Iranian News Agency: 8 members of the guard killed during an attack

TEHRAN, Iran – Gunmen on Saturday attacked a military parade in the southwestern city of Ahvaz, killing at least eight members of the Revolutionary Guards and wounding 20 others, media reports said.

The official IRNA news agency reported that the wounded included a woman and a child but did not specify.

Earlier reports described the attackers as "Takfiri", a term previously used to describe the Islamic State group.

The semi-official Fars news agency, close to the revolutionary elite guard, said two armed men on motorbikes wearing khaki uniforms had led the attack.

The state television showed images of the immediate aftermath. There were paramedics who were helping somebody with a military trellis to put on the floor. Other members of the armed security forces questioned what appeared to be a support for the parade.

The semi-official ISNA news agency published photos of the attacks, bloodied troops wearing uniforms helping each other. The attack hit the Quds of Ahvaz or the Boulevard of Jerusalem.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Saturday's attack comes after a coordinated aggression on June 7, 2017 against Tehran's parliament and sanctuary of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. At that time, it was the only attack by Sunni extremists inside Shiite Iran, which was deeply involved in the wars in Iraq and Syria, where militants formerly occupied a vast territory.

In 2017, at least 18 people were killed and more than 50 wounded. Gunmen carrying assault rifles and Kalashnikov explosives stormed the parliamentary compound where a legislative session begins, which begins a one – hour siege. Meanwhile, gunmen and suicide bombers also struck outside the Khomeini Mausoleum in the southern suburbs of Tehran. 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, which largely avoided activists in the decades that have

Ahvaz is the capital of the oil-rich Khuzestan province, which in the past has seen Arab separatists attack oil pipelines.

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