Gunmen attack Iran parliament and mausoleum, killing at least 13 – UPDATE

Armed men launched two attacks in Iran on Wednesday morning, killing a guard at the parliament in central Tehran and wounding several people at the Mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini a few kilometres south of the city, state media reported.

UPDATE: The number of people killed in gun and bomb attacks in Tehran on Wednesday has risen to thirteen, Iran‘s deputy interior minister was quoted as saying by state broadcaster IRIB.

UPDATE: Five suspects have been arrested in Tehran, the city’s police chief said on Wednesday, following two attacks that killed at least 12 people.

“After the attack in the mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini, five suspects were arrested by the police … They are under investigation,” Hossein Sajedinia was quoted as saying by ISNA news agency.

UPDATE: Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, dismissed Wednesday’s bomb and gun attacks in Tehran as mere “fireworks” that would not weaken the country’s fight against terrorism, state TV reported.

“These fireworks have no effect on Iran. They will soon be eliminated … They are too small to affect the will of the Iranian nation and its officials,” he said.

Khamenei added that Iran, which is helping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fight rebels that include Islamic State fighters, had prevented worse attacks through its foreign policy.

“If Iran had not confronted terrorists where the core of this sedition is, it would have faced more attacks in Iran,” he said.

UPDATE: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned on Wednesday an attack by suicide bombers and gunmen on the Iranian parliament and the Mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini in Tehran that killed at least 12 people.

“The Secretary-General hopes those responsible for this unjustifiable violence will be swiftly brought to justice. All countries must work together in fighting terrorism while upholding the universal rights and values that bind the global community,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.

Islamic State claimed responsibility and released a video purporting to show gunmen inside the parliament building. It also threatened more attacks.

UPDATE: Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister rejected an accusation by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards that his country was behind twin attacks in Tehran on Wednesday that killed at least 12 people.

Speaking in Berlin, Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said there was no evidence to implicate Saudi Arabia in the attacks in Tehran, which is Riyadh’s arch regional rival.

“We condemn terrorist attacks anywhere they occur and we condemn the killing of the innocent anywhere it occurs,” Jubeir told an event hosted by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, the think- tank of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union.

He said Riyadh had no knowledge of who was responsible for the attacks, and denied that Saudi groups were behind it.

“We don’t know this. We haven’t seen the evidence,” he said, repeating Riyadh’s longstanding view that Iran is the primary sponsor of terrorism around the world.

UPDATE: US State Department condemns Tehran attacks says “terrorism has no place in a peaceful, civilized world.”

“The United States condemns the terrorist attacks in Tehran today,” said Heather Nauert, the State Department spokeswoman. “The depravity of terrorism has no place in a peaceful, civilized world.”

UPDATE: Iran Revolutionary Guard says Saudi Arabia behind Tehran attack.

UPDATE: Islamic State warns of new attacks in Iran.

UPDATE: President Hassan Rouhani said that the attacks in Tehran that killed at least 12 people on Wednesday would make Iran more united.

“Today’s terrorist attacks in Tehran will make the Islamic Republic of Iran more determined in the fight against regional terrorism, extremism and violence,” Rouhani said in a statement published on the ISNA news agency.

“We will prove once again that we will crush the enemies’ plots with more unity and more strength.”

UPDATE: Islamic State said in a statement on Wednesday that five of its fighters were responsible for a raid on Iran’s parliament and the shrine of Ayatollah Khomeini, using assault rifles, grenades, and suicide vests, and killing and injuring almost 60 people before dying.

UPDATE: German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel condemned two attacks.

“Once again, unscrupulous criminals have claimed the lives of many innocent people,” he said in a statement. “Where terror knows no borders, compassion and humanity should also know no bounds.”

UPDATE: France’s foreign ministry on Wednesday strongly condemned an attack claimed by Islamic State militants that killed at least 12 people in the Iranian capital Tehran.

“We strongly condemn the attacks that targeted the Iranian parliament and the Imam Khomenei mausoleum in Tehran,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

UPDATE: At least 12 people have died in twin attacks in Tehran on Wednesday, the head of Iran‘s emergency department, Pir-Hossein Kolivand, was quoted as saying by state broadcaster IRIB

UPDATE: Islamic State claimed responsibility for attacks on Iran’s parliament and Ayatollah Khomeini’s shrine on Wednesday, the group’s state news agency AMAQ said.

“Fighters from Islamic state attacked Khomeini’s shrine and the Iranian parliament in Tehran,” the news agency said.

UPDATE: The head of the anti-terrorism department in the Iranian Intelligence Ministry said they have foiled another terrorist plot and have arrested “a terrorist team”, state broadcaster IRIB reported.

UPDATE: One attacker blew himself up in the Iranian Parliament, according to state broadcaster Irib.

UPDATE: Iran’s Intelligence Ministry says twin attack was carried out by terrorist groups.

UPDATE:  According to the Tasnim Agency, seven people died in the attack at the Iranian Parliament, while four have been taken hostage.Tasnim also reported that the Revolutionary Guards’ hostage rescue team killed one of the attackers in parliament.

Lawmaker Elias Hazrati told state television three assailants, one with a pistol and two with AK-47 assault rifles, raided parliament.

Another lawmaker said one of the assailants was surrounded by security forces and all the doors to the building had been closed, ISNA news agency reported.

“I was inside the parliament when the 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.

Around half an hour later, an armed man opened fire at the Mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini and wounded a number of people, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

State news agency IRNA quoted an official at the mausoleum as saying that the attacker had blown himself up after shooting at people. The identity and the motivation of the assailant was still unclear, Tasnim said.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini launched the Islamic revolution in 1979.

A third attack foiled

The Intelligence Ministry said security forces had arrested another “terrorist team” planning a third attack, without giving further details.

The attacks took place less than a month after the re-election of President Hassan Rouhani, a moderate, whose landslide victory defeated candidates supported by the hardline clergy and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is responsible for national security.

“The atmosphere is tense. It is a blow to Rouhani. How can four armed men enter the parliament, where a very tight security has always been in place,” said a senior official, who asked not to be named.

The Intelligence Ministry called on people to be vigilant and report any suspicious movement. Despite unconfirmed reports of a hostage situation, state television said parliament had resumed, and broadcast footage of what it said was the opening session proceeding normally.

“Some coward terrorists infiltrated one of the buildings of parliament. They were confronted. It was not a major issue. Our security forces have taken necessary steps,” parliament speaker Ali Larijani said in an open session broadcast live by state TV.

Attacks are highly rare in Tehran and other major cities though a Sunni militant group named Jundallah and its splinter group Ansar al Furqan have been waging a deadly insurgency, mostly in more remote areas, for almost a decade.

Iran‘s restive Sistan and Baluchestan province, in the southeast on the borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan, is home to the Balouch minority and has long been a hotbed of Sunni insurgents fighting the Shi’ite-led Islamic Republic.

Last year Iranian authorities said they had foiled a plot by Sunni militants to bomb targets in Tehran and other cities during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Islamic State has often urged its fighters to attack Iranian targets and lambasted “heretic” Shi’iteIran 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. . Do you think we will leave? No! We will remain, God willing.”