Tehran attackers 'were ISIS recruits from Iran'

The attackers who stormed Tehran's parliament complex and the revolutionary leader's shrine were Iranian nationals who had joined the Islamic State group, a top Iranian official said. 

Suicide bombers attacked the country’s parliament and the mausoleum of the Islamic Republic's founder Ayatollah Khomeini on Wednesday, killing at least 12 people and injuring dozens more.

The assault on the parliament began when four men armed with rifles burst into the building complex. One of the attackers reportedly blew himself up inside as police surrounded the building.

Gunfire could be heard from outside as police helicopters circled overhead, entrance and exit gates were closed, and contact with mobile phones inside was lost.

Soon after the assault on the parliament began, reports emerged of another incident about 19km south at the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who established the Islamic Republic after deposing the shah in 1979.

Two assailants entered the grounds of the shrine, killing a gardener and wounding several other people. One detonated a suicide vest, and the other was shot dead. It was not clear whether the shrine attackers were women, as had been reported earlier, or were just dressed like women.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks, publishing a brief video that purported to show the assailants inside the parliament.

All the attackers were killed. Five people believed to be planning a third attack were arrested, officials said.

Reza Seifollhai, the deputy head of Iran’s National Security Council, said on state television that the assailants were Iranian Isis recruits.

“About the identity of the attackers I should say they were from parts of Iran, and had joined Daesh,” Seifollhai said, using the Arabic name for ISIS.
However, Iran’s hardline Revolutionary Guards blamed Saudi Arabia for the attack, in a move that could further raise the stakes in a regional tussle that has already led to major diplomatic upheaval among the Gulf monarchies in recent days and the isolation of Qatar over, in part, its perceived closeness to Iran.

“This terrorist action, coming one week after the meeting of the president of the United States with the leader of the one of the region’s reactionary governments [Saudi Arabia] … shows they are involved in this savage action,” the IRGC said in a statement.

The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, said the attacks would make the country more united. “Today’s terrorist attacks in Tehran will make the Islamic Republic of Iran more determined in the fight against regional terrorism, extremism and violence,” he said in a statement published on the ISNA news agency. “We will prove once again that we will crush the enemies’ plots with more unity and more strength.”
It was the first attack in Iran claimed by ISIS, which had threatened to step up its campaign in the country in recent months. 
Iran is a key fighting force against ISIS and other groups in Iraq and Syria, and the Sunni jihadists consider Iran's Shiite Muslims to be apostates. 

Shiites make up roughly 90% of Iran's population, but the country also has a sizeable Sunni minority, particularly around its restive borders with Iraq and Pakistan.