February 17, 2007	Saturday	Muharram 28, 1428

TEHRAN, Feb 16: An Iranian provincial television has aired footage of a suspect confessing to this week’s deadly car bombing in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan, official media said on Friday.

“Provincial channel Hamoun broadcast a two-minute video of Nasrollah Shamsi Zehi, a key suspect in Wednesday’s terrorist bombing, in which he admitted to his cooperation with the Jundallah terrorist group,” IRNA said.

“With Jundallah planning ... I carried out the bomb attack on Wednesday with the help of my friends,” the report quoted Shamsi Zehi as saying.

Jundallah is a militant group that has carried out a series of attacks in recent years in Sistan-Baluchestan and neighbouring districts and which claimed Wednesday’s attack in Zahedan in which 11 elite Revolutionary Guards were killed and 31 wounded.

The bomb was hidden in a car and exploded as gunfire stopped the bus, which was taking the guards from their housing compound to a military base.

The suspect also reportedly confessed to his role in another attack on Feb 1 in which four police were killed in the city. “I have been involved in stealing cars and killing the drivers as well as the terrorist operation in which police were killed in Bozorgmehr street,” he was quoted as saying.

The suspect was quoted as saying that he had joined Jundallah three months ago and undergone two months’ training in Pakistan.

Shamsi Zehi said he had received 10 million rials ($1,075) from the group’s leader Abdolmalek Rigi for each operation and appealed for a pardon from the Iranian authorities.

Provincial police commander Brig-Gen Mohammad Ghafari said a total of 65 suspects had been detained over the Zahedan attack, including three who were believed to have actually carried it out.—AFP