Iran will give a "tooth-breaking" response to a Sunni rebel group which has killed 16 policemen it abducted in June, a senior official said in comments broadcast on Saturday. The state-run IRNA news agency reported on Thursday that all the seized police had been killed, after they were taken hostage some six months ago from a checkpoint in the town of Saravan in Sistan-Baluchestan province bordering Pakistan.
Iran said the Jundollah group, which was demanding the release of 200 of its members, has links with al Qaeda. "We will give a firm and tooth-breaking response to armed rebels in border areas," Iranian Prosecutor-General Qorban-Ali Dori-Najafabadi was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Jundollah, which reportedly transferred the hostages to Pakistan after their abduction, previously said it had killed four of them.
Iran says the group's head Abdolmalek Rigi is a leader of the al Qaeda network in Iran.
