At least 25 people, including 12 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, died Saturday in Iran when four gunmen opened fire on a military parade, officials said. Sixty others were injured. The unusual attack, one of the most serious against this elite force, occurred in Ahvaz, in the province of Khuzestan, which concentrates the Arab minority of the country and has been the scene of sporadic protests. A local separatist group and the self-proclaimed Islamic State (EI) claimed the attack. Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has accused the Arab countries of the Gulf supported by the United States.
According to the ISNA news agency, the target of the attackers was a post around which several soldiers had gathered during the annual parade that recalls the start of the war against Iraq in 1980. Similar acts were carried out in other Iranian cities, including the capital, Tehran. Among the victims are women, children and a journalist, said the governor of Khuzestan, Gholamreza Shariati. Security forces killed the four terrorists in the subsequent shootout.
"This crime is the continuation of the plots of the states of the region that are US puppets, and their goal is to create insecurity in our country," Khamenei said in a statement posted on his website. Earlier, Iranian President Hassan Rohani had promised a "terrible response" to those responsible. Neither of the two leaders mentioned specific countries, but the statements of the military had no doubt.
In addition to the fact that the Ahvaz National Resistance - a group that craves the independence of Khuzistan (oil-rich province) - and the EI claimed responsibility for the attack, the military accused Saudi Arabia of putting the bomb in the context of regional rivalries which keep Iran isolated. "These terrorists ... were trained and organized by two countries in the Persian Gulf. They are not from the EI nor from other groups fighting against the [Islamic] Islamic system. In fact, they are linked to the US and the [Israeli intelligence] Mossad, "said Gen. Abofazl Shekarchi, a spokesman for the Army General Staff and a senior member of the Revolutionary Guards.
Although some local groups have already carried out minor terrorist attacks, the attacks in Iran are very rare, especially against military targets. Last July, however, Kurdish armed opponents killed 10 members of the Revolutionary Guards at a border post between Iraq and the country. This force, the true military power of Iran, responded by launching several missiles at a base of the group responsible in the neighboring country.
In 2017, when the EI took charge of the double bombing that left 18 dead in Tehran, Iran accused Riyadh - with whom it has a dispute over the region's leadership and whose relations have worsened since King Salman's arrest in Saudi Arabia.
Now the tension peaks because of the US decision to abandon the nuclear deal with Iran in 2015, to the satisfaction of the Saudis and Israel, who from the beginning saw this pact with fear. The new imposition of sanctions by Washington (whose second part will take effect in November) meant a fatal blow to the fragile and disastrous Iranian economy, triggering protests of the population.
Spokesmen for the Islamic Republic have suggested the possibility of militarily blockading the Persian Gulf to prevent oil exports from its neighbors, in retaliation for US sanctions.
"The Ahvaz bombing in Iran is exactly the kind of provocation that could lead to a regional conflict between Iran and the United States," said Vali Nasr, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). ) and a former adviser to the US State Department.
Shortly before the attack, during a military stop in Tehran, Rohani had delivered a speech stating that Iran "will not abandon its missile program" and will defeat US President Donald Trump "just as he did with Saddam Hussein." It is a subjective interpretation of the war with Iraq, which ended in 1988 with one million deaths in both countries and without a winner. Just in the last days, the Iranian Army and the Revolutionary Guards perform maneuvers in the Persian Gulf. About 600 vessels took part in Saturday's naval drills, after the Air Force showed its power the day before to test, according to the local press, the "blunt response" against Iran's enemies.
