numerous mediation sessions with Israeli officials in various conflicts in recent years, most notably the Gaza conflict that erupted in October of last year.

The Sultanate of Oman, which has traditionally enjoyed close ties with Iran, "strongly condemned the Israeli strikes on Iran," calling them "a grievous breach of Iranian sovereignty." The sultanate, which has conducted back-channel negotiations in recent years between Iran and Western governments, including the U.S., urged the international community to "take effective action to stop aggression and put an end to what it called the "outrageous encroachment of the territory of regional states."

Qatar's foreign ministry also condemned the Israeli strikes on Iran, urging "self-restraint and dialogue to avoid further destabilizing the region."

Qatar, like Egypt and Oman, has acted as a mediator in conflicts involving Iran and its regional allies in recent years, most notably the recent and ongoing conflict in Gaza.