Bomber targets elite soldiers

2009-10-18 13:56

Tehran - A suicide bomber in southeastern Iran killed at least 20 people on Sunday, including five senior commanders of the elite Revolutionary Guard, the country's official news agency reported.

The IRNA news agency said the dead included the deputy commander of the Guard's ground force, General Noor Ali Shooshtari, as well as a chief provincial Guard commander for the area, Rajab Ali Mohammadzadeh. The other dead were Guard members or local tribal leaders. Dozens of others were wounded, the report said.

The commanders were inside a car on their way to a meeting in the Pishin region near Iran's border with Pakistan when an attacker with explosives blew himself up, IRNA said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the region in Iran's southeast has been at the centre of violent attacks by a Sunni militant group called Jundallah, or Soldiers of God, that has waged a low-level insurgency in recent years.

The group accuses Iran's mostly Shi'ite government of persecution and has carried out attacks against the Revolutionary Guard and Shi'ite targets in southeastern Iran.

Iran's parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani, condemned the assassination of the Guard commanders, saying the bombing was aimed at disrupting security in southeastern Iran.

"We express our condolences for their martyrdom. ... The intention of the terrorists was definitely to disrupt security in Sistan-Baluchistan Province," Larijani told an open session of the parliament broadcast live on state radio.

- SAPA