Iran Detains Foreigners Over Attack on Shiite Shrine in Shiraz

On Monday, Iranian security forces detained eight foreigners for their alleged involvement in the shooting attack on a Shiite shrine in the city of Shiraz, which left one dead and eight injured last night.

RELATED:

Iranian President Orders Investigation Into Shrine Attack

"So far we have arrested eight suspects for the attack on the Shah Cheragh mausoleum," said Seyed Kazem Mousavi, chief justice of Fars province, where Shiraz is located.

The Iranian Judiciary's Mizan agency indicated that all the detainees are foreigners without specifying their nationalities, also noting that their safe house was located.

On Sunday night, another attacker from Tajikistan was arrested at the mausoleum and is being questioned, Mousavi said.

Although no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, the governor of Fars, Mohamad Hadi Imaniyeh, accused the Islamic State (IS) and attributed the assault to an act of revenge for the execution of two terrorists who had attacked the same place in 2022.

The attack occurred when a gunman entered the Shah Cheragh shrine and started shooting at people he came across. Videos show people running away in the presence of the attacker, who was subdued by police officers.

Imaniyeh described the detainee as a "takfiri element" or Sunni radical. President Ebrahim Raisi ordered an investigation to "quickly identify and punish the perpetrators" of the attack.

In October 2022, the jihadist group ISIL also attacked the Shah Cheragh mausoleum, leaving 13 dead and some 30 people injured.

In mid-July, two men were publicly hanged for taking part in that attack, after confessing that they had been in contact with Islamic State in neighboring Afghanistan and that they helped organize the attack on the shrine in Shiraz.