Iran bomber struck as guards talked to tribespeople

TEHRAN (Reuters) - A suicide bomber attacked Iranian Revolutionary Guards on Sunday when senior officers attending a conference went to talk to a group of tribes people making baskets, Iranian state television reported.

Press TV said the suicide bomber was one of the tribesmen who "detonated his explosives strapped to his body."

The bombing in the city of Sarbaz in southeastern Iran killed 29 people including the deputy head of the Guards' ground forces, General Nourali Shoushtari, and several other commanders, Iranian media reported.

"General Shoushtari, along with a number of other (Guards) commanders, had gone there to attend a conference," English-language Press TV quoted a witness as saying. "But before going there, there were some tribes people who were busy basket-making, and they went to talk to them and that's when the attack happened," said the witness, a man it named as Morteza Etasi. "General Shoushtari got killed along with a number of other high (Guards) commanders and tribes people."

(Reporting by Fredrik Dahl; editing by David Stamp)