Iran Claims U.S. Linked to Bombing Attack
COLLINS: A third death from a sweat lodge at an Arizona resort. A 49-year-old woman has died after spending time in the hospital. She was one of the people crammed into the heat of this lodge October 8th. It was part of a spiritual ceremony led by self-help guru James Arthur Ray. Police are treating the deaths as homicides. A University of Connecticut football player stabbed to death on campus. Police are still looking for Jasper Howard's killer. They say he was stabbed in a fight outside the school's homecoming dance. Howard was a quarterback on Uconn's football team. The coach says Howard was going to be a father. Pakistan steps up efforts to rout out the Taliban. Thousands of troops are storming Taliban strongholds after a series of deadly attacks this month. Pakistan says its ground troops and air assaults have killed dozens of militants, but the insurgents say they have killed dozens of Pakistani force. Both Senator John Kerry and General David Petraeus are in Pakistan today. Let's get over to the severe weather center now, where Rob Marciano is standing by. I'm glad he's indoors and not in the northeast right now, because snow all over the place, right?</s>MARCIANO: yes, record-breaking snow. Of course, this time of year, doesn't take much to break records.</s>COLLINS: Yes.</s>MARCIANO: Unless we get a little dusting on the ground. Typically, it does the trick. And we saw a fair bit of that yesterday. As a matter of fact, I'm hoping to load up a little bit of video. OK, I'm told we have it. Roll that beautiful bean football footage. Tom Brady putting on a show yesterday. I know he's not quite your Brett Favre.</s>COLLINS: No, but what'd he get? Four or five touchdowns?</s>MARCIANO: Or Fran Tarkenton back in the day.</s>COLLINS: Yeah, Fran.</s>MARCIANO: But I turned this on yesterday. I didn't expect it to be close, but I wanted it to be just because it's so much fun to watch football in the snow. And they got, this is in Boxborough, south of Boston, as you know. And they got more than a dusting there. So record-breaking snows yesterday, and almost record-breaking performance, I think, there as well for the Patriots. Congrats to them.</s>COLLINS: Yes. A whole lot of sitting around in my house this weekend. All right, Rob, thank you.</s>MARCIANO: See you.</s>COLLINS: We want to get back to this story now. U.S. and Iranian officials at the same table this morning. They're part of key talks in Vienna over Iran's nuclear program. But this comes as Iran is pointing a finger at the U.S. and Pakistan over a suicide bombing that killed 42 people. Ivan Watson is joining us now from Istanbul, Turkey, with more on this. Ivan, good morning to you.</s>IVAN WATSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Heidi. Yes, Iran is in three days of mourning now after a deadly attack Sunday morning in the southeast of the country in its Sistan, Baluchestan Province. State media reporting that a suicide bomber targeted the elite command of the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, killing the deputy commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps's Land Forces and also killing the provincial commander and several other core and brigade commanders. In addition to that, dozens of other people killed and wounded in this attack. It's really taken out the leadership for this most important military institution in the southeast of Iran a serious blow. And what we have now is a group called Jundallah (ph). It represents the ethnic Baloch (ph) minority in the southeast of the country; it makes up about 10 percent of the population in Iran. These are Sunni Muslims, not the Shiite Muslim majority. They're being accused of this attack. And what's very interesting, Heidi, is the reaction from the Iranian government. They are accusing the U.S. and the eastern neighbor, Pakistan, of playing a role in this attack. Accusing Pakistan of allowing these militants to operate from their territory, demanding now, officially to Pakistani diplomats, that they hand over the militants that they accuse of carrying out this deadly, deadly attack on Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps - Heidi.</s>COLLINS: Is this kind of a suicide attack unusual for Iran, Ivan?</s>WATSON: Well, this region of Iran has had problems like this in the past. In February of 2007, the Revolutionary Guard Corps of was targeted,</s>COLLINS: Yes.</s>WATSON: ... these movements, of arming them and funding them, Heidi. Those are charges that Iran -- and that the U.S. rather, and the U.K. always deny -- Heidi.</s>COLLINS: Yes, very quickly, though, Ivan, we also know that Iran's state-run media is saying that a different group, the People's Resistance Movement of Iran, has actually claimed responsibility for this attack.</s>WATSON: Yes. That's another name for this organization, this movement called Jundallah (ph), which means God's warriors, basically. They have two separate names there and they've singled out the leader of this organization by the name -- a fellow by the name of Rigi (ph) and they are demanding that neighboring Pakistan hand over the leader of this group. I might add, though, Pakistan has had its own share of troubles, Heidi, fighting a Balochistani (ph) separatist movement for years. It also faces problem with the Balochistan separatist movement -- Heidi.</s>COLLINS: All right, certainly a lot going on. I sure do appreciate the reporting. Ivan Watson coming to us from Istanbul, Turkey, this morning. And as we've mentioned these accusations are flying while key nuclear talks on Iran are happening; both the U.S. and Iran in Vienna, along with Russian and France, the goal, holding Iran to a deal to let other countries handle its uranium. This, as U.S. inspectors get ready to visit Iran's nuclear plant near the city of Qom. Iran waited until last month to reveal that plant existed. Here's how that proposed uranium deal with Iran would actually work. Iran would send Russia 1,200 kilograms of low enriched uranium, were talking 3.5 percent enriched here. Now, Russia would enrich the uranium to 19.75 percent purity, below weapons grade and then send it on to France. Well, then France would turn it into metal rods and send it back to Iran. Finally, Iran would use those rods in a nuclear reactor to make medical isotopes for treating cancer patients. Fascinating. They were bailed out with taxpayer money, so where is the gratitude from Wall Street? A message from the White House.