NAN-F-10
Attacks
Tehran, June 9, 2017 (Reuters/NAN) Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei on Friday said that attacks in Tehran by Islamic State (IS) that killed 17 people will increase hatred towards the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.
Suicide bombers and gunmen attacked the Iranian parliament and Ayatollah Khomeini’s mausoleum in Tehran on Wednesday.
Scores of people were wounded.
“It will not damage our nation’s determination to fight terrorism.
“However, it will only increase hatred for the governments of the U.S. and their stooges in the region like Saudis,” Khamenei said in a message read at the funeral of victims of the attacks.
IS claimed responsibility for the attacks and threatened more against Iran’s majority Shi’ite population, seen by the hardline Sunni militants as heretics.
Iranian authorities said that five of the attackers were Iranian nationals recruited by IS to carry out the assaults inside the tightly controlled Shi’ite Iran.
Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards Corps blamed the assault on regional rival Saudi Arabia and has threatened revenge.
Sunni Saudi Arabia denied any involvement in the attacks.
The assaults have further fuelled tension between Riyadh and Tehran as they vie for control of the Gulf and influence in the wider Islamic world.
Iran is one of the powers leading the fight against Islamic State forces in Iraq and Syria. (Reuters/NAN)
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