12 die in Tehran terrorist attacks
Islamic State takes credit, guards blame Saudi Arabia
LONDON (Reuters) – Suicide bombers and gunmen attacked the Iranian parliament and the Mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini in Tehran on Wednesday, killing at least 12 people in a twin assault which the Revolutionary Guards blamed on regional rival Saudi Arabia.
Islamic State claimed responsibility and released a video purporting to show gunmen inside the parliament building. It also threatened more attacks against Iran’s majority Shi’ite population, seen by the hardline Sunni group as heretics who should be put to death.
Saudi Arabia denied any involvement, but the assault further fuels boiling tension between Riyadh and Tehran as they vie for control of the Gulf and influence in the wider Islamic world. It comes days after Riyadh and other Sunni powers cut ties with Qatar, accusing it of backing Tehran and terrorist groups.
They were the first attacks claimed by Islamic State inside the tightly controlled Shi’ite country, one of the powers leading the fight against ISIS forces in nearby Iraq and Syria.
Iranian police said they had arrested five suspects over the attacks and the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, struck a defiant tone.
“These fireworks have no effect on Iran. They will soon be eliminated... They are too small to affect the will of the Iranian nation and its officials,” state TV quoted him saying. Khamenei added that Iran, which is helping Syrian President Bashar Assad fight rebels including Islamic State fighters, had prevented worse attacks through its foreign policy.
The powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps accused Riyadh of being behind the attacks and vowed to seek revenge.
“This terrorist attack happened only a week after the meeting between the US President [Donald Trump] and the [Saudi] backward leaders who support terrorists. The fact that Islamic State has claimed responsibility proves that they were involved in the brutal attack,” a Guards statement said.
The deputy head of the Guards, Brig.-Gen. Hossein Salami, was quoted later by Tasnim news agency as saying: “We will take revenge on terrorists and their supporters who martyred our people.”
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir, speaking in Berlin,
said he did not know who was responsible for the attacks and said there was no evidence Saudi extremists were involved.
The US State Department and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres both condemned the attacks.
Attackers dressed as women burst through parliament’s main entrance in central Tehran, Deputy Interior Minister Mohammad Hossein Zolfaghari said, according to the Tasnim news agency.
One of them detonated a suicide vest in the parliament, he said. About five hours later, Iranian media said four people who had attacked parliament were dead and the incident was over.
At least 12 people were killed by the attackers, the head of Iran’s emergency department, Pir-Hossein Kolivand, was quoted as saying by state broadcaster IRIB. Forty-three people were wounded.
“I was inside the parliament when shooting happened. Everyone was shocked and scared. I saw two men shooting randomly,” said one journalist at the scene.
Soon after the assault on parliament, another bomber detonated a suicide vest near the shrine of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a few kilometers south of the city, Zolfaghari said.
A second attacker was shot dead, he said. The shrine is a main destination for tourists and religious pilgrims.
“The terrorists had explosives strapped to them and suddenly started to shoot around,” said the shrine’s overseer, Mohammadali Ansari.
The Intelligence Ministry said security forces had arrested another “terrorist team” planning a third attack.
Television footage showed police helicopters circling over the parliament building, with snipers on its rooftop.
The attacks follow several weeks of heightened rhetorical animosity between Riyadh and Tehran.
In unusually blunt remarks on May 2, Prince Muhammad bin Salman, who is Saudi defense minister and a son of King Salman, said he would protect his country from Iranian efforts to dominate the Muslim world.
Any struggle for influence between the Sunni kingdom and the revolutionary Shi’ite theocracy ought to take place “inside Iran, not in Saudi Arabia,” he said without elaborating.
The next day Iran accused Saudi Arabia of seeking tension in the region, saying the prince had made “destructive” comments and it was proof that Riyadh supported terrorism. •