{"id":16242,"date":"2018-09-25T02:26:48","date_gmt":"2018-09-25T02:26:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=16242"},"modified":"2018-09-25T02:26:48","modified_gmt":"2018-09-25T02:26:48","slug":"thousands-of-iranians-attend-funeral-for-ahvaz-attack-victims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=16242","title":{"rendered":"Thousands of Iranians attend funeral for Ahvaz attack victims"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Thousands of people gathered in Iran’s southwestern city of Ahvaz at a mass funeral for the victims of an attack<\/a> on a military parade\u00a0that killed 25 people.<\/p>\n

Mourners flooded the streets of Ahvaz, the capital of oil-rich Khuzestan province, on Monday, waving Iranian flags and holding photographs of the victims aloft.<\/p>\n

Among those being mourned was a disabled war veteran and a four-year-old boy, as well as at least 12 members of Iran’s elite\u00a0Revolutionary Guard<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gunmen dressed in military uniform opened fire on marching soldiers, bystanders and government officials, who had gathered to watch the parade on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Almost half of those killed were from Ahvaz, while the others came from elsewhere in Khuzestan.<\/p>\n

“Just look at the crowd,” said Ahvaz resident Ghaseem Farhani. “With no fear, people are gathered here to see their soldiers and martyrs off to heaven.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mourners reportedly shouted “death to America” and “death to Israel<\/a>“.<\/p>\n

As relatives lay atop their loved ones’ flag-draped coffins near Ahvaz’s Sarallah Mosque, Iran’s Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavia said many suspects were identified and “a majority of them were detained”.<\/p>\n

“We will punish the terrorists, one by one,” he said.<\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
A war veteran and a four-year-old boy were among those killed in Saturday’s attack [Tasnim News Agency via Reuters]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Iranian officials have blamed the attack, which took place at a military parade to mark the anniversary of the start of the Iran’s 1980-1988 war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, on an Arab separatist group and its alleged international backers.<\/p>\n

The al-Ahvaziya armed group claimed responsibility<\/a> for the attack. It accused Iran’s Persian-dominated government of discriminating against the country’s ethnic Arab minority.<\/p>\n

President\u00a0Hassan Rouhani<\/a>\u00a0vowed to deliver a\u00a0“crushing response<\/a>“, while Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei linked the attack with the US and its\u00a0“allies in the region”.<\/p>\n

The country’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said “regional terror sponsors” were responsible for the attack, adding he held “their US masters accountable”.<\/p>\n

General Hossein Salami, acting commander of the Revolutionary Guard, vowed revenge on the perpetrators and what he called the “triangle” – or\u00a0Saudi Arabia<\/a>, Israel and the US – saying operatives would be harshly punished.<\/p>\n

“You are responsible for these actions; you will face the repercussions. We warn all of those behind the story, we will take revenge,” he said.<\/p>\n

Khuzestan province is home to the small minority of\u00a0Ahvazi Arabs, who are divided over whether they want independence or devolution of power within a democratic, federal Iran<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The province has also been the site of recent protests over a\u00a0nationwide drought<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0economy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Iran’s foreign ministry has also summoned Western diplomats and an envoy from the UAE<\/a>, accusing them of allegedly providing havens for the Arab separatists.<\/p>\n

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (also known as ISIS<\/a> or ISIL) also claimed to be behind the shooting, providing images of the attackers, which did not resemble those published by Iranian media in the aftermath of the attack.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thousands of people gathered in Iran’s southwestern city of Ahvaz at a mass funeral for the victims of an attack on a military parade\u00a0that killed 25 people. Mourners flooded the streets of Ahvaz, the capital of oil-rich Khuzestan province, on Monday, waving Iranian flags and holding photographs of the victims aloft. Among those being mourned…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":16243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}