Iran twin attacks mastermind killed, says minister

Iranians attend the funeral on June 9, 2017 of victims of an ISIL militant twin attacks on in Tehran, Iran which killed 17 people in Tehran this week. Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo

TEHRAN // Iran says it has killed the alleged mastermind of twin attacks that killed 17 people in Tehran, and arrested nearly 50 people in connection with those assaults, officials said.

The suspect left Iran for a neighbouring country following last week’s attacks, intelligence minister Mahmoud Alavi was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying.

“However, with cooperation of [intelligence] services that are close to Iran, he paid the price of his crimes on Saturday and was killed by Iran’s security forces and our friends in the other intelligence services,” Mr Alavi said without providing further details or offering any evidence.

Five attackers stormed Iran’s parliament and a shrine to revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on Wednesday, setting off clashes with security forces and killing 17 people.

ISIL claimed responsibility for the suicide bombings and gun attacks.

Security forces have stepped up efforts to crack down on suspected militants and have arrested almost 50 people so far.

Forty-three suspects were detained on Saturday and operations to identify and crush more “terrorists cells” were under way, Mr Alavi said.

On Sunday, the head of the justice department in Kordestan province in western Iran announced more arrests.

“Six people who were certainly connected to Wednesday’s terrorist attacks in Tehran were identified and arrested,” Aliakbar Garousi was quoted as saying by the Fars news agency.

Iran’s intelligence ministry said on Thursday that five of the gunmen and bombers were Iranian members of ISIL who had fought in the militants’ strongholds in Syria and Iraq.

The attacks were the first to be claimed by ISIL inside tightly controlled Shiite Iran.

* Reuters and Associated Press