Iran Says it Killed 30 Perpetrators of Bombing, Blames U.S.

TEHRAN - Iran's state-run media reported Sept. 27 that Iranian Revolutionary Guards have killed 30 perpetrators of last week's deadly bombing at a military parade in western Iran, apparently in a cross-border raid in Iraq.

Abdolrasoul Mahmoudabadi, the Guards commander in the province where the parade was bombed, said those killed included "mercenaries" working for the United States, which he implicated in the bombing, the state-run television's website reported.

"Thirty of the main elements of the terrorist attack in Mahabad were killed" in an operation on Saturday, Mahmoudabadi said.

The Sept. 22 bombing had targeted a military parade in Mahabad in West Azerbaijan province, killing 12 people and wounding at least 81 others. Most of the victims were reported to be women and children.

"These terrorists were comprised of (Iraq's) old Baathist regime officers and American mercenaries," Mahmoudabadi said without giving details.

He said the Revolutionary Guards and volunteer Basij militia were involved in the attack.

"The weapons seized from them shows that the American and Israeli intelligence services were behind it (the bombing)," he added.

Mohammad Pakpour, commander of the Guards' ground forces, had implied that the 30 were killed in a cross-border raid in Iraq.

"As soon as the terrorists and other anti-revolutionaries gathered in an area on the other side of the (Iraqi) border, the Guards launched the operation," the television website reported Sept. 27.

Mahmoudabadi also said that two of the agents involved in the bombing had slipped into Iran from Iraq, "so it is necessary for officials of both nations to pursue the case."

The attack on the parade came as Iran showcased military hardware at anniversary parades across the country commemorating the 1980-88 war with Iraq, in which an estimated one million people died on both sides.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had condemned the Mahabad attack, saying it "underscores the international community's need to work together to combat terrorism."

Western Iran, which has a sizeable Kurdish population, has seen deadly clashes in recent years between the Iranian security forces and Kurdish rebel groups, mainly the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) operating from bases in neighboring Iraq.