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Two suicide bombers blew themselves up near a mosque in southeastern Iran on Wednesday, killing at least 38 people at a Shiite mourning ceremony, state media reported.

The attack took place outside the Imam Hussein Mosque in the port city of Chahbahar, near the border with Pakistan, the official IRNA news agency said.

The bombers targeted a group of worshippers at a mourning ceremony a day before Ashoura, which commemorates the seventh century death of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson Hussein, one of Shiite Islam's most beloved saints.

Southeastern Iran is home to an armed Sunni militant group, Jundallah, or Soldiers of God, which has waged sporadic attacks to fight alleged discrimination against the area's Sunni minority in overwhelmingly Shiite Iran.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the use of multiple suicide attackers to target Shiite worshippers is a tactic the group has employed in the past.

One of the attackers detonated a bomb outside the mosque and the other struck from inside a crowd of worshippers.

Security forces shot one of them, but the bomber was still able to detonate the explosives, the report said, quoting Deputy Interior Minister Ali Abdollahi.

Forensic official Fariborz Ayati put the number of dead at 38 and said they included women and children, IRNA reported.

Mahmoud Mozaffar, a senior Iranian Red Crescent Society official, said emergency services had been put on alert over the past few days because of anonymous threats, according to another news agency, ISNA.

The deputy interior minister blamed Sunni militants, an apparent reference to Jundallah.

"Evidence and the kind of equipment used suggest that the terrorists were affiliated with extremist ... groups backed by the US and intelligence services of some regional states," Abdollahi was quoted as saying .

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（中國日報網英語點津 Helen 編輯）

About the broadcaster:

Lee Hannon is Chief Editor at China Daily with 15-years experience in print and broadcast journalism. Born in England, Lee has traveled extensively around the world as a journalist including four years as a senior editor in Los Angeles. He now lives in Beijing and is happy to move to China and join the China Daily team.