A suicide bomber killed seven commanders of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards and up to 42 other people on Sunday in an attack that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad charged had been plotted from neighbouring Pakistan.

The attack took place in the city of Pisheen near the border with Pakistan in restive SistanBaluchestan province, which hosts a substantial Sunni population, local news agencies said.

Iran's parliament speaker said the United States was behind the attack while the Guards accused Western powers of carrying out the assault, the deadliest against them since a bombing in February 2007 in the same province killed 13 people.

"Based on the latest information... between 30 to 35 people, including military officers, tribal leaders and local citizens, have been martyred in the attack," Mohammad Marziah, chief prosecutor in the SistanBaluchestan provincial capital Zahedan, was quoted as saying by ISNA news agency.

Marziah said Abdolmalek Rigi, leader of the shadowy Jundallah (Soldiers of God) Sunni group, had claimed responsibility for the attack.

"So far no one has been arrested, but terrorist Malek Rigi has accepted the responsibility for this terrorist attack," Marziah said. Iran's state broadcaster said the attack occurred in front of a local gymnasium in Pisheen.
Fars news agency said the bomber struck when Guard officers were meeting local leaders of the Shiite and Sunni communities. Some local tribal chiefs were among the dead, media reports said.

The official IRNA news agency said the suicide bomber "wearing an explosives vest blew himself up inside the meeting."

"The goal of the terrorists is to disturb the security of the Sistan-Baluchestan province," Speaker Ali Larijani said.

"It shows they do not want to have economic progress in this region. But certainly the Guards will act with more force to establish security in