Rouhani swears deaths will be avenged
IRANIAN President Hassan Rouhani has vowed revenge against the “mercenary group” behind a suicide bombing which killed 27 people in the southeast.
“We will certainly make this mercenary group pay for the blood of our martyrs,” he said. “The main root of terrorism in the region is America and Zionists, and some oilproducing countries in the region also financially support the terrorists.”
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the attack’s perpetrators were certainly linked to “the spying agencies of some regional and trans-regional countries.”
The attack, which targeted a busload of Revolutionary Guards in the volatile southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan, was one of the deadliest on Iranian security forces in years.
The bomber struck as the troops were returning from a patrol mission on the border with Pakistan, where Sunni Baluchi separatist and jihadist groups have bases. The troops killed belonged to the Guards’ 14th Imam Hussein Division, the Tasnim news agency reported, listing their names and their ages, which ranged from 21 to 52.
It came just days after Iran held more than a week of celebrations for the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.
(AFP)