20 killed in attack on Iran Revolutionary Guard bus
Al-Qaeda-linked Sunni extremist group Jaish al-Adl blamed
TEHRAN: 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 on Wednesday.
Iranian state media blamed the al-Qaeda-linked Sunni extremist group Jaish al-Adl. Other semiofficial news agencies also reported Jaish al-Adl, or “Army of Justice,” had claimed the attack.
The attack came on the day of a US-led conference in Warsaw that included discussions on what US describes as Iran’s malign influence across the wider Middle- east. 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 borders Pakistan and 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, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
While Iran has been enmeshed in the wars engulfing Syria and neighbouring 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 Sunni extremists in Sistan and Baluchistan province. Jundallah, a Sunni extremist group still active in the region on Iran’s border with Pakistan, claimed responsibility for that attack. Jaish al-Adl kidnapped 11 Iranian border guards in October. Five later were returned to Iran and six remained held. A coordinated June 7, 2017 Islamic State assault on Parliament and the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution. At least 18 people were killed and more than 50 wounded. An attack on a military parade in September in Iran’s oil-rich southwest killed over 20 and wounded over 60.