Gunmen opened fire on an annual Iranian military parade Saturday in the southwest city of Ahvaz, killing at least 25 people and wounding 53 others, local media reported.…
Gunmen opened fire on an annual Iranian military parade Saturday in the southwest city of Ahvaz, killing at least 25 people and wounding 53 others, local media reported.
Four gunmen began shooting at people from behind the viewing stand, according to ISNA, the semi-official Iranian Students News Agency. The semi-official Fars news agency, which is close to the Guard, reported, however, that two gunmen on a motorcycle wearing khaki uniforms carried out the attack.
According to the deputy of governor of Khuzestan Province, Ali Hossein Hosseinzadeh, 25 people were killed and more than 60 others injured in the attack.
Khuzestan Gov. Gholamreza Shariati that two gunmen were killed and another two were arrested, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).
Iran’s English language news outlet, Press TV, published a video purportedly showing the moment the attack started.
No officials at the parade were injured “due to the fast reaction of the security forces,’ Governor of Khuzestan Gholam-Reza Shariati told the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).
The news agency reported that a number of civilians, including women and children, who were watching the military parade, were among those killed.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the assault in Ahvaz, however, Iran faced a bloody assault last year from the Islamic State group and Arab separatists in the region have attacked oil pipelines there in the past.
Iranian authorities pointed the finger a wide-range of groups as being behind the attack:
♦The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) spokesman Ramezan Sharif said the attackers were affiliated to a terrorist group supported by Saudi Arabia, according to Press TV, which is affiliated with state-owned Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting.
“The individuals who fired at the people and the armed forces during the parade are connected to the al-Ahvaziya group which is fed by Saudi Arabia,” he said.
♦State television immediately described the assailants as “takfiri gunmen,” a term previously used to describe the Islamic State group. Iran has been deeply involved in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and has aided embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad in his country’s long war.
That fight includes members of the Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force answerable only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Guard also has vast holdings in Iran’s economy.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif quickly blamed the attack on regional countries and their “U. S. masters,” further raising regional tensions as Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers is in jeopardy after President Donald Trump withdrew America from the accord.
“Iran will respond swiftly and decisively in defense of Iranian lives,” he wrote on Twitter.
State television aired footage of the aftermath of the assault on Ahvaz’s Quds, or Jerusalem, Boulevard, which like many other places around the country saw an annual parade marking the start of Iran’s long 1980s war with Iraq. The images included paramedics trying to help one person in military fatigues as other armed security personnel shouted at each other. ISNA news agency published photographs of the attack’s aftermath, with bloodied troops in dress uniforms helping each other walk away.
A local news agency in Khuzestan province, of which Ahvaz is the capital, aired grainy mobile phone footage showing parade goers fleeing as soldiers lay flat on the ground. Gunfire rang out in the background.
“Security forces have restored security in the area but the parade has totally been disrupted,” a reporter on the scene for Iranian state television said by phone in a live broadcast, the Associated Press reported. “People have been killed but we have no figures yet.”
Zarif on Twitter said that the gunmen were “terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime.” He did not immediately elaborate. However, Arab separatist groups in the region have attacked oil pipelines there in the past and Iran. The separatists also accuse Iran’s Shiite theocracy of discriminating against its Sunni Arab citizens. Iran has blamed its Mideast archrival, the Sunni kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for funding their activity.
Meanwhile, Guard spokesman Gen. Ramazan Sharif told ISNA that an Arab separatist group carried out the attack, without elaborating. However, those groups in the past previously have only attacked unguarded oil pipelines at night.
Saturday’s attack comes after a coordinated June 7,2017, Islamic State group assault on parliament and the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Tehran. At least 18 people were killed and more than 50 wounded.
Khomeini led the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the Western-backed shah to become Iran’s first supreme leader until his death in 1989. The assault shocked Tehran, which largely has avoided militant attacks in the decades after the tumult surrounding the Islamic Revolution.
Contributing: Associated Press
