Tehran, June 7 : Gunmen and suicide bombers stormed Iran’s Parliament and the shrine of its revolutionary leader on Wednesday, killing 12 persons in the first attacks in the country claimed by the Islamic State group.Dozens of people were wounded in the attacks, which ended after a standoff lasting several hours as the gunmen holed up in parliamentary office buildings.
IS released a video of the attackers from inside the building via its Amaq propaganda agency—a rare claim of responsibility while an attack was still going on.
The police said all the attackers had been killed by around 3 pm (1030 GMT), some five hours after it started.The Sunni jihadists of IS consider Shiite Iran to be apostates, and Tehran is deeply involved in fighting the group in both Syria and Iraq.
The assaults began mid-morning when four gunmen burst into the Parliament complex in the centre of Tehran, killing a security guard and one other person, according to the ISNA news agency.
An Interior Ministry official said they were dressed as women and entered through the visitors’ entrance. At roughly the same time, a team of three or four assailants entered the grounds of the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who led the 1979 Islamic revolution, killing a gardener and wounding several other people.