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Rebels in Iran kill 21 people on highway
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-17 21:46
Rebels posing as security forces killed 21 people on a highway in
southeastern Iran, the national chief of police said Friday.
Gen. Esmaeil Ahmadi Moghaddam accused U.S. and British intelligence of being
behind the rebel attack on Thursday night, the official Iranian news agency
reported.
Rebels posing as policemen and soldiers stopped people and killed them on the
Zabol-Zahedan road in Sistan-Baluchestan province, which borders Pakistan and
Afghanistan, the agency quoted Moghaddam as saying.
"People thought they were Iranian police (ordering them to stop)," said
Moghaddam, who flew to Zahedan, the provincial capital, on Friday to visit the
scene of the attack.
"Twenty-one people have been martyred and seven injured," he added.
There are no well-known opposition groups operating in southeastern Iran, but
the region is known for gangs of drug traffickers who have frequently clashed
with security forces and occasionally kidnapped people.
Moghaddam said the police had information indicating that U.S. and British
intelligence agents had met representatives of the rebels, but he gave no
details.
Iran has previously accused the United States and Britain of responsibility
for bombings in its southwestern province of Khuzestan, where there has been
unrest connected to Iran's Arab minority. Blasts in the Khuzestan capital,
Ahvaz, killed six people and wounded 46 others on Jan. 24 blasts.
The United States and Britain have denied any involvement in the Khuzestan
bombings.
"It appears that a plan to create instability and religious hatred, similar
to the bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra (in Iraq), is being pursued
here," IRNA quoted Moghaddam as saying.
Moghaddam said police were searching for the rebels, who may have fled to
Afghanistan.
In December, gunmen in Sistan-Baluchestan kidnapped nine Iranian soldiers.
They freed seven soldiers in January, but the fate of the other two is not
known.
The same month, Sistan-Baluchestan bandits killed a guard of President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hours before he was due to visit the province.
In November, a clash between police and bandits in southeastern Iran resulted
in the death of two gangsters and at least five policemen.
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