Tehran: Iran's state TV says two land mines left over from the 1980s Iraq-Iran war have killed five Iranian border guards and a female shepherd near the Iraqi border.
The TV says the guards were on a regular patrol today near the Iranian border town of Qasr-e Shirin, about 540 kilometers (340 miles) west of the capital, Tehran, when one of the mines went off.
The second explosion, which killed the woman shepherd, was also in the same area today. Such explosions occasionally take place and to this day cause casualties.
Iran says it has defused millions of land mines that Iraqi forces planted during the 1980-88 conflict that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein waged against Iran. The eight-year-long war killed more than a million people on both sides.
