Iranian state media say a general of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) was unhurt but a bodyguard killed when gunmen fired on their vehicle in southeastern Iran early on April 23.
The apparent target, Brigadier General Hossein Almassi, is an IRGC commander in the restive Sistan-Baluchistan Province, a particularly poor and mostly Sunni region that borders Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The reports said suspects were apprehended after the attack near a checkpoint in the provincial capital, Zahedan, but they did not provide details.
IRNA said Almassi was not injured and identified the dead bodyguard as Mahmud Absalan, the son of a senior IRGC commander in the region.
Sistan-Baluchistan has been the scene of numerous clashes between Iranian security forces and Baluch militants, as well as drug traffickers exploiting it as a major smuggling route for Afghan opium and heroin.
Some of its large Sunni population complain of discrimination by the majority Shi'ite Iranian authorities.
On January 1, the IRGC said it had killed six "armed bandits" in the province in an incident in which three local volunteers for the regime's Basij militia were also killed.
Days earlier, Iranian authorities said three men suspected in an attack in late December that left two IRGC members dead had been killed.