Iran blames ‘mercenary’ US regional allies in wake of deadly attack on parade
IRAN’S President Hassan Rouhani has said an unnamed Us-allied country in the Persian Gulf was behind an attack on a military parade that killed 25 people and wounded around 70.
Mr Rouhani did not identify those behind Saturday’s attack, which was claimed by an Arab separatist group.
He could have been referring to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates or Bahrain – all close US military allies that view Iran as a regional menace due to 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. It is Americans who instigate them and provide them with necessary means to commit these crimes,” Mr Rouhani said.
Saturday’s attack, in which militants disguised as soldiers opened fire on an annual Iranian military parade in the oil-rich south-west, was the deadliest in the country in nearly a decade.
Women and children scattered as the attack began along with Revolutionary Guards who had been marching in formation as heavy gunfire rang out in Ahvaz.
The region’s Arab separatists, once only known for night-time attacks on unguarded oil pipelines, claimed responsibility for the assault, and Iranian officials apparently believed 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.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, later said the UAE ambassador would be summoned over “partial statements” in support of the group behind the attack.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had earlier 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 the US 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 war with Iraq in the 1980s – commemorations known as the “Sacred Defence Week”.
The attack killed at least 25 people and wounded around 70 others, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.
At least eight of the dead served in the Revolutionary Guard, an elite paramilitary unit that answers only to Iran’s supreme leader, according to Tasnim news agency. State TV reported that all four gunmen in the attack had been killed.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei described the attack as exposing “the atrocity and viciousness of the enemies of the Iranian nation.”
He added: “Their crime is a continuation of the conspiracies by the Us-backed regimes in the region which have aimed at creating insecurity in our dear country.”