20 Guard personnel killed, many hurt in Iran bombing

A suicide bombing targeting a bus carrying personnel of Iran’s elite paramilitary Revolutionary Guard force killed at least 20 people and wounded 20 in the country’s southeast, state media reported.

An Al-Qaeda-linked extremist group operating across the border in Pakistan reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack, which came on the day of a US-led conference in Warsaw that included discussions on what America describes as Iran’s malign influence across the wider Mideast. It also comes two days after Iran marked the 40th anniversary of its 1979 Islamic revolution.

The state-run IRNA news agency, citing what it described as an “informed source,” reported the attack on the Guard in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan province.

The province, which lies on a major opium trafficking route, has seen occasional clashes between Iranian forces and Baluch separatists, as well as drug traffickers.

The Guard is a major economic and military power in Iran, answerable only to the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

While Iran has been enmeshed in the wars engulfing Syria and neighboring Iraq, it largely has avoided the bloodshed plaguing the region. In 2009, more than 40 people, including six Guard commanders, were killed in a suicide attack by extremists in Sistan and Baluchistan province. Jundallah, an extremist group still active in the region on Iran’s border with Pakistan, claimed responsbility for that attack.

More recently, another extremist group known as Jaish Al-Adl linked to Al-Qaeda, kidnapped 11 Iranian border guards in October. Five later were returned to Iran and six remain held.

A coordinated June 7, 2017 Daesh assault on Parliament and the shrine of Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran’s Islamic revolution, killed at least 19 and wounded more than 50.

And most recently, an attack on a military parade in September in Iran’s oil-rich southwest killed over 20 and wounded over 60.

President Donald Trump, who campaigned on a promise of tearing up Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers, withdrew the US from the accord last May. Since then, the UN says Iran has kept up its side of the bargain, though Iranian officials have increasingly threatened to resume higher enrichment.

Amid the new tensions, Iran’s already-weakened economy has been further challenged. There have been sporadic protests in the country as well, incidents applauded by Trump amid Washington’s maximalist approach to Tehran.

Khamenei, who earlier approved President Hassan Rouhani’s outreach to the West during the nuclear deal negotiations, dismissed any future dealings with the US.

“About the United States, the resolution of any issues is not imaginable and negotiations with it will bring nothing but material and spiritual harm,” Khamenei said in a statement.

The Warsaw summit, which started on Wednesday, was initially pegged to focus entirely on Iran. However, the US subsequently made it about the broader Middle East, to boost participation.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif predicted the Warsaw summit would not be productive for the US.

“I believe it’s dead on arrival or dead before arrival,” he said at a news conference before the bombing.