Jundallah suicide attack targets Iran’s Revolutonary Guards Corps

Jundallah suicide bombers Mohammad Rigi and Abdul Baaset Rigi.

A Sunni terrorist group killed 20 people and wounded more than 100 in a suicide attack that targeted Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps at a mosque in the southeastern city of Zahedan.

Jundallah, the People' s Resistance Movement of Iran, claimed the double suicide attack that took place at the Zahedan Jame Mosque, and said the attack was revenge for the execution of its former leader, Abdul Malik Rigi.

Two suicide bombers, identified By Jundallah as Mohammad Rigi and Abdul Baaset Rigi, detonated just minutes apart at the Zahedan mosque.

Jundallah, in a statement obtained by The Long War Journal, described the attack as “an unparalleled operation” that was “able to send tremors into the heart of the Revolutionary Guards inside the Zahedan Husseiniyah, where the Revolutionary Guard day gathering was being held and where more than a hundred Revolutionary Guards, servants of the Party of the Devil were sent to the eternal burning fires of hell.”

“This operation is a response to the continued crimes of the Iranian regime in Baluchistan, where they thought that by murdering our righteous leader, Abdul Malik, that our operations will cease,” the Jundallah statement said.

Abdul Malik Rigi, who was also known as Emir Abdul Malik Baluch, was detained on Feb. 23, reportedly while on a flight from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan. Rigi was executed on June 20.

Jundallah has carried out a series of high-profile attacks against Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps. The largest attack took place on Oct. 18, 2009, when a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb at a meeting of Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commanders and Sunni and Shia tribal leaders in Pishin in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan. Brigadier General Nour Ali Shoushtari, the deputy commander for the IRGC's ground forces, and Brigadier Rajab Ali Mohammadzadeh, the IRGC's provincial commander for Sistan-Baluchistan, were killed in the attack. In a press release on its website, Jundallah also claimed the commanders of Iranshahr Corps, Sarbaz Corps, and the Amir al Mo'menin Brigade were also killed in the attack.

Jundallah has conducted numerous attacks against the IRGC and the Iranian government, including the 2005 ambush on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's motorcade in Sistan-Baluchistan; the 2006 murder of 22 civilians in Tasooki; the 2007 ambush on an IRGC convoy that killed 18 officers in Zahedan; the 2008 kidnapping and execution of 16 Iranian policemen; the 2009 ambush that killed 12 policemen in Saravan; and the 2009 bombing at a mosque in Zahedan that killed 25 people.

The Iranian government accuses the United States, Britain, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan of covertly backing Jundallah as part of an effort to destabilize the regime. Jundallah operates in Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

Sources:

' Bomb incidents kill 20, injure 100 in Zahedan, IRNA
' Statement on attack on Revolutionary Guards in Zahedan, Jundallah
' Iran captures Jundallah's leader, The Long War Journal
' Jundallah leader Rigi executed in Iran, PressTV
' Jundallah kills senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commanders, The Long War Journal