http://www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=1&id=18511
Revolutionary Guard Commanders Killed in Iran Bomb
18/10/2009
A picture taken on September 21, 2008 shows Iran's elite Revolutionary
Guards marching during a military parade in Tehran. (AFP)
A picture taken in 2008 shows Iranian General Nur-Ali Shushtari, deputy
commander of the Revolutionary Guards ground forces, who was killed in a
suicide attack in the Iranian city of Pisheen. (AFP)
A picture taken on April 3, 2006 shows special forces of Iran's elite
Revolutionary Guards participating in military manoeuvers at an undisclosed
location near the Gulf. (AFP)
TEHRAN, Iran, (AP) - A suicide bomber killed five senior commanders of the
elite Revolutionary Guard and at least 15 others in an area of southeastern
Iran that has been at the center of a simmering Sunni insurgency, state media
reported.
The official IRNA news agency said the dead included the deputy commander of
the Guard's ground force, Gen. 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 with local tribal
leaders in the Pishin district near Iran's border with Pakistan when an
attacker with explosives blew himself up, IRNA said.
Iran's state-owned English language TV channel, Press TV, said there were two
simultaneous explosions: one at the meeting and another targeting an additional
convoy of Guards on their way to the gathering.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the region in Iran's
southeast has been the focus of violent attacks by a militant group from Iran's
Sunni Muslim minority called Jundallah, or Soldiers of God, which has waged a
low-level insurgency in recent years.
The group accuses Iran's Shiite-dominated government of persecution and has
carried out attacks against the Revolutionary Guard and Shiite targets in the
southeast.
That campaign is one of several ethnic and religious small-scale insurgencies
in Iran that have fueled sporadic and sometimes deadly attacks in recent years
- though none have amounted to a serious threat to the government.
The Revolutionary Guard blamed Sunday's attack on what it called the "global
arrogance," a reference to the United States.
"The global arrogance, with the provocation of its local mercenaries, targeted
the meeting of the Guard with local tribal leaders," said a Guard statement
read out on state TV.
Iranian officials have often raised concerns that Washington might try to
incite members of Iran's many ethnic and religious minorities against the
Shiite-led government, which is dominated by ethnic Persians.
The Guard commanders targeted Sunday were heading to a meeting with local
tribal leaders to promote unity between the Shiite and Sunni Muslim
communities.
In April, Iran increased security in Sistan-Baluchistan Province, at the center
of the tension, by placing it under the command of the Guard, which took over
from local police forces.
The 120,000-strong Revolutionary Guard controls Iran's missile program and has
its own ground, naval and air units.
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.
In May, Jundallah took credit for a suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque that
killed 25 people in Zahedan, the capital of Iran's Sistan-Baluchistan province,
which has witnessed some of Jundallah's worst attacks. Thirteen members of the
faction were convicted in the attack and hanged in July.
Jundallah is made up of Sunnis from the Baluchi ethnic minority, which can also
be found in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The group has carried out bombings, kidnappings and other attacks against
Iranian soldiers and other forces in recent years, including a car bombing in
February 2007 that killed 11 members of the Revolutionary Guard near Zahedan.
Jundallah also claimed responsibility for the December 2006 kidnapping of seven
Iranian soldiers in the Zahedan area. It threatened to kill them unless members
of the group in Iranian prisons were released. The seven were released a month
later, apparently after negotiations through tribal mediators.
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