A gunman who killed 15 people at a major Shi’ite holy site in Iran has died, Iranian media reports.
The attack on Wednesday was claimed by the militant Islamic State group but Iran’s government has sought to blame it on the protests roiling the country.
Iranian authorities have not disclosed details about the assailant, who died in a hospital in the southern city of Shiraz on Saturday from injuries sustained during his arrest, according to Iran’s semiofficial Fars and Tasnim news agencies.
The attack at Shah Cheragh in Shiraz, the second-holiest Shi’ite shrine in Iran, came as unrest — sparked by the September 16 death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of the country’s morality police — rocked the Islamic Republic.
At least 270 people have been killed and 14,000 have been arrested in the protests that have swept over 125 Iranian cities, according to the group Human Rights Activists in Iran.
Iranian officials have blamed protesters for paving the way for the assault on the shrine in Shiraz, but there is no evidence linking extremist groups to the widespread, largely peaceful demonstrations engulfing the country.
Read the article in The Singleton Argus (AAP).