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General accuses US,
Britain over bombing
TEHERAN: A top Iranian general
yesterday accused the United States
and Britain of training rebels behind
a bomb attack on the elite Revolu-
tionary Guards which killed seven
commanders and dozens of other
people.
Gen Mohammad Pakpour, the
head of Guards’ ground forces
and whose deputy was slain in
the bombing, said Washington and
London had “trained and equipped”
those who carried out Sunday’s
bombing against Iran’s prestigious
military force.
“The terrorists were trained in the
neighbouring country by the Ameri-
cans and British. The enemies of the
Islamic Republic of Iran are unable
to tolerate the unity in the country,”
Pakpour said on state television.
Hours after the suicide attack in
restive Sistan-Baluchestan province
– a flashpoint of Sunni insurgency
– President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
charged that the assault was plotted
in neighbouring Pakistan.
He demanded that Islamabad
take firm action against the perpe-
trators even as Teheran registered
its protest with Pakistan’s envoy in
Teheran.
The attacker set off his explosives
belt as a meeting of Guards com-
manders and tribal chiefs during a
meeting on Sunday at a gymnasium
in the city of Pisheen, near the border
with Pakistan, in Iran’s southeastern
province of Sistan-Baluchestan.
The region has emerged as a res-
tive point of Sunni insurgency with
the shadowy Jundallah (Soldiers of
God) group led by militant Abdol-
malek Rigi carrying out a rebellion
against the Shiite rule of Iran for
several years. Rigi’s group has re-
peatedly attacked the Guards, the
elite military force set up after the
1979 Islamic revolution to protect
the Islamic regime from internal and
external threats.
The prosecutor of Zahedan, capi-
tal of Sistan-Baluchestan, Moham-
mad Marziah said Sunday’s suicide
bombing was “accepted” by Rigi.
Provincial chief coroner Abbas
Amian has confirmed that his office
received 42 bodies of people killed
in the attack.
Soon after the bombing, Pakpour
threatened retribution.
“The Guards will give a very harsh
and crushing response to this group,
so the group will never be able to
launch another act like this in the
country,” Fars news agency quoted
him as saying.
Washington has denied any
involvement. “We condemn this act
of terrorism and mourn the loss of
innocent lives,” US State Depart-
ment Spokesman Ian Kelly said in a
statement in Washington on Sunday.
– AFP
Security forces pound
Taliban in Waziristan
DERA ISMAIL KHAN (Paki-
stan): Pakistani forces backed
by heavy artillery attacked
Taliban hideouts yesterday as
the army moved to wrest con-
trol of militant strongholds in a
lawless region on the Afghan
border. The offensive follows a
string of brazen militant attacks
Local in different parts of the country,
including an assault on army
Counsel: headquarters, in which more
Safe than 150 people were killed.
cities, “There has been artillery
fire throughout the night. It
not gated was very heavy firing,” said
enclave Noor Wali, a resident of Wana,
pg 12 the main town in the South
Waziristan region.
The army said on Sunday
that 60 militants and five
soldiers had been killed in
the first 24 hours of the long-
awaited offensive launched
on the militants in their South
Waziristan bastion, which is a
global Islamist hub.
There was no independent
verification of the casualty toll.
About 28,000 soldiers are
theSun | TUESDAY OCTOBER 20 2009
battling an estimated 10,000
hard-core Taliban, including
about 1,000 Uzbek fighters and
some Arab Al Qaeda members.
The militants have had years
to prepare their bunkers in the
land of arid mountains and
sparse forests cut through by
dried-up creeks and ravines.
The army says it has sur-
rounded the militants in their
main zone, a wedge of territory
in the north of South Waziris-
tan, and soldiers backed by air-
craft and artillery are attacking
from the north, southwest and
southeast.
Foreign reporters are not
allowed in to the area, and
it is dangerous for Pakistani
reporters to visit. Many of the
Pakistani reporters based in
South Waziristan have left.
The army has launched
brief offensives in South
Waziristan before, the first in
in 2004 when it suffered heavy
casualties before striking a
peace pact.
But this time analysts say
the army, the government and
the general public all agree the
time has come to deal with the
Pakistani Taliban. Though the
army is determined, the offen-
sive could be its toughest test
since the militants turned on
the state, and the army will be
hoping Afghan Taliban factions
elsewhere in South Waziristan
and in North Waziristan stay
out of the fight.
About 100,000 civilians have
fled from South Waziristan in
anticipation of the offensive,
with about 16,000 of them
coming out in the last few
days, the army said.
But the exodus is not ex-
pected to bring a humanitarian
crisis similar to one this year
when about 2 million people
fled from an offensive in the
Swat valley, northwest of
Islamabad. South Waziristan’s
population is about 500,000, ac-
cording to the latest figures, and
many residents have houses on
government-controlled low-
land to the east. – Reuters