Iran arrests 10 suspects who planned attacks: IRNA

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian security forces have arrested 10 people armed with weapons including missile launchers who were trained abroad to carry out attacks in Iran, the official IRNA news agency said on Thursday.

It quoted a police official in the volatile southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan as saying the arrests took place after security forces clashed with "terrorists" in recent days.

"These bandits had entered the country to carry out bombings, terror officials and create fear and panic among people of the province... but in an operation 10 of them were arrested," IRNA quoted Gholamali Nekoui as saying.

Nekoui said the groups, armed with missile launchers and other weapons, were trained outside the country, without elaborating.

Tehran has in the past accused Britain and the United States of trying to destabilize the Islamic Republic by supporting ethnic minority rebels operating in sensitive border areas.

Earlier this month, armed bandits kidnapped 16 Iranian police and took them across the border to Pakistan. Tehran blamed the attack on Jundollah (God's Soldiers), a Sunni Muslim rebel group that predominantly Shi'ite Muslim Iran has previously linked to al Qaeda and says has bases in Pakistan.

Jundollah later took responsibility for the attack. It said it had killed two of the hostages and threatened to kill the other 14 if Tehran refused to meet its demands, including the release of jailed comrades.

Iran's border regions with Afghanistan and Pakistan are also a major smuggling route for drugs and other contraband. More than 3,600 Iranian security personnel have died in the region fighting drug traffickers since Iran's 1979 revolution.

(Writing by Zahra Hosseinian; Editing by Dominic Evans)