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DUBAI – Several people were killed and up to 20 others injured when unknown gunmen opened fire on Saturday during a military parade in Ahvaz city in southwestern Iran, the report said. television.
State television said the attack was aimed at a stand where officials gathered to watch the annual event, marking the beginning of the war between Iraq and the country between 1980 and 1988.
Iran organized similar parades in several cities, including the capital Tehran and the port of Bandar Abbas, in the Gulf.
"Several people fired from the stand during the parade and several people were killed or wounded," a television correspondent said.
The semi-official Mehr news agency said that other shots exploded as some of the attackers who managed to escape were pursued.
State television accused the "takfiri elements", a reference to Sunni militants, of the attack. Ahvaz is in the center of Khuzestan province, which has been the scene of sporadic demonstrations by the Iranian Arab minority.
An anonymous spokesman for the Revolutionary Guards accused Arab nationalists, who he said were supported by Saudi Arabia, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported.
Tensions between traditional rivals, Iran and Saudi Arabia, have mushroomed in recent years, with the two countries supporting opposing sides in wars in Syria and Yemen and rival political parties in Iraq and the United Arab Emirates. Lebanon.
(Report by Dubai, edited by John Stonestreet)
