Thursday, September 2, 2010

A suicide bomber blew himself up yesterday at a meeting in southeastern Iran of the elite Revolutionary Guards, killing seven commanders and 28 other people in an attack Tehran blamed on Washington.

Several tribal leaders at the meeting in Sistan-Baluchestan province - a hotbed of Sunni insurgency - also died in the blast which officials said additionally injured 28 people.

The attacker set off his explosives belt as the meeting got underway around 8am in front of a gymnasium in the city of Pisheen, near the border with Pakistan, the state broadcaster said.

Fars news agency released the names of 35 people killed in the attack and said the bomber struck when Guards officers were meeting local leaders of the Shia and Sunni communities, adding that some tribal chiefs were among the dead.

Those killed included General Nur-Ali Shushtari, deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards ground forces, General Mohammad-Zadeh, commander of the Revolutionary Guards in Sistan-Baluchestan province, the Guards’ commander for the town of Iranshahr and the commander of the Amir al-Momenin unit.

Three other commanders from the adjacent province of Kerman were also killed, according to Fars.

Iran’s state-owned English language Press TV channel showed several patches of blood, broken glass and footwear scattered at the site of the attack.
Some bodies covered in white sheeting were seen lying nearby.

The chief prosecutor in the region, Mohammad Marziah, said last night that Abdolmalek Rigi, the head of the shadowy Sunni rebel group, Jundallah (Soldiers of God) had “accepted the responsibility” for the attack.

Rigi’s group has regularly attacked the Guards, the elite military force set up after the 1979 Islamic revolution to protect the regime.