12 dead in Iran: IS claims responsibility for attacks on parliament, shrine

Islamic State claimed its first attack in Iran, as suicide bombers and gunmen struck at the heart of the country’s political and religious establishment on Wednesday.

Assailants entered the Parliament building in Tehran and the shrine of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, to the south of the city.

Twelve people were killed and 42 injured in the simultaneous attacks, state-run Press TV said. Fars news agency said the two incidents, which lasted for several hours, were over. The Sunni extremist group Islamic State claimed both attacks using its Amaq News Agency, saying they were carried out by its fighters and were its first in Iran — the West Asian Shiite power.

The rare violence in the usually safe capital comes as Iranian security forces and allied militias are involved in offensives against the jihadist group and other militant groups in both Syria and Iraq. US-backed Syrian fighters on Tuesday launched an offensive to retake Islamic State’s self-declared capital of Raqqa, pushing the group further onto the defensive.

“The terrorists targeted the shrine of the founder of the regime and the beating heart of the people’s leadership,” Hesamodin Ashena, an adviser to President Hassan Rouhani, said on Twitter. Iran’s Interior Ministry will hold an emergency security meeting.

However, Saudi Arabia denied any involvement.

The assault further fuels boiling tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia as they vie for control of the Gulf and influence in the wider Islamic world.

Four attackers entered parliament using the public entrance wearing women’s clothes, Tasnim cited Deputy Minister Hossein Zolfaghari as saying, and a firefight with security forces began immediately.

Hours later, the Intelligence Ministry said a suicide bomb went off. At least two people were killed in the legislature, Tasnim news agency reported, and more than 30 people injured. Three militants were killed and one blew himself up.

“Several cowardly terrorists accessed the parliament’s building and were dealt with forcefully,” Parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani said, according to Tasnim. “It shows terrorists are trying to create trouble in Iran, which is an active center in the fight against terrorism.”

In a separate incident on the outskirts of the city, gunmen entered the Khomenei shrine and opened fire before an explosion hit the site, Tasnim said. Images of the blast were shown on Press TV, which said one assailant was shot dead before he could set off his explosives, but another succeeded in detonating a bomb.

The militants struck at a time of escalating tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the Middle East’s preeminent Sunni power. Last month, US President Donald Trump gathered Sunni leaders in Riyadh in an effort to isolate Iran over its links to regional militants, including the Palestinian movement Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Both are designated as terrorist groups by the US and several European nations.

This week, an alliance of Saudi Arabia, two other Gulf monarchies and Egypt sparked the biggest diplomatic crisis in years in the region, with a coordinated effort to punish Qatar over its closer relations with Tehran and alleged support for Islamist extremists.