Sunni extremists say they were behind assault on group linked to Revolutionary Guards

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A suicide bomber targeted a bus carrying personnel affiliated to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Wednesday, killing 27 people and wounding 20 others.

A Sunni extremist group linked to al-Qaida and which operates in Pakistan reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack, which occurred in the south-east of Iran.

The bombing happened on the day that a conference convened by the US in Warsaw was to include discussions on what Washington says is Iran’s malign influence across the wider Middle East. It also came two days after Iran marked the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution and four decades of tense relations with the west.

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The state-run IRNA news agency said the attack took place in Sistan and Baluchistan province, which has a large, mainly Sunni, ethnic Baluchi community which straddles the border with Pakistan.

The Revolutionary Guards said in a statement that a vehicle loaded with explosives had targeted a bus carrying affiliated border guards.

The Fars news agency said the attack was claimed by Jaish al-Adl, a jihadist group formed in 2012 as a successor to the Sunni extremist group Jundallah, which had waged a deadly insurgency against Iranian targets.

Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, described the conference convened by the US as the Warsaw Circus, and said it was “no coincidence that Iran is hit by terror on the very day” that the talks began. Zarif tweeted: “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.”

Sistan-Baluchistan has been the scene of other attacks. Three members of a bomb squad sent to the scene of an explosion in its capital, Zahedan, were wounded on 29 January when a second device blew up as they were trying to defuse it, police said at the time.

Two people were killed and about 40 wounded in the port city of Chabahar early December in an attack Zarif blamed at the time on “foreign-backed terrorists”, a reference to Sunni Muslim extremists.

Militants disguised as soldiers opened fire on a military parade in the oil-rich south-western city of Ahvaz in September, killing 24 people and wounding more than 60. Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, blamed Riyadh and Abu Dhabi for the attack, allegations denied by both countries.