Iranian authorities have arrested eight suspects, all of “foreign nationality”, after the arrest of the author of a shooting that left two dead on Sunday at a Shiite shrine in the south of the country.
The shooting comes less than a year after a similar attack on the same holy site, the mausoleum of Shah Cheragh in Shiraz, capital of Fars province.
“Eight people suspected of being linked to the terrorist incident at the shrine have been arrested,” Fars province judicial head Kazem Moussavi told the judiciary’s Mizan Online on Monday.
Sunday, the commander of the Guards of the Islamic Revolution (the ideological army of the Islamic Republic) of the province of Fars, Yadollah Bouali, had reported on state television of the arrest of the author of the shootings.
The assailant “introduced himself as Rahamotollah Norouzof, a citizen of Tajikistan”, added Mr. Moussavi, specifying that all those arrested are of “foreign nationality”.
The attack has not yet been claimed, but the governor of Fars province, Mohammad Hadi Imanieh, accused the Sunni jihadist group Islamic State (IS).
He said on television that the assailant was “seeking revenge for two executed terrorists” after they were convicted for the attack last year.
Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi, who visited the site in Shiraz on Monday morning, said on television that “the terrorist” had operated in collaboration with “a network” abroad, without more than precision.
In a first assessment, the official news agency Irna reported that one person had been killed and eight others injured in this attack.
Monday, the head of the judicial authority of the province of Fars, quoted by Irna, announced that “another person injured in the attack had died”.
Several countries, including France, Iraq, Russia and the European Union denounced the attack on Monday and expressed their condolences to the victims.
Shah-Cheragh had already been the target of a shooting that left 13 dead and 30 injured on October 26, 2022. A major place of pilgrimage, the mausoleum houses the tomb of Ahmad, brother of Imam Reza, the eighth imam Shi’ite.
The October shooting was claimed by IS and two men were sentenced to death and publicly hanged in Shiraz on July 8 for their involvement in the attack. Three other defendants had been sentenced to 5, 15 and 25 years in prison for belonging to IS, the head of the Fars judicial authority said at the time.
Authorities announced in November the arrest of 26 “Takfiri terrorists” from Afghanistan, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan in connection with the attack.
In Iran, a country with a Shiite majority, the term takfiri generally refers to jihadists or supporters of radical Sunni Islam.
The attack on the shrine last October came more than a month after the start of protests sparked across the country by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini.
08/14/2023 19:15:00 – Tehran (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
