Iran forces cross into Iraq to hit blast suspects

Main elements behind Mahabad blast killed: Iran Guards
Iranian soldiers march during an annual military parade which marks Iran’s eight-year war with Iraq

TEHRAN (Agencies)
Iranian forces crossed into neighboring Iraq and killed 30 fighters from a group Tehran says was involved in last week’s bombing of a military parade, the state TV reported late on Sunday.

Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards commander Abdulrasoul Mahmoudabadi told state television that the Guards were chasing one or two other members of the group behind the blast, which killed 12 people and injured 80 in the city of Mahabad on Wednesday.

“They were ambushed near the Iran-Iraq border … some 30 main members of the terrorist group were killed in clashes,” he said.

“There are still one or two members of the group members who managed to flee but they will be arrested soon.”

While Iran has said in the past it would target armed groups on Iraqi soil, this is a rare case of it actually admitting to an attack.

Iraqi officials have complained in the past about Iranian artillery shelling its northern mountainous region where armed Kurdish opposition groups have taken refuge.

Analysts say incidents like the blast could further pressure President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government, which is facing deepening political in-fighting and economic pain because of foreign sanctions imposed over Iran’s disputed nuclear program.

Investigations showed that intelligence services of America and the Zionist regime as well as members of the Iraqi Baath party were behind the blast. Bandits backed by Mossad and the CIA … carried out the blast

Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards commander Abdulrasoul Mahmoudabadi

Blaming US and Israel

Iranian authorities blame the blast, which took place during an annual military parade, on “anti-revolutionary” militants backed by Iran’s enemies, the United States and Israel.

“Investigations showed that intelligence services of America and the Zionist regime (Israel) as well as members of the Iraqi Baath party were behind the blast,” Mahmoudabadi said. “Bandits backed by Mossad and the CIA … carried out the blast.”

No group has so far claimed responsibility for the blast, which occurred during an annual ceremony for the Iranian armed forces to commemorate an eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s.

Iranian media have often reported clashes between the Revolutionary Guards and Kurdish guerrillas said to be members of Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which took up arms in 1984 for an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey and northwest Iran.

Several armed groups hostile to the establishment are active in Iran, including Kurdish separatists in the northwest, Baluch militants in the southeast and some Arabs in the southwest.

The Sunni Muslim Jundollah militant group, which Iran says has links to al-Qaeda, is the most active. It claimed a double suicide attack on July 15 that killed 28 people, including Revolutionary Guards, in revenge for the execution of its leader.

The semi-official Fars news agency quoted Mahmoudabadi as saying that the operation against the group responsible for the Mahabad bombing had taken place on Sunday.

But it also earlier quoted Mohammad Pakpour, head of the corps’ ground forces, as saying the Guards had killed many of the perpetrators on Saturday.

Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi said on Thursday that the group behind the blast had been arrested.