5 Tehran attackers said to have ISIS ties
TEHRAN, Iran — Five of the men who attacked in the heart of Iran’s capital previously fought for the Islamic State extremist group, the country’s Intelligence Ministry said Thursday.
The attacks Wednesday on Iran’s parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader killed at least 17 people and wounded more than 40.
The ministry issued a statement on its website with bloody pictures of the men’s corpses. It identified them by their first names only, saying they didn’t want to release their last names because of security and privacy concerns for their families.
The ministry described them as “long affiliated with the Wahhabi,” an ultraconservative form of Sunni Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia. However, it stopped short of directly blaming the kingdom for the attack, though many in the country expressed suspicion Iran’s regional rival had a hand in it.
The men had left Iran to fight for the Islamic State group in Mosul, Iraq, as well as Raqqa, Syria — the group’s self-declared capital, the ministry said. It said they returned to Iran in August under the command of an Islamic State 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. A woman suspected to be involved in the attack was arrested Wednesday.
As dawn broke, commuters in the Iranian capital noticed more police on street corners and motorcycles than usual. Mohammad Hossein Zolfaghari, a deputy Interior Minister, had told state TV that “law enforcement activities may increase.”
“We are focused on intelligence” gathering, he said.
The state-run Islamic Republic News Agency also reported Thursday that the death toll in the attacks had risen to 17, citing Ahmad Shojaei, the head of the country’s forensic center.
The attack Wednesday as lawmakers held a session in parliament and at the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini shocked Iranians who so far had avoided the chaos that has followed the rise of the Islamic State, or ISIS, in Syria and Iraq. Iranian forces are backing Syrian President Bashar Assad while the Shiite power also is supporting militias fighting the extremists in Iraq.
Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard indirectly blamed Saudi Arabia for the attacks. A statement issued Wednesday evening stopped short of alleging direct Saudi involvement but called it “meaningful” that the attacks came after President Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, where he strongly asserted Washington’s support for Riyadh.
The “spilled blood of the innocent will not remain unavenged,” the Revolutionary Guard statement said.
Anwar Gargash, the United Arab Emirates’ foreign affairs minister, said Wednesday that “the Iranian government should not use the attack in a very polarized situation against Saudi Arabia or claim that Saudi Arabia is somehow linked to the attack, because it isn’t.”
On the streets of the capital Thursday, Iranians said they remained suspicious that Saudi Arabia had a hand in the attack. Some pointed to comments in May by Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the son of the King Salman and the kingdom’s defense minister, who said his country would “work so that it becomes a battle for them in Iran and not in Saudi Arabia.”
“I am sure Persian Gulf Arab countries are behind this,” said Nahid Ghanbari, a 21-yearold university student studying accounting. “They have been angry about Iran’s power in the region. They look for a way to destabilize our country.”
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader, used the attacks to defend Tehran’s involvement in wars abroad. He told a group of students that if “Iran had not resisted,” it would have faced even more troubles.
“The Iranian nation will go forward,” he added.
The violence began in midmorning when assailants with Kalashnikov rifles and explosives stormed the parliament complex where a legislative session had been in progress. During the hourslong attack, one of the attackers blew himself up inside, according to Iran’s state TV.
As the parliament attack unfolded, gunmen and suicide bombers also struck outside Khomeini’s mausoleum on Tehran’s southern outskirts. Khomeini led the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the Western-backed shah and became Iran’s first supreme leader until his death in 1989.
Iran’s state broadcaster said a security guard was killed at the tomb and that one of the attackers was slain by security guards. The shrine was not damaged.
Police on Thursday said they held six suspects as part of their investigation into the attacks.
Reza Seifollahi, an official in the country’s Supreme National Security Council, was quoted by Iranian media outlets as saying the perpetrators of the attacks were Iranians. He did not elaborate.