Iran’s Revolutionary Guard says it has ambushed and killed suspects from last week’s bombing

Iran kills bombing suspects in border clash

TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian forces ambushed and killed several suspects involved in the bombing of a military parade last week that killed 12 people, a semiofficial news agency reported Tuesday.

The report from ISNA news agency quoted Gen. Mohammad Pakpour of the Revolutionary Guards as saying the men were ambushed near the Iran-Iraq border on Saturday. It did not specify the number killed.

Pakpour, head of the Guards’ ground forces, said Sunday the armed group was backed by Israel, the U.S. and members of the Iraqi Baath Party, former supporters of deposed leader Saddam Hussein.

An explosion during a military parade in the town of Mahabad, in Iran’s northwestern Kurdish region, killed 12 women and children on Wednesday.

Iran has already blamed the attack on Kurdish separatists who have fought Iranian forces in the area for years. But most Kurdish groups condemned the attack and no one has so far claimed responsibility for it.

The parade was one of several held around the country to mark the 30th anniversary of the start of the Iran-Iraq war.

The city of Mahabad is home to 190,000 people — most of them Kurds and Sunni Muslims. Iran is predominantly Shiite.

Government forces in Iraq, Iran and Turkey have all periodically battled with the Kurdish minorities straddling their borders. They fear the groups are seeking to unite territory in all three nations to form an independent Kurdish homeland.