Iran cleric slams border guard killing

Rasa - A senior Iranian cleric has condemned the execution of an Iranian border guard by Jaish-ul-Adl terrorist group.

News ID: 732

Date: 29 March 2014 - 10:53

Rasa News Agency reports - “…The Pakistani government must be answerable for crimes committed on its soil. They (Pakistanis) must not ignore this issue and the Pakistani government must not be the patron of terrorists,” Tehran interim Friday Prayers Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ahmad Khatami said in an address to worshippers in the Iranian capital on Friday.

The Iranian cleric also called upon Iran security officials to crush Jaish-ul-Adl in an operation similar to the one in which ringleader of the Pakistan-based Jundallah terrorist group, Abdolmalek Rigi, was arrested.

On June 20, 2010, Rigi was hanged in Tehran upon a ruling issued by Iran’s Islamic Revolution Court. The Jundallah ringleader was charged with 79 counts of various crimes including armed robbery, bombing operations in public places, armed attacks on the army, police personnel, and ordinary civilians, assassination attempts, disrupting regional stability, kidnapping and murder.

On March 23, Jaish-ul-Adl, which abducted five Iranian border guards in Jakigour region in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan Province on February 6 and transferred them to the Pakistani territory, announced that it has killed one of the hostages.

Iran later summoned Pakistan’s Ambassador to Tehran Noor Mohammad Jadmani in connection with the killing.

On October 25, 2013, the terrorist group killed 14 Iranian border guards and wounded six others in the border region near the city of Saravan in Sistan and Baluchestan Province.

Iran and Pakistan signed a security agreement in February 2013, under which both countries are required to cooperate in preventing and combating organized crime, fighting terrorism and countering the activities that pose a threat to the national security of either country.

Iran has repeatedly called on Pakistan to commit to the terms of the agreement.

TNA