Armed men kill at least 24 people during an annual military parade in Iran

Tehran, Iran – Gunmen on Saturday attacked an annual Iranian military parade in the oil-rich southwest, killing at least 24 people and wounded 53, local media reported. No group immediately claimed the assault on Ahvaz, who saw gunfire spread among the crowd of guards, bystanders and government officials who were watching from a nearby riser.

However, Iran was confronted last year with a bloody attack by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the Arab separatists in the region attacked the pipelines in the past.

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif immediately accused the countries of the region and their "American masters" of reinforcing regional tensions as the nuclear deal between Tehran and the world powers was threatened after the withdrawal of the America.

"Iran will respond quickly and decisively to the defense of Iranian lives," he wrote on Twitter.

State television aired footage of the Ahvaz Quds attack, or the Jerusalem Boulevard, which, like many other parts of the country, saw an annual parade marking the beginning of the long war between Iran and Iraq. The images included paramedics trying to help a person in military fatigues while other members of the armed security forces shouted at each other. The semi-official ISNA news agency published photographs of the aftermath of the attack, with bloodied troops in uniform helping each other to get away.

A local news agency in Khuzestan province, of which Ahvaz is the capital, broadcast mobile phone images of fleeing spectators as soldiers lay flat on the ground. Shots rang out in the background.

"Security forces have restored security in the area, but the parade has been totally disrupted," said a reporter from Iranian public television at a live broadcast. "People have been killed but we have no figures yet."

Zarif on Twitter said that the gunmen were "terrorists recruited, trained, armed and paid by a foreign regime". He did not elaborate immediately. However, separatist Arab groups in the region have launched attacks against oil pipelines in the past and in Iran. The separatists also accuse the Shiite theocracy of Iran of discriminating against its Sunni Arab citizens. Iran has accused its rivalism in the Middle East, the Sunni kingdom of Saudi Arabia, of financing their activity.

Reports of how the attack took place remained unclear immediately afterwards. The state television reporter said the shots came from a park behind a riser. The semi-official Fars news agency, which is close to the guard, said two armed men riding motorbikes wearing khaki uniforms had led the attack.

The official IRNA news agency said the attack left 24 dead and 53 wounded, citing "informed sources" without giving further details. He said that armed men were dressed in uniforms of the Guard and targeted a rising column where were commanders of the army and police.

Khuzestan governor Gholamreza Shariati told IRNA that two gunmen had been killed and two others arrested.

Who led the aggression also remained in question. State television immediately described the attackers as "takfiri shooters", a term used to describe the Islamic State group. Iran has been deeply involved in the fight against ISIS in Iraq and has helped Syrian President Bashar Assad in the war of his country.

Among those implicated are members of the Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force solely responsible to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The guard also has vast holdings in the Iranian economy.

In addition, the spokesman of the guard, General Ramazan Sharif, told ISNA that an Arab separatist group had led the attack without giving further details. However, these groups had previously attacked unsupervised oil pipelines only at night.

Saturday's attack comes after a coordinated attack by the Islamic State on June 7, 2017 against the parliament and sanctuary of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Tehran. At least 18 people were killed and more than 50 wounded.

Khomeini led the 1979 Islamic revolution that overthrew the Western-backed shah to become Iran's first supreme leader until his death in 1989. The assault shocked Tehran, who largely avoided militant attacks. in the decades that followed