Bus bombed in IRAN, report says 18 dead

by nukegingrich | February 13, 2007 at 11:00 pm

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That's right, you read this correctly. Iran was the victim of a terrorist bombing.....

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Eighteen people were killed on Wednesday when a bomb exploded next to a bus owned by Iran's Revolutionary Guards in southeast Iran, where security forces and armed groups often clash, Iran's IRNA news agency said.

Other news agencies put the death toll lower and an official in the governor's office in the city of Zahedan, where the bombing occurred, said the exact number killed was not yet clear.

The bomb was hidden in a car and exploded as the bus, belonging to a unit that transports employees of the Guards, passed by, IRNA reported. It was not clear if those killed were members of the Guards.

"In this act 18 Zahedan citizens have been martyred. Rebels and those who create insecurity martyred these people in a terrorist act by laying a trap close to a bus," Qassim Rezai, a military commander, was quoted as saying by IRNA.

I find little solace in the fact that this happened in Iran instead of Iraq. Lives were lost. They weren't martyred, as IRNA stated. They were murdered. And, although the Reuters article suggests that the work may have been the work of drug smugglers from the border areas of Pakistan or Afghanistan, the suspicion that many people will no doubt have is that this is a retaliatory move against the Iranians for their meddling in Iraq, and for their alleged sheltering of alQaeda operatives.