[caption id="attachment_31666" align="alignright" width="240"] Iraqi soldiers patrol after a bomb damaged a bus carrying Iranian religious tourists in Karbala, southwest of Baghdad. (File photo)[/caption]
Iranian Foreign Ministry has strongly condemned Friday's deadly terrorist attack against Iranian pilgrims in Iraq.
Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Araqchi on Saturday described the attack as indiscriminate, unjust, and counter to all human and Islamic principles.
Sixteen Iranian pilgrims were killed in a terrorist bomb attack in the Iraqi city of Muqdadiyah in Diyala Province, about 80 km northeast of the capital Baghdad, on Friday morning.
The blast, killing nearly 20 people overall, ripped through the pilgrims bus, which was heading for the holy city of Najaf. At least 45 others, many of them thought to be Iranians, were also wounded in the bombing.
The perpetrators of such terrorist attacks are either direct lackeys of the enemies of the Muslim community or have been entrapped in enemy plots, said the Iranian official.
He emphasized that Iran reserves the right to take to task through legal channels those who sponsor and arm the terrorists, adding that Tehran will definitely follow the issue up in due time.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for Fridays bloody attack.
In another terrorist attack on May 25, five Iranian pilgrims were killed and 20 others injured after a booby-trapped car hit their bus near the city of Samarra, some 125 km north of Baghdad.