Iran’s supreme Leader has vowed to retaliate against those threatening the country’s security after the massacre of Shi’ite pilgrims, an assault claimed by Islamic State which threatens to inflame tensions amid widespread anti-government protests.
In a statement read on state TV, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the assailants “will surely be punished” and called on Iranians to unite.
“We all have a duty to deal with the enemy and its traitorous or ignorant agents,” said Khamenei a day after the attack killed 15 people.
Khamenei’s call for unity appeared to be directed at mostly government loyalists and not protesters whose nearly six-week old movement is seen as a threat to national security by authorities.
Iran’s clerical rulers have faced nationwide protests since the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, on September 16.
Iranians have called for the death of Khamenei and an end to the Islamic Republic during the protests, which have become one of the boldest challenges to the clerical leadership since the 1979 revolution, drawing many Iranians on to the streets.
Iranian officials said they had arrested a gunman who carried out the attack at the Shah Cheragh shrine in the city of Shiraz. State media blamed “takfiri terrorists” – a label Tehran uses for hardline Sunni Muslim militants such as Islamic State.
Read the article in the Mandurah Mail (AAP).