Iran blames US as 25 people killed at military parade in deadly strike
● ‘Mercenary’ nations allied to America described as menace by Iran
Iran’s president HassanRouhani has declared an unnamed Us-allied country in the Persian Gulf was behind an attack on a military parade that killed 25 people and wounded nearly 70.
He did not identify those behind Saturday’s attack, which was claimed by an Arab separatist group.
Mr Rouhani could have been referring to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates or Bahrain – close US military allies that view Iran as a regional menace over its support for militant groups across the Middle East.
“All of those small mercenary countries that we see in this region are backed by America,” he said.
“It is Americans who instigate them and provide them with necessary means to comearlier mit these crimes.” Saturday’s attack in which militants disguised as soldiers opened fire on an annual Iranian military parade in Ahvaz in the oil-rich south-west was the deadliest attack in the country in nearly a decade.
Women and children scattered along with once-marching Revolutionary Guard soldiers as heavy gunfire rang out. The chaos was captured live on state television.
The region’s Arab separatists, once only known for night-time attacks on unguarded oil pipelines, claimed responsibility for the assault. Iranian officials appeared to believe the claim.
Iran summoned diplomats from Britain, Denmark and the Netherlands early yesterday for allegedly harbouring “members of the terrorist group” that launched the attack.
The ministry later summoned the envoy of the United Arab Emirates as well over what it called the “irresponsible and insulting statements” of an Emirati adviser.
Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had
blamed regional countries and their “US masters” for funding and arming the separatists, issuing a stark warning as regional tensions remain high in the wake of America’s withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal. “Iran will respond swiftly and decisively in defence of Iranian lives,” Mr Zarif wrote on Twitter.
The parade was one of many around the country marking the start of Iran’s long 1980s war with Iraq, commemorations known as the “Sacred Defence Week”. The attack
killed at least 25 people and wounded nearly 70, accordingtothestate-runirnanews agency. It said gunmen wore military uniforms and targeted a riser where military and police commanders were sitting. State TV hours later reported all four gunmen had been killed.
At least eight of the dead served in the Revolutionary Guard – an elite paramilitary unit that answers only to Iran’s supreme leader. The guard responded to the attack yesterday, warning it would seek “deadly and unforgiving revenge in the near future”.
Tensions have been on the rise since the Trump administration pulled out of the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran earlier this year and started restoring sanctions that were eased under the deal. It also has steadily ramped up pressure on Iran to try to get it to stop what Washington calls its “malign activities” in the region.
The US Government nevertheless strongly condemned Saturday’s attack and expressed its sympathy, saying it “condemns all acts of terrorism and the loss of any innocent lives”.
Authorities initially described the assailants as “takfiri gunmen” – a term previously used to describe the Islamic State group. Iran had been deeply involved in the fight against IS in Iraq and has aided Syrian president Bashar Assad in his country’s long civil war. But later state media and government officials seemed to come to the consensus that Arab separatists in the region were responsible.