(Pakistan launches massive offensive. More than 30,000 Pakistani troops moved into the main al-Qaida and Taliban stronghold as the nuclear-armed nation launched a critical push against insurgents. ITV's Andrew Thomas reports.)
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(Members of Congress remain extremely concerned about the Security issue in Pakistan & Afghanistan.)
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31 die in suicide attack targeting Iran troops
A suicide bomber killed five senior commanders of the elite Revolutionary Guard and at least 26 others in an area of southeastern Iran on Sunday, 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.
Tehran accuses the United States of backing Jundallah to create instability in the country but Washington denies this.
Jundallah accuses Iran's Shiite-dominated government of persecution and has carried out attacks against the Revolutionary Guard and Shiite targets in the southeast.
State broadcaster IRIB said the attack occurred in the morning at the gates of a conference hall in the city of Sarbaz in Sistan-Baluchistan. The province is the scene of frequent clashes between security forces, Sunni rebels and drug traffickers.
However, the Guard themselves accused "foreign elements" linked to the United States of involvement and state television also pointed the finger at Britain, another traditional foe of Iran.
Professional Terrorists
The attack and the allegations of foreign involvement are likely to raise tension between Iran and the West, a day before nuclear talks in Vienna including Iranian, U.S., French and Russian officials.
"Some informed sources said the British government was directly involved in the terrorist attack ... by organizing, supplying equipment and employing professional terrorists," state television said.
The television report said analysts believed the aim of the attack was to "re-direct" parts of the West's problems in Afghanistan across the border to Iran.
A Foreign Office spokesman in London declined to comment directly on the Iranian comments and instead issued a statement, saying: "The British government condemns the terrorist attack in the province of Sistan and Baluchistan in Iran and the sad loss of life which it caused.
"Terrorism is abhorrent wherever it occurs. Our sympathies go to those who have been killed in the attack and to their families," it said.
The Guard is an elite force seen as fiercely loyal to the values of the 1979 Islamic revolution. It handles security in sensitive border areas.
The Guard commanders targeted Sunday were heading to a meeting with local tribal leaders to promote unity between the Shiite and Sunni Muslim communities.
Comprising Sunnis from the Baluchi ethnic minority, Jundallah have waged a low-level insurgency in recent years, accusing the mostly Shiite government of persecution.
In May, the group 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 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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