The IRNA news agency described them as “takfiri terrorists”a term used by officials in majority Shiite Muslim Iran to refer to armed Sunni Islamist groups hard line.
Nournews, affiliated with Iran’s top security agency, said they were not iranian citizens.
The attackers were in a car and shot at pilgrims and staff at the entrance to the Shah Cheragh shrine, according to IRNA, which cited witnesses. Police arrested two of the three “terrorists,” he added. The semi-official Tasnim news agency said among the dead were several women and children.
Repression of protesters
The attack took place on the same day that Iranian security forces opened fire on people gathered in Saqezthe Kurdish hometown of Amini, the young woman who died in police custody after being arrested for improperly wearing the veil.
“Riot police fired on mourners who gathered at the cemetery for the Mahsa commemoration ceremony. Dozens of people have been arrested,” a witness told Reuters.
Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency said some 10,000 people had gathered at the cemetery, adding that Internet access was cut off following clashes between security forces and local people.
Videos posted on social media showed thousands of Iranians marching towards the cemetery where Amini is buried, despite the heavy presence of riot police. Activists had called for protests across Iran to mark the end of the mourning period for the young woman’s death.
The demonstrations began after the death of the 22-year-old on September 16, and have become one of the most frontal challenges to the clerical leadership of the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution.
Videos posted on social media showed that security forces blocked roads leading to Saqez to prevent people from other cities from gathering at the cemetery. Reuters was unable to verify the authenticity of the recordings.
Authorities closed all schools and universities in the Kurdistan province on Wednesday “because of a wave of flu,” Iranian state media reported.
Source: Ambito
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