Feb 19, 2007

Iran Points To U.S.-Paki Op in Recent Attacks


The Iranian Foreign Ministry charged Sunday that Sunni insurgents from Iran used Pakistan as a base to plan a bombing that killed 11 people and wounded more than 30 in the southeastern border city of Zahedan last week. The ministry said it had demanded an explanation from the Pakistani ambassador. ...

A car loaded with explosives detonated in front of a bus carrying members of the Revolutionary Guards last Wednesday.

A second bomb was set off in Zahedan on Friday evening. The semiofficial Fars news agency reported that it caused no casualties. But the news agency said the police clashed with an armed group and exchanged gunfire after the blast.

Zahedan, the capital of the province of Sistan-Baluchistan, is home to many ethnic Baluchis, who are Sunni Muslims. A majority of Iranians are Shiites. A Baluchi group opposed to the government, the Jondollah Organization of Iran, claimed responsibility for both attacks. ...

Iran has accused the United States and Britain of provoking the Sunni insurgents. The authorities have said that the efforts are part of the plot to sow discord among Sunnis and Shiites in the country. Gen. Mohammad Ghaffari, a commander of security forces in the province, told the Fars news agency that a film that was confiscated from the suspects proved that the group was “affiliated to intelligence agencies of some of the foreign countries, such as the U.S. and Britain.”

The news agency also quoted what it called informed sources as saying that the explosives used in the bombings were American.

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