Israel and the United States were behind the twin suicide bombings on a mosque in Iran that left 27 people dead, a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards officer told the semi-official Fars news agency on Friday.

Open gallery view Iranian gathering at the scene of bomb blasts in the provincial capital of Zahedan, Iran, Thursday, July 15, 2010. Credit: AP

Two bombs went off in the suicide attack at the mosque in Zahedan Thursday night. Authorities said an additional 167 people were injured and warned the death toll could rise.

The radical Sunni group, Jundollah, meaning Soldiers of God, claimed responsibility for the bombings, calling it retaliation for the execution last month of its leader, Abdolmalik Rigi.

The chief of the Revolutionary Guards' Political Bureau Yadollah Javani to Fars that that confessions extracted by Rigi prior to execution last month showed the rebel group had received U.S. support for its fight against the regime in Tehran.

"Rigi's confessions prove that the United States, Zionists and some European countries are directly linked with the Zahedan blasts, because he had confessed that the U.S. wants bomb attacks to be carried out across Iran," Javani told Fars.

According to the Revolutionary Guards top officer, Iran's enemies sought to divide "Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims in order to create chaos in the country," adding that "one could not doubt the involvement of secret foreign services in the efforts to generate tension amongst Muslims."

Javani's claims came as Hezbollah condemned Friday the twin suicide bombings, saying they extended their "deepest condolences to the leader of the Islamic revolution and to the government and people of the Islamic republic as well as to the relatives of the victims."

The statement also echoed Iranian claims that foreign intelligence services were behind the attack.

Earlier, U.S. President Barack Obama also released a statement condemning the attack, saying it was an "outrageous terrorist attack."

In the statement, Obama said the deaths of innocent civilians in their place of worship was an "intolerable offense" and said those who carried out the attack must be held accountable. Obama said the U.S. stands with the families of those killed and with the Iranian people.

The blast was the latest by the group Jundallah, which has repeatedly succeeded in carrying out deadly strikes on the Guard, the country's most powerful military force.

Shi'ite worshippers were attending ceremonies on Thursday marking the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson, Hussein, when the first blast went off outside the mosque in the provincial capital Zahedan.

According to authorities, the first blast caused minimal damage, but it prompted people to rush to the site where they were caught by a second explosion.