At least 13 people were killed and several others were injured when gunmen on Wednesday opened fire at a Shiite Muslim shrine in the southern Iranian city of Shiraz, state media reported.
State TV, which put the death toll at 13, blamed the attack on “takfiris,” a term that refers to Sunni Muslim extremists who have targeted the country’s Shiite majority in the past.
State news agency IRNA, meanwhile, reported that as many as 15 people had been killed in the attack which took place at the Shah Cheragh mosque, the second holiest site in Iran.
Citing witnesses, IRNA said the attackers were in a car and shot at pilgrims and staff at the entrance of the shrine. It said police had arrested two of the three suspects and were now looking for the third.
The semi-official Tasnim news agency said several women and children were among the dead.
Iranian news website Nour, which is considered to be close to the Supreme National Security Council, reported that the attackers were foreign nationals, without elaborating.
The Islamic State (IS) group late Wednesday claimed responsibility for the attack via its Amaq propaganda agency. It said an armed IS group militant stormed the shrine and opened fire on its visitors. It claimed that some 20 people were killed and dozens more were wounded.
Such attacks are rare in Iran, but last April, an assailant stabbed two clerics to death at the Imam Reza shrine, the country’s most revered Shiite site, in the northeast city of Mashhad.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said that whoever led and planned the attack will “receive a regretful and decisive response,” without elaborating. IRNA quoted Raisi as saying, “This evil will definitely not go unanswered.”
(FRANCE 24 with AP, AFP, Reuters)
