29 killed in Iran attack
ISLAMIC STATE CLAIMS STRIKE President Rohuani vows crushing response TEHRAN:
Gunmen disguised as soldiers attacked an annual Iranian military parade on Saturday in the country’s oil-rich southwest, killing at least 29 people and wounding more than 50 in the bloodiest assault to strike the country in recent years.
The attack in Ahvaz saw gunfire sprayed into a crowd of marching Revolutionary Guardsmen, bystanders and government officials watching from a nearby riser.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility through its propaganda agency Amaq. “Islamic State fighters attacked a gathering of Iranian forces in the city of Ahvaz in southern Iran,” it said in a statement posted on messaging application Telegram.
Three of the attackers died at the scene while a fourth was arrested and later succumbed to his wounds, armed forces spokesman Brig Gen Abolfazl Shekarchi said.
Foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said earlier he held a US ally in the region responsible.
“Terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime have attacked Ahvaz,” Zarif said in a tweet, adding: “Iran holds regional terror sponsors and their US masters accountable for such attacks”.
Ahvaz lies in Khuzestan, a province bordering Iraq that has a large ethnic Arab community and has seen separatist violence in the past, which Iran has blamed on its regional rivals.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani ordered the country’s security forces to identify those reponsible for the attack.
“The response of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the smallest threat will be crushing”, Rouhani said in a statement on his official website. “Those who give intelligence and propaganda support to these terrorists must answer for it.”
The attack came as rows of Revolutionary Guardsmen marched down Ahvaz’s Quds, or Jerusalem, Boulevard, which like many other places around the country saw an annual parade marking the start of Iran’s long 1980s war with Iraq. TV footage showed journalists and onlookers turn to look toward the first shots, then the rows of marchers breaking up.