By Muhammet Kursun and Ahmet Dursun
TEHRAN/ANKARA (AA): At least 27 members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards were killed in a suicide bombing on Wednesday in southeastern Iran.
At least 13 others were injured in the attack on Khash-Zahedan road in Sistan and Baluchistan province – Iran’s second-largest.
In a statement, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said a bomb-laden vehicle targeted a bus carrying personnel “coming back from a border guarding mission when it came under a suicide car attack by Takfiri terrorists”, but did not mention the number of passengers.
Terrorist organisation Jaish al-Adl (“Army of Justice”), based in Pakistan claimed responsibility for the attack.The group was founded in 2012, by members of Jundallah terrorist group in Baluchistan, Pakistan.
President Hassan Rouhani, sent condolences to the family members of those killed, condemned ‘savage’ terrorist attack.
The president said, “Such crimes and cowardly acts will not have the least effect on the will of the great Iranian nation and they will continue the path they have chosen powerfully.”
Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif took Twitter: “Is it no coincidence that Iran is hit by terror on the very day that #WarsawCircus begins?”
“Especially when cohorts of same terrorists cheer it from Warsaw streets & support it with Twitter bots? US seems to always make the same wrong choices, but expect different results,” Zarif added.
Representatives of several Arab and Western states attended a U.S.-sponsored anti-Iran Mideast conference held in Warsaw on Feb. 13-14. The international ministerial meeting will discuss peace and security in the Middle East, and critical issues such as terrorism, missile development and proliferation.
Separately, a Sunni cleric in Iran, Molavi Abdolhamid Ismaeelzahi condemned the attack.
Ismaeelzahi said people of Sistan and Baluchistan were suffering from such attacks: “The only victims of [such attacks] are our people who want to live in peace and security.”
Meanwhile, the governorship of the province declared three-day period of mourning after the attack.
Last September an attack on a military parade in Ahvaz, in southwestern Iran killed 25 people — including Revolutionary Guard members — and wounded dozens, in one of the deadliest attacks in the country in years.
Additional report by The Muslim News
[Photo: Scene of the suicide attack on a Revolutionary Guards bus on Khash-Zahedan road in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan Province on February 13, 2019. Photo by Fars News Agency/AA]
