Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanders killed in suicide bombing

Tehran: A suicide bomber killed five senior commanders of the elite Revolutionary Guards and at least 26 others in an area of southeastern Iran that has been at the centre of a simmering Sunni insurgency.

The official Irna news agency said the dead included the deputy commander of the Guard's ground force, General Noor Ali Shoushtari, as well as a chief provincial Guard commander for the area, Rajab Ali Mohammadzadeh. The other dead were Guard members or local tribal leaders. More than two dozen others were wounded, state radio reported.

The commanders were on their way to a meeting with local tribal leaders in the Pishin district near Iran's border with Pakistan when an attacker with explosives around his waist blew himself up, Irna said.

Envoy summoned

Iran summoned Islamabad's envoy to Tehran, claiming the attack had been launched from Pakistani soil, the Isna news agency said.

Top provincial prosecutor Mohammad Marzieh was quoted by the semi-official Isna news agency as saying that a militant group from Iran's Sunni minority called Jundallah, or Soldiers of God, claimed responsibility.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed to strike back at those behind the attack.

"The criminals will soon get the response for their anti-human crimes," Irna quoted him as saying. Ahmadinejad also accused unspecified foreigners of involvement.

The region in Iran's southeast has been the focus of violent attacks by Jundallah, which has waged a low-level insurgency in recent years.

The group accuses Iran's Shiite-dominated government of persecution and has carried out attacks against the Revolutionary Guards and Shiite targets in the southeast.

The attack does raise questions about Iran's grip on a sensitive border region beset by criminal gangs and drug smuggling.

The latest violence, a symptom of the tension between Iran's majority Shiites and impoverished minority Sunnis in the southeast, appeared to have no connection with the street unrest triggered by the dispute over Ahmadinejad's re-election in June.

Iranian officials have often raised concerns that the United States might try to incite members of Iran's many ethnic and religious minorities against the Shiite-led government, which is dominated by ethnic Persians.

US condemns attack

In Washington, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the United States condemned what he called an "act of terrorism." Reports of alleged US involvement are "completely false," he said.

The Guard commanders were heading to a meeting with local tribal leaders to promote unity between the Shiite and Sunni communities.

The 120,000-strong Revolutionary Guard controls Iran's missile programme and has its own ground, naval and air units.

Iran's parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani, condemned the assassination of the Guard commanders, saying the bombing was aimed at disrupting security in southeastern Iran.