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In this photo provided by the Iranian student news agency, members of the Revolutionary Guards carry a wounded comrade after a shootout at a parade in Ahvaz, Iran on September 22. (Shayan Haji Najafi / ISNA via AP)
Erin Cunningham
A Middle East reporter covering Iran, Turkey, Syria and the entire region
ISTANBUL – A group of gunmen opened fire on Saturday at a military parade in the Iranian city of Ahvaz, killing several people and injuring at least 20 people, local and state news agencies reported.
Video footage of the attack posted online and by local media shows scenes of chaos as soldiers and civilians flee from gunfire and attempt to heal the wounded. Some pictures show bloodied soldiers in military fatigues and ambulance sirens can be heard in the background.
The Iranian news agency Tasnim, quoting a local official, reported that at least 10 people, including a journalist, were killed. According to the semi-official ISNA news agency, nine of those killed were members of the military.
The armed forces held parades in several cities, including the capital, Tehran, to mark the anniversary of the Iran-Iraq war. Iran's Fars news agency said the parade in Ahvaz began at 8:30 am and that the attackers opened fire about 30 minutes later.
The fate of the gunmen was not clear. Some media reported that there were four attackers and that at least two of them had been killed.
Iran's national television quoted a spokesman for Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps as saying that the attackers were affiliated with an Arab separatist group in the region. The spokesman accused Saudi Arabia, Iran's regional rival, of supporting the group.
Ahvaz, in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, is home to the small Arab minority of Iran, who is mainly of Persian origin.
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