Jihad attacks inside the Islamic Republic of Iran are rare, and this one does not speak well of Iran’s security and intelligence forces, even in their current state of being flush with Obama cash. The Islamic State has claimed the attack, and has an interest in striking Iran as a Shi’ite nation. Sunni Muslims such as the members of the Islamic State see Shia as Rafidites, or rejectors, that is, people who have rejected the first three caliphs, Abu Bakr, Umar, and Uthman, and who are therefore heretics subject to Islam’s death penalty for heresy.
“Attackers bomb Iran parliament and mausoleum, at least 12 dead: Iranian media,” by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin, Reuters, June 7, 2017:
Suicide bombers and gunmen attacked Iran’s parliament and the Mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini in Tehran on Wednesday morning, killing at least 12 people in a twin assault at the heart of the Islamic Republic, Iranian officials and media said.
Islamic State claimed responsibility and released a video purporting to show gunmen inside the parliament building and one man, who appeared wounded, on the floor.
The rare attacks were the first claimed by the hardline Sunni Muslim militant group inside the Shi’ite Muslim country. Iran is one of the powers leading the fight against Islamic State militants in neighbouring Iraq and, beyond that, Syria.
Attackers dressed as women burst through parliament’s main entrance in central Tehran, deputy interior minister Mohammad Hossein Zolfaghari said, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.
“One of them was shot dead and another one detonated his suicide vest,” he said.
About five hours after the first reports, Iranian news agencies said four people who had attacked parliament were dead and the incident was over.
At least 12 people were killed by the attackers, the head of Iran’s emergency department, Pir-Hossein Kolivand, was quoted as saying by state broadcaster IRIB.
“I was inside the parliament when shooting happened. Everyone was shocked and scared. I saw two men shooting randomly,” said one journalist at the scene, who asked not to be named.
Soon after the assault on parliament, another bomber detonated a suicide vest near the shrine of the Republic’s revered founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, a few kilometres south of the city, Zolfaghari said, according to Tasnim.
A second attacker was shot dead, he said.
The Intelligence Ministry said security forces had arrested another “terrorist team” planning a third attack, without giving further details….
Islamic State has often urged its fighters to attack Iranian targets and lambasted “heretic” Shi’ite Iran for helping the Syrian and Iraqi governments battle Islamic State, which considers Shi’ites to be infidels.The video released by Islamic State’s news agency Amaq included an audio track of a man saying: “Oh God, thank you. [Gunshots]. Do you think we will leave? No! We will remain, God willing.”