Motorbike-borne gunmen kill 9 in protest-hit Iran cities

TEHRAN: Assailants on motorbikes shot dead nine people, including a woman and two children, during protests in two separate attacks in southern Iran, state media said yesterday.

Three suspects were arrested and the hunt was on for others after Wednesday’s first attack on protesters and security forces in Izeh, said a senior judicial official in Khuzestan province.

In a separate attack four hours later in Iran’s third largest city Isfahan, two assailants on a motorcycle fired automatic weapons at Basij paramilitary force members, killing two and wounding two others, Fars news agency reported.

The attacks occurred as protests over the Sept 16 death in custody of Mahsa Amini intensified on the third anniversary of bloody unrest over fuel price hikes.

“Two wounded people died at dawn on Thursday, bringing the death toll to seven killed and eight wounded,” the official IRNA news agency reported.

The dead included a 45-yearold woman and two children aged nine and 13, said an official at the Jondishapour hospital in Ahvaz, the provincial capital.

Among the eight wounded were two Basij and three police officers, according to a security official interviewed by state television.