{"id":32535,"date":"2019-02-19T19:46:56","date_gmt":"2019-02-19T19:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=32535"},"modified":"2019-02-19T19:46:56","modified_gmt":"2019-02-19T19:46:56","slug":"suicide-bomber-was-a-pakistani-irans-revolutionary-guard-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=32535","title":{"rendered":"Suicide bomber was a Pakistani, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard claims"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The suicide bomber who killed 27 members of Iran<\/a>‘s elite Revolutionary Guard last week was a\u00a0Pakistani, a senior commander for the force alleged.<\/p>\n

Two other members of the cell behind the attack<\/a>\u00a0in the country’s southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan province, which borders Pakistan, were also Pakistani nationals, local media\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0Brigadier-General Mohammad Pakpour as saying on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Pakpour identified the attacker as\u00a0Hafiz Mohammad Ali, who Iranian officials said also wounded 13 other members of the Revolutionary Guard\u00a0in the suicide car bomb attack on February 13.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The general said an ongoing probe had made headway after the model of the explosives-packed car that detonated next to a bus carrying the soldiers was identified.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Two days ago, the first clue, a woman, was identified and arrested, and through this woman, we reached others,” Pakpour\u00a0told reporters\u00a0<\/span>at a ceremony to commemorate the victims.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Three Iranians from the\u00a0Sistan-Baluchestan province\u00a0were also part of the cell and two of them have been arrested, according to Pakpour.<\/p>\n

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said on Tuesday his country was cooperating with Iran’s investigation into the attack and had handed over Iranian suspects.<\/p>\n

“We will cooperate fully with Iran, we have operational contact with Iran,” Qureshi told Pakistan’s state-run television.<\/p>\n

Iranian President\u00a0Hassan Rouhani<\/a>\u00a0has vowed<\/a> to punish the “criminal mercenaries” responsible for the bombing.<\/p>\n

‘Heart of evil’<\/h2>\n

The Sunni group Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice), which says it seeks greater rights and better living conditions for ethnic minority Baluchis in eastern Iran, claimed responsibility for the attack.<\/p>\n

Tehran says the group operates mostly out of bases in Pakistan, and has repeatedly blamed its neighbour for sheltering\u00a0individuals connected with attacks in the countries border areas.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Intelligence Minister\u00a0Mahmoud Alavi told<\/a> Iran’s\u00a0state-run\u00a0<\/span>IRNA news agency on Tuesday the Islamic Republic faced threats from “a number of hostile intelligence services”.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

“[They] have worked together to challenge the security of the Islamic Republic,” Alavi said.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Alavi’s comments followed a suggestion by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, last week that “obvious” links existed between the perpetrators of the attack “and the spy agencies of certain regional and extra-regional countries”.<\/p>\n

Tehran also accuses regional rival Saudi Arabia<\/a> of promoting violence among its minority Sunni Muslim population.<\/p>\n

“Today, Saudi Arabia is the heart of evil in the region and the world,” Brigadier-General Hossein Salami said on Tuesday, Iran’s Fars news agency reported.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia deny any role in attacks in Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE:
\n Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The suicide bomber who killed 27 members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard last week was a\u00a0Pakistani, a senior commander for the force alleged. Two other members of the cell behind the attack\u00a0in the country’s southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan province, which borders Pakistan, were also Pakistani nationals, local media\u00a0reported\u00a0Brigadier-General Mohammad Pakpour as saying on Tuesday. Pakpour identified the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":32536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}