Iran Says Suicide Bomber Who Hit Revolutionary Guards Was Pakistani

By Rick Gladstone

Iran said Tuesday that at least three Pakistani citizens were among the assailants responsible for killing 27 members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on a bus last week, including the driver of the explosives-laden car that rammed the vehicle.

The Feb. 13 bombing in a restive southeast region along the Pakistan border was one of the deadliest attacks in years to strike Iran. At least 13 people were wounded and the bus was destroyed, according to Iranian news websites.

Iran, which is predominantly Shiite Muslim, has often criticized Pakistan for harboring Sunni Muslim militants from the province, Sistan and Baluchistan, a haven for separatist groups and drug traffickers that have orchestrated attacks in recent years against Iranian security forces. But it is unusual for Iran to accuse Pakistani citizens.The accusation, reported by Iran’s Tasnim news agency, was made by a commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Pakpur, at a ceremony held Tuesday to honor victims of the attack.

Tasnim quoted General Pakpur as saying that two members of the terrorist team and the suicide bomber were from Pakistan, and that three others were from Sistan and Baluchistan.On Monday, the Revolutionary Guards announced three arrests in the attack, but did not specify the identities of the suspects.Within hours of the attack, a militant Sunni extremist group, Jaish al-Adl, which has operated in southeast Iran for years and has links to Al Qaeda, claimed responsibility.

Iranian officials immediately accused the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia of complicity in the attack. They suggested it was more than coincidental that it had been carried out as representatives of all three nations were meeting in Warsaw at a conference aimed in part at isolating Iran.

But the Iranians also made clear after the attack that they suspected militants from the Sistan and Baluchistan region.

Tasnim said Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, spoke by telephone on Sunday with his Pakistani counterpart, Shah Mahmood Qureshi. Mr. Qureshi said Pakistan was “ready for any kind of cooperation with Iran to probe into the terrorist attack,” the news agency reported.