Pakistan to assist Iran in suicide bombing probe

Islamabad - Pakistan on Monday assured the Iranian government of its full cooperation in investigating a suicide bombing on Iran's Revolutionary Guards. Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik told his Iranian counterpart Mustafa Muhammed Najjar, who phoned him, that every effort would be made to capture those behind Sunday's attack.

A Sunni militant group, Jundollah (Soldiers of God), has been blamed for the bombing that left 49 people dead in Iran's Sistan-Baluchistan province, which adjoins Pakistan's south-western Balochistan region.

Iran believes the group's leader, Abdolmalik Rigi, is hiding in Pakistan.

However, Malik denied the Iranian claim. "According to our information, Abdolmalik Rigi is not in Pakistan," Geo television quoted him as saying.

Earlier, Iranian state media reported that the country's Foreign Ministry summoned Pakistan's envoy in Tehran and told him that Iran had evidence that the perpetrators had come from Pakistan.

Jundollah is believed to have close ties with al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, and its fighters frequently move across the poorly guarded Iran-Pakistan border.

Three Pakistani soldiers were killed and five injured in April 2008 in a shootout with Jundollah's militants hiding on the outskirts of Dalbandin, a town located about 60 kilometres from the Iranian border.