Five Tehran attackers had ‘fought for ISIL’
Iranian intelligence says men served in Raqqa and Mosul
TEHRAN // The five men who launched attacks in the heart of Iran’s capital previously fought for ISIL, the country’s intelligence ministry said. Wednesday’s attacks on Iran’s parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader killed at least 17 people and wounded more than 40.
The intelligence ministry yesterday issued a statement on its website suggesting there were only five attackers and not the six originally reported. It showed pictures of the men’s corpses and identified them by first names only, saying it did not want to release last names owing to security and privacy concerns for their families.
The statement described the five men as “long affiliated with the Wahhabi”, an ultraconservative form of Sunni Islam practised in Saudi Arabia. It stopped short of directly blaming the kingdom for the attack.
According to the ministry, the men left Iran to fight for ISIL in the Iraqi city of Mosul and the Syrian city of Raqqa.
It said they returned to Iran in August under the command of an ISIL leader and escaped when authorities initially broke up their extremist cell.
The ministry did not identify the men’s hometowns, nor say how they were able to evade authorities.
Reza Seifollahi, an official in the country’s supreme national security council, told Iranian media that the perpetrators of the attacks were Iranian nationals. He did not elaborate.
Police, meanwhile, said they were holding six suspects as part of their investigation into the attacks. A woman suspected to be involved was arrested on Wednesday. As dawn broke yesterday, commuters in the Iranian capital noticed increased numbers of police on street corners and patrolling on motorcycles. It came after Mohammad Hossein Zolfaghari, a deputy interior minister, told state television that “law enforcement activities may increase”.
“We are focused on intelligence” gathering, he said. The state- run IRNA news agency also reported that the death toll in the attacks had risen to 17, citing the country’s forensic centre.
Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard indirectly blamed Saudi Arabia for the attacks. A statement on Wednesday stopped short of alleging direct Saudi involvement but called it “meaningful” that the attacks came shortly after US president Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, where he strongly asserted Washington’s support for Riyadh.
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Dr Anwar Gargash said on Wednesday that “the Iranian government should not use the attack in a very polarised situation against Saudi Arabia or claim that Saudi Arabia is somehow linked to the attack, because it isn’t”.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, used the attacks to defend Tehran’s involvement in wars abroad. He told students that if “Iran had not resisted”, it would have faced even more troubles.