President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday accused US forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan of backing the bombings such as the two suicide attacks which killed at least 28 people in southeast Iran.
”If (US President Barack) Obama is unaware of actions of American forces, then we tell him that American forces based in Afghanistan and Pakistan back such actions,” he told a cabinet meeting, referring to Thursday’s bombings in the restive city of Zahedan.
NATO and US forces back ”terrorists” with equipment and funds to launch such attacks in Iran, he said, quoted by the state news agency IRNA. ”Despite this support, the US president sends a message of sympathy.”
The hardliner said Islamabad must also be held ”accountable” for such actions.
”We are friends of Pakistan and we are by its side, but at any rate the government of that country should be accountable,” Ahmadinejad said.
On Thursday, two suicide bombers blew themselves up at a Shiite mosque in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchestan province which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The bombings killed at least 28 people and wounded hundreds more, according to an updated casualty toll.
”I strongly condemn the outrageous terrorist attacks on a mosque in southeast Iran,” Obama said in a written statement. ”The murder of innocent civilians in their place of worship is an intolerable offense.”
The attacks were claimed by a Sunni rebel group, Jundallah (Soldiers of God), which says it is fighting for the rights of the Sunni Baluchis in the province of Sistan-Baluchestan.
Iranian officials have previously also accused US, British and Pakistan intelligence services of aiding Jundallah in launching cross-border attacks inside Iran.