Armed attackers struck Iran’s Parliament and the shrine of the country`s former supreme religious leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on Wednesday, killing 12 and wounding 30 other people in rare twin attacks, state media reported.
The Islamic State group quickly claimed responsibility and released a video through its Aamaq news agency that purported to show parts of the seige. At least four attackers were killed by Iranian security services.
The semi-official Tasnim news agency said at least three attackers took part in the assault on the Parliament in south Tehran, one of whom may have blown himself up. The attacks began when the assailants armed with Kalashnikov rifles stormed the Parliament building during a normal legislative session.
At the shrine, dedicated to the founder of the Islamic Republic, the state-run IRNA news agency reported that an armed man blew himself up after four armed assailants went on a shooting spree. Other reports from the Fars news agency said that the suicide bomber was a woman and that a second suicide vest was also defused.
Mohammad Hossein Zolfaghari, Iran`s deputy interior minister, told Iran’s state TV that the male attackers may have been wearing women’s attire.
If the claim of responsibility is confirmed, it could be the Islamic State group`s first major attack inside Iran. It would also quickly follow the attacks in Manchester and London, incidents the group also claimed, but authorities have not verified. A man who on Tuesday attacked police officers outside the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris claimed allegiance to the group, but the Islamic State itself has not commented.
Iran is a predominantly Shiite Muslim country. It has been fighting Sunni Muslim groups such as the Islamic State and al-Qaeda through proxies in Iraq and Syria.
Overall, large-scale terror attacks inside Iran are relatively infrequent and Tehran is a tightly-controlled capital city, although several bombings have taken place in the south-eastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan, which borders Pakistan and Afghanistan.
These attacks are believed to have been carried out by Sunni extremist groups, according to Britain`s foreign ministry.
The last major attack in Iran was in 2010 when a Sunni extremist group carried out a suicide attack against a mosque in Sistan-Baluchistan killing 39 people.
Kurdish groups have carried out small-scale attacks against Iranian security forces in the country`s north-west.
Last month, moderate Iranian President Hassan Rouhani won re-election in a landslide victory widely viewed as a ballot on his brokerage of the nuclear deal with world powers. Domestic security was not a major topic in the vote.
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