Iran accuses Pakistan of Guards’ suicide attack

The President of Iran has accused Pakistan of involvement in the suicide bomb attack which killed at least 42 people including six senior commanders of the elite Revolutionary Guard.
A local rebel Iranian Sunni group called Jundallah or Army of God says it ordered the attack.However, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says both western and Pakistani secret services are implicated.

The Guards’ commanders were in Iran’s south eastern region for talks aimed at calming increasingly volatile relations between local majority Shi’ites and impoverished minority Sunnis.

“This was a warning to the Revolutionary Guards that if they are attacked it will be a strong show of force,” said journalist Mashallah Shamsolvaezin. “We can say that if Jundallah did it, it was the first time in Iran among a crowd of people.”

Jundallah’s recent attacks include a car bombing in February 2007 which killed eleven Revolutionary Guards. The group is believed to have ties with the Taliban or al-Qaeda in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

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tags: Attack, Iran, Pakistan