Ahvaz attack was result of forces’ negligence: MP

TEHRAN: A prominent Iranian lawmaker said an attack on a military parade in the southwestern city of Ahvaz that killed 24 people was the result of negligence by security forces, semi-oficial ISNA news agency reported on Saturday.

The report quoted the head of Iran’s parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy, Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, as saying a video shot by the Intelligence Ministry and the Army makes this clear.

“The cameraman begged a sniper to shoot the attackers, but the sniper waited for his commander’s order,” he said, describing the video.

Ninety-two lawmakers and the intelligence and interior ministers reviewed the video of last Saturday’s attack.

“There were eight or nine snipers who were easily able to kill the terrorists in 30 seconds,” Falahatpisheh said.

He said one sniper did not at irst believe an attack was taking place, but when he saw people were being killed he still did not shoot, saying he didn’t get an order to ire.

Falahatpisheh said some of the wounded in the attack had experience ighting the Daesh group in Syria and if they had been armed, they could have prevented the tragedy.

Militants disguised as soldiers opened ire on an annual Iranian military parade in the country’s oil-rich southwest, killing 24 people and wounding over 60 in the deadliest terror attack to strike the country in nearly a decade.

Tehran has identiied an array of parties as perpetrating or having a hand in the Sept.22 attack in the city of Ahvaz.

Ahvaz is the capital of Khuzestan, a province bordering Iraq in southwestern Iran where ethnic Arabs form a majority.

There have been two claims of responsibility for the gun assault against a military parade, including one by the Daesh group.

Soon after the attack, the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps accused the Al Ahwaziya movement of culpability.

A -Ahwaziya is separatist movement from Khuzestan province, but it comprises various groups.

On saturday, london-based opposition channel Iran International TV broadcast a claim of responsibility by a group called the Ahvaz National Resistance.

Two other regional separatist movements — the Ahwazi Democratic Popular Front and the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz — made statements denying any involvement.

Rouhani accused an unnamed country of giving inancial, armed and political support to the instigators of the attack.