Iran’s President Condemns Gulf State After Deadly Attack, as Well as U.S.

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The aftermath of the attack at a military parade in Ahvaz, Iran, on Saturday that left dozens dead.CreditCreditMorteza Jaberian/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By The Associated Press

Sept. 23, 2018

TEHRAN — President Hassan Rouhani of Iran said on Sunday that a Persian Gulf country allied with the United States was behind the attack on a military parade that killed 25 people and wounded nearly 70 others.

Mr. Rouhani did not identify the country he was blaming for the attack, which was claimed by both the Islamic State and an Arab separatist group. But Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are close military allies of the United States that view Iran as a foe, particularly because of its support for militant groups across the Middle East.

“All of those small mercenary countries that we see in this region are backed by America,” Mr. Rouhani said. “It is Americans who instigate them and provide them with necessary means to commit these crimes.”

The attack on Saturday, in which militants disguised as soldiers opened fire on an annual military parade in Ahvaz, in the oil-rich southwest, was the deadliest in the country in nearly a decade. Women and children scattered among soldiers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps after heavy gunfire rang out, the chaos captured live on state television.

Tehran summoned diplomats from Britain, Denmark and the Netherlands early Sunday, accusing them of having harbored “members of the terrorist group” that launched the attack. Officials then summoned the envoy of the United Arab Emirates what was called the “irresponsible and insulting statements” of an Emirati adviser, according to the semiofficial Iranian Students News Agency.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, writing on Twitter on Saturday, had blamed regional countries and their “US masters” for funding and arming the separatists. “Iran will respond swiftly and decisively in defense of Iranian lives,” he wrote.

The parade in Ahvaz was one of many around the country marking the anniversary of the start of Iran’s long war with Iraq in the 1980s, commemorations known as the “Sacred Defense Week.” The attack killed at least 25 people and wounded nearly 70 e, according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency, which said the gunmen had worn military uniforms and targeted a stand where military and police commanders were sitting. State TV later reported that all four gunmen had been killed.

At least eight of the dead served in the Revolutionary Guards, an elite paramilitary unit that answers to Iran’s supreme leader, according to the news agency Tasnim. The Revolutionary Guards warned on Sunday that they would seek “deadly and unforgiving revenge in the near future.”

President Hassan Rouhani of Iran, center, said on Sunday that a Persian Gulf country allied with the United States had been behind the attack.CreditOffice of the Iranian Presidency, via Associated Press

Tensions in Iran have been growing since the Trump administration pulled out of the 2015 nuclear accord this year and began reinstating sanctions that had been eased under the deal. Washington has also been urging Iran to stop what it calls “malign activities” in the region.

The American government strongly denounced the attack on Saturday, saying it “condemns all acts of terrorism and the loss of any innocent lives.”

Initially, the authorities had described the assailants as “takfiri gunmen,” a term previously used to describe militants of the Islamic State. Iran has been deeply involved in fighting the group, also known as ISIS and ISIL, in Iraq, and it has been supporting President Bashar al-Assad of Syria during his country’s long civil war.

But Iranian officials later appeared to believe the claim of responsibility of the region’s Arab separatists, once known for nighttime attacks on unguarded oil pipelines. The Islamic State had initially said that the attack had targeted Mr. Rouhani, but the president was in Tehran at the time, and Islamic State militants have made a string of false claims since their major defeats in Iraq and Syria.

State news outlets and government officials later seemed to agree that Arab separatists had been behind the attacks. The separatists accuse Iran’s Persian-dominated government of discriminating against the country’s ethnic-Arab minority.

Iran has blamed its Mideast archrival, the Sunni kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for funding Arab separatists. The state news media in Saudi Arabia did not immediately report on the attack, though a Saudi-linked, Farsi-language satellite channel based in the United Kingdom immediately broadcast an interview with an Ahvazi activist claiming responsibility.

In a Twitter post, Hamid Baeidinejad, Iran’s ambassador to Britain, called the channel’s decision a “heinous act,” said his country would file a complaint with the British authorities. Early Sunday, a Foreign Ministry statement similarly criticized Britain and said that Tehran had “already warned” Danish and Dutch diplomats against their governments harboring Arab separatists.

Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen of Denmark condemned the attack in Iran and emphasized that there would be “consequences” if those responsible had any connections to Denmark.

Yacoub Hor al-Tostari, a spokesman for the Arab Struggle Movement to Liberate Ahvaz, told The Associated Press that members of an umbrella group of Ahvazi activists had carried out the attack. The attack undermined the Iranian government “on the day it wants to give a message to the world that it is powerful and in control,” Mr. Tostari said.