Intelligence min.:

Iran won't leave terror attack on IRGC border guards unanswered

TEHRAN (defapress) – Iran’s Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi said that security forces of the country will respond to terrorists behind Wednesday’s attack as this is what the nation expects.

News ID: 75714

Date: 19 February 2019 - 13:57

He made the remarks Tuesday on the sidelines of an event in Tehran commemorating the martyrs of last week’s terror attack in Sistan and Baluchistan province.

“We will not leave unanswered the criminal acts of terrorists in martyring IRGC border guards in Khash road,” he told reporters.

“We will definitely plan on this issue; this is [Iranian] nation’s expectation,” he added.

Touching upon good cooperation between different security-related bodies in this regard, he said, “from the first moments of these incidents, Supreme National Security Council started its studies so that we can give a crushing response.”

The suicide attack, which targeted a bus carrying Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps personnel near Zahedan in Sistan and Baluchestan province, claimed the lives of 27 people and injured dozens of others.

The so-called Jaish ul-Adl terror group, which is based across the border in Pakistan and is responsible for kidnapping Iranian border guards and carrying out other terrorist attacks of this kind in Zahedan over the past years, claimed responsibility for the Wednesday attack.

In a Monday statement, IRGC noted that its forces had launched an operation Sunday night and stuck numerous hideouts in Saravan and Khash in which the terrorists behind the attack were residing. Three terrorists have been arrested, reads the statement, adding that 150kg of explosives, 600kg of raw materials for explosives, and some weapons and ammunition have been seized during the operation.

Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Ground Forces Commander Brigadier General Mohammad Pakpour said Tuesday that IRGC forces have identified the perpetrators behind the attack. The suicide bomber named Hafiz Muhammad Ali and another perpetrator, Abu Bakr, were Pakistani nationals, he said adding that three others were from the Sistan and Baluchistan region, adding that two of them have been arrested, while the third one is still at large.

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