A suicide bomber killed six senior Revolutionary Guards commanders, including two of its top officers, and 25 other people today at a conference in the southeastern city of Sarbaz, near the Afghan/Pakistan border.
The deputy head of the Guards' ground forces, General Nourali Shoushtari, and its commander in Sistan-Baluchestan province, General Rajabali Mohammadzadeh, were among the dead.
The attack was attributed by Iran's government controlled media to a local rebel Sunni group called Jundollah (God's soldiers) whom they say claimed responsibility. The group is led by Abdolmalek Rigi.
The Iranians claim there'sd a Taliban tie, but since Iran is helping to fund and arm the Taliban (if you believe General Petraeus) just as they did insurgents in Iraq, I see it as more of a Sunni/Shia ethnic conflict
Only fifty percent of Iran's population is ethnic Persian, something that many people are unaware of. No one knows exactly how many Baluchis there are in Iran, but the numbers for Iran's Baluch minority are between one and four million people, based mainly in the region of Sistan-Baluchestan where the bombing occurred.
The Baluchis are almost all Sunni Muslims as opposed to the majority of Iran's Shi'ite population.Iran's Baluchi population frequently charges the regime in Tehran with discrimination and sectarian clashes have occurred from time to time.
The region itself is poor and underdeveloped, mainly consisting of rugged, mountainous terrain, and there is a brisk trafficking in heroin and opium-smuggling from across the border with Pakistan and Afghanistan next door.
The Iranians of course accuse the US and Britain of 'fomenting terrorism' by giving support to Jundollah and claim they will have their revenge, in a statement by the armed forces quoted by the Iranian Fars press agency.
"Not in the distant future we (Iran) will take revenge ... and Baluchis will clear this region from terrorists and criminals."
I have no support for the murder of innocent people, but I have to admit to a grim chuckle upon hearing the Iranians, the founders of Hezbollah and the supporters of Hamas up in arms about terrorism and suicide bombers.
Live by the sword and all that.
- selah -
If the US and Britian were behind this, if they "fomented terrorism", Iranian agents buried depply within the US government would have warned the Iranian leadership about the impending American actions almost immediately. As such, it is next to impossible for America to pull off a covert action pretty much any where on earth right now.
ReplyDeleteIf top Iranian officers were not killed, I might suspect Iran staged the whole thing. In any event, how do we know the reports on this are accurate. This may all be a hoax put out by the Iranian regime to give them an excuse to "crack down."