Islamic State claims killing of 29 at Iran military parade
Tehran, Iran - Militants shot dead at least 29 people including women and children in an attack on Saturday on an Iranian military parade claimed by the IS group, as Tehran accused a US ally in the region of the assault.
The attack in the southwestern city of Ahvaz came as the country marked the anniversary of the start of its 1980-88 war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and prompted President Hassan Rouhani to warn of a ‘crushing response’.
“The response of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the smallest threat will be crushing,” Rouhani said on his official website. “Those who give intelligence and propaganda support to these terrorists must answer for it.”
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a tweet that the attack was carried out by ‘terrorists recruited, trained, armed and paid by a foreign regime. Iran holds regional terror sponsors and their US masters accountable for such attacks,’ he wrote.
IS extremists said via their propaganda mouthpiece Amaq that ‘ Islamic State fighters attacked a gathering of Iranian forces’ in Ahvaz.
The city lies in Khuzestan, a province bordering Iraq that has a large ethnic Arab community and has seen separatist violence in the past. State television gave a casualty toll of 29 dead and 57 wounded, while official news agency IRNA said those killed included women and children among spectators at the rally. Many of the wounded were in critical condition.
Armed forces spokesman Brig Gen Abolfazl Shekarchi said the dead included a young girl and a former serviceman in a wheelchair.