Iran has arrested 90 members of a shadowy Sunni militant group known as Jundullah accused of attacks in a volatile area on the border with Pakistan and Afghanistan, a press report said on Thursday. “We have arrested 90 members of this group and a large quantity of weapons and explosives were also confiscated,” Intelligence Minister Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejeie was quoted as saying in Kayhan newspaper. He said four militants who were “preparing for armed action” were also arrested. However, he did not say whether they were among the 90 or reveal when the arrests took place. Jundullah has been blamed for a string of attacks in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan, which borders Pakistan and Afghanistan and has a substantial Baloch community, a minority Sunni Muslim group.
In February, 11 members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards were killed and 31 wounded when a car bomb ripped through a bus carrying them to a base in an attack claimed by Jundullah. Mohseni Ejeie said his ministry’s agents were also closely monitoring the activities of militant groups in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, which borders Iraq and is home to a substantial Arab minority. “Ten days ago, we arrested a group of seven people who wanted to carry out several bomb attacks (in Khuzestan),” he added. In the past two years, Khuzestan has been rocked by a string of blasts blamed on Arab separatist groups which Iran charges are backed by Britain.