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Iran arrest Jundollah rebel leader Abdul Malik Rigi

23 February 2010 08:02 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Suleyman Farzaliyev-APA. Iran has arrested Abdul Malik Rigi, the leader of Sunni Muslim rebel group Jundollah, APA reports.

"Rigi was arrested in eastern Iran," a source told Arabic language al-Alam television. It gave no further details.

Mainly Shiite Iran says the Sunni rebel group Jundollah (God’s Soldiers), which has claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that targeted Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, operates from across the border in Pakistan.The Oct. 18 attack in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchestan province killed 15 Iranian Revolutionary Guards, including six senior commanders, and 27 others.
Tehran considers Jundollah a terrorist organization linked to U.S. and Pakistani intelligence, and accuses it of targeting Iranian civilians. But Jundollah says it attacks military and government targets only in defense of nationalist and religious rights of the Baluch people.
Jundollah called on other Iranian ethnic groups such as Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen to join the fight against the Iranian government by launching their attacks from Kurdistan, Khuzestan and Turkmen desert regions.