Oct. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Iran told Pakistan to control terrorist groups operating from Pakistani territory after a suicide bombing killed 42 people, including commanders of the elite Revolutionary Guards Corps.

“We have heard that certain officials in Pakistan cooperate with main agents of these terrorist attacks in the eastern part of the country,” state-run Press TV cited President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying after a cabinet meeting in Tehran late yesterday.

Pakistan must eradicate the Sunni Muslim Jundallah group, which claimed responsibility for the attack yesterday in Sistan- Baluchistan province, Ahmadinejad said. The province, which borders Pakistan and Afghanistan, has experienced political unrest and several attacks on military officials in the Shiite- led Iranian regime in recent years.

Iran will send a delegation to Pakistan to request the handover of Abdolmalek Rigi, whom it accuses of engineering the attack, Guards commander-in-chief Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari said, according to the Iranian Students’ News Agency.

Iran’s intelligence has evidence that Rigi, the Jundollah leader, has direct links to U.S., U.K., and Pakistani intelligence services, Jafari told the state-run news agency.

U.K. Statement

The U.K. rejected accusations of British involvement.

“The British Government condemns the terrorist attack in the Province of Sistan and Baluchistan in Iran and the sad loss of life which it caused. Our sympathies go to those who have been killed or injured in the attack and their families,” the Foreign Office said in an e-mailed statement. “We also reject in the strongest terms any assertion that this attack has anything to do with Britain.”

Pakistan is battling Taliban forces in its tribal region bordering Afghanistan and is also under pressure from India to control terrorists blamed for the attacks last year in Mumbai that killed 166 people and halted five years of peace talks between the South Asian neighbors.

Iran’s government says Jundallah, or the “Army of God,” is trying to destabilize the Sunni-dominated province from bases in Pakistan. Iran’s population of more than 66 million is 89 percent Shiite Muslim.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei lashed out against the attackers today, saying his country will punish terrorists responsible for the attack.

“The powerful hand of the Islamic Republic regime will defend this region and these innocent people and punish those who committed the treacherous act,” Khamenei, the highest authority in the country, was quoted as saying by the state-run Mehr news agency.

Pakistan’s Envoy

The Foreign Ministry yesterday summoned Pakistan’s envoy in Tehran to protest the terrorists’ use of Pakistani territory to organize attacks against Iran, Press TV reported.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari condemned the attack, saying Pakistan will continue to work with Iran to curb militancy and exterminate extremists, the official Associated Press of Pakistan reported. Earlier, Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Basit denied that Jundallah was operating inside Pakistan and said some elements wanted to disrupt the good relations between Pakistan and Iran, AFP said.

The suicide bombing occurred in Pishin at a conference between Sunni and Shiite tribal leaders, Press TV said. General Nur-Ali Shushtari, the deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards ground forces, General Mohammad-Zadeh, the Guards commander in Sistan-Baluchistan, the commander in the town of Iranshahr and the head of the Amir al-Momenin unit, were among those killed, according to Iran’s state-run Fars News agency.

Mosque Bombing

In May, at least 21 people were killed and almost 200 were injured when militants bombed a mosque in Zahedan in the province. Jundallah said it carried out that attack and also took responsibility for the February 2007 bombing of a bus in Zahedan that killed 11 civilian employees of the Revolutionary Guards.

“The goal of the terrorists is to disturb the security of the Sistan-Baluchistan province,” Parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani told lawmakers. “They do not want to have economic progress in this region. But certainly the Guards will react with additional forces to establish security.”

The Guards have a chain of command separate from the country’s regular armed forces and responsibilities that include safeguarding the ideals of the 1979 revolution. They are in charge of security in Sistan-Baluchistan.

The Iranian government has repeatedly alleged the U.S. and the U.K. are promoting an insurgency by Iran’s ethnic minorities, including Sunni Baluchis in Sistan-Baluchistan.

“The world arrogance, by provoking its agents in the region, carried out a terrorist attack on a popular meeting between the Guards and the heads of tribes,” the Guards said in a statement carried on state television. Iranian authorities routinely refer to the U.S. as the global or world “arrogance.”

“We condemn this act of terrorism and mourn the loss of innocent lives,” U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said yesterday in Washington. “Reports of alleged U.S. involvement are completely false.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Ladane Nasseri in Beirut at lnasseri@bloomberg.net; Paul Tighe in Sydney at ptighe@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 19, 2009 11:56 EDT