Posted on 10/18/2009 2:02:05 PM PDT by MissesBush
TEHRAN, Iran – A suicide bomber killed five senior commanders of the powerful Revolutionary Guard and at least 37 others Sunday near the Pakistani border in the heartland of a potentially escalating Sunni insurgency.
The attack — which also left dozens wounded — was the most high-profile strike against security forces in an outlaw region of armed tribal groups, drug smugglers and Sunni rebels known as Jundallah, or Soldiers of God.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promised sharp retaliation. But a sweeping offensive by authorities is unlikely.
Iranian officials have been reluctant to open full-scale military operations in the southeastern border zone, fearing it could become a hotspot for sectarian violence with the potential to draw in al-Qaida and Sunni militants from nearby Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The region's top prosecutor, Mohammad Marzieh, was quoted by the semi-official ISNA news agency as saying Jundallah claimed responsibility for the blast in the Pishin district near the Pakistani border.
There was no immediate statement directly from the group, which has carried out sporadic kidnappings and attacks in recent years — including targeting the Revolutionary Guard — to press their claims of persecution in the Shiite government and officials.
In May, Jundallah said it sent a suicide bomber into a Shiite mosque in the southeastern city of Zahedan, killing 25 worshippers.
The latest attack, however, would mark the group's highest-level target. It also raised questions about how the attacker breached security around such a top delegation from the Revolutionary Guard — the country's strongest military force, which is directly linked to the ruling clerics under Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The official Islamic Republic News Agency said the victims included the deputy commander of the Guard's ground forces, Gen. Noor Ali Shooshtari, as well as a chief provincial Guard commander, Rajab Ali Mohammadzadeh.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I call it Brezhinski
Don’t mean no disrespect by this Misses, so pay it no mind.
HEY! CIV! Too bad the body count don’t go up ever time this article gets posted. We’d hit that wished for 7 million mark by morning!
I can’t lose sleep over these cowards that invented suicide-bombing. They can yell foul when their satan-inspired tactic backfires on them. Real men and real armies don uniforms and don’t blow up innocent women and children.
Karma’s a b***h, isn’t it, Ahmanutjob?
Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the chief planner for the 911 attack comes from there. IIRC, about fifteen percent of Iran's population are Baluchis. I believe that's what I read somewhere.
The Baluchis -- who constitute the majority of the population in Baluchestan va Sistan -- numbered approximately 600,000 in Iran in the mid-1980s. They are part of a larger group that forms the majority of the population of Baluchistan Province in Pakistan and of some areas in southern Afghanistan. In Iran the Baluchis are concentrated in the Makran highlands, an area that stretches eastward along the Gulf of Oman coast to the Pakistan border and includes some of the most desolate country in the world. The Baluchis speak an Indo-Iranian language that is distantly related to Persian and more closely related to Pashtu, one of the major languages of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Historically, Baluchi has been only an oral language, although educated Baluchis in Pakistan have developed a written script that employs the Arabic alphabet. Unlike the majority of Persians, the majority of Baluchis are Sunni rather than Shia Muslims.
The Baluchis have major grievances with the central governments in Iran and Pakistan.
Amen, brutha....amen.
Like I said in the other thread, it wasn't an attack, it was an homage! (Then I snickered.)
KARMA + BOOM = KARBOOMA!
[Insert Farm Film Report Celebrity Blow Up graphic here.]
Eastern Iran is where the Anti Mullah Guerillas will start it up
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