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Agence France-Presse

Iranian President Hassan Rowhani on Sunday appeared to blame Arab separatists for a deadly attack on a military parade, accusing an unnamed US-backed Gulf state of supporting them.
Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards vowed on Sunday to exact “deadly and unforgettable” vengeance for the attack that killed 25 people, including 12 of their comrade.
Tehran also summoned diplomats from Denmark, the Netherlands and Britain for allegedly hosting members of the group suspected of links to Saturday’s attack near the Iraqi border, which left at least 29 people dead.
Four militants attacked a parade commemorating the beginning of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, launched by Baghdad, in the southwestern city of Ahvaz, capital of Khuzestan Province.

Officials and an eyewitness said the gunmen were dressed in Iranian military uniforms and sprayed the crowd with gunfire using weapons they had stashed in a nearby park.
Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the rare assault. But from early on, Iranian officials saw an Arab separatist movement, the Ahwazi Democratic Popular Front (ADPF) or Al-Ahwazi, as the main suspect.
“It is absolutely clear to us who has done this, which group it is and to whom they are affiliated,” Rowhani said on state television on Sunday, shortly before leaving Tehran for the UN General Assembly in New York.
“Those who have caused this catastrophe … were Saddam’s mercenaries as long as he was alive and then changed masters,” he said, referring to late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
All these little mercenary countries we see in this region are backed by America. It is the Americans who incite them
President Hassan Rowhani
“One of the countries in the south of the Persian Gulf took care of their financial, weaponry and political needs.
“All these little mercenary countries we see in this region are backed by America. It is the Americans who incite them.”
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the attack had been carried out by “terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime”.
However, Nikki Haley, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, rejected the accusations, saying Iranian leaders should look closer to home.
Asked about comments made by Rowhani, Haley told CNN: “He needs to look at his own base to figure out where that’s coming from. He can blame us all he wants. The thing he’s got to do is look at the mirror.”
The Trump administration has said that changing Iran’s system of government is not US policy.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News on Sunday that Trump was willing to meet top Iranian officials for talks.
Asked if Trump would like to meet with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the highest authority in Iran, Pompeo replied: “The president has said he’ll talk with anyone if we can have a constructive conversation.”
London-based opposition channel Iran International TV on Saturday aired an interview with Yaqoub Hor Altostari, presented as a spokesman for ADPF, indirectly claiming responsibility for the attack and calling it “resistance against legitimate targets”.
Iran in response summoned diplomats from Denmark, the Netherlands and Britain to complain about them “hosting some members of the terrorist group” and “double standards in fighting terrorism,” the foreign affairs ministry said.
The British charge d’affaires “was told that it is not acceptable that the spokesman for the mercenary Al-Ahwazi group be allowed to claim responsibility for this terrorist act through a London-based TV network,” said the ministry’s spokesman, Bahram Ghasemi.

“It is expected that [the Danish and Dutch] governments hand over the perpetrators of this attack and anyone related to them to Iran for a fair trial,” he added.
State television gave a toll of 29 dead and 57 wounded, while official news agency IRNA said those killed included women and children who were spectators at the parade.
Three attackers were killed at the scene and the fourth died later of his injuries, said armed forces spokesman Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi.
IS had claimed the attack via its propaganda mouthpiece Amaq and, according to intelligence monitor SITE, said the attack was in response to Iranian involvement in conflicts across the region.

The Revolutionary Guards accused Shiite-dominated Iran’s Sunni arch-rival Saudi Arabia of funding the attackers, while Khamenei also blamed Iran’s pro-US rivals.
Khuzestan was a major battleground of the 1980s war with Iraq and it saw unrest in 2005 and 2011, but has since been largely quiet.
Kurdish rebels frequently attack military patrols on the border further north, but attacks on government targets in major cities are rare.
On June 7, 2017 in Tehran, 17 people were killed and dozens wounded in simultaneous attacks on the parliament and on the tomb of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini – the first inside Iran claimed by IS.
A senior United Arab Emirates official denied Iranian allegations alluding to the involvement of the UAE in training gunmen that claimed the attack.
The “formal incitement against the UAE from within Iran is unfortunate, and has escalated after the Ahvaz attack,” Minister of State for Foreign Affairs for the United Arab Emirates Anwar Gargash said in a tweet.


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Iran

Iran points finger at Arab separatists for deadly attack on military parade

Iranian President Hassan Rowhani. Photo: AP

epaselect epa07039277 Iranian soldiers jump over a hedge at a street as they run for cover during a terror attack that occurred during a military parade in the city of Ahvaz, southwest Iran, 22 September 2018. According to media reports, gunmen have opened fire during an Iranian military parade in the south-western city of Ahvaz, killing at least 25 people, including civilians, and injuring dozens. EPA-EFE/MORTEZA JABERIAN

In this photo provided by Fars News Agency, a woman takes her children to shelter as an army member tries to help them, during a shooting at a military parade marking the 38th anniversary of Iraq's 1980 invasion of Iran, in the southwestern city of Ahvaz, Iran, Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018. Gunmen attacked the military parade, killing several and wounding others, state media said. (Fatemeh Rahimavian/Fars News Agency via AP)

An image made available by Iran's Mehr News agency on September 22, 2018, shows an Iranian soldier carrying a child at the site of an attack on a military parade in the southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz, that was marking the anniversary of the outbreak of its devastating 1980-1988 war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq. - Dozens of people were killed with dozens others wounded in an attack in the southwestern Khuzestan province on September 22 targeting on an army parade commemorating the anniversary of the 1980-1988 Iran Iraq war, state media reported. (Photo by Mehdi Pedramkhou / various sources / AFP)

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Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the attack had been carried out by ‘terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime’


Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the attack had been carried out by ‘terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime’.


Iran points finger at Arab separatists for deadly attack on military parade

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the attack had been carried out by ‘terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime’

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the attack had been carried out by ‘terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime’