Sayeed Muhammad: A day after the deadly parade attack that killed 25 people and injured 70 others, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has said an unnamed US-allied country in the Persian Gulf was behind the incident.
While making the allegation yesterday, he, however, did not identify those behind Saturday’s attack, which was claimed by an Arab separatist group, reports AP.
It is assumed that he could have been referring to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates or Bahrain — close US military allies that find Iran to be a regional menace over its support for militant groups across the Middle East.
“All of those small mercenary countries that we see in this region are backed by America. It is Americans who instigate them and provide them with necessary means to commit these crimes,” Rouhani said.
The attack, in which militants disguised as soldiers opened fire on an annual Iranian military parade in the oil-rich southwest, was the deadliest attack in the country in nearly a decade.
Women and children scattered along with once-marching Revolutionary Guard soldiers as heavy gunfire rang out in Ahvaz, the chaos captured live on state television.
The region’s Arab separatists, once only known for nighttime attacks on unguarded oil pipelines, claimed responsibility for the assault, which Iranian officials apparently believed.
Meanwhile, in a show of reaction over the attack, Iran summoned diplomats from Britain, Denmark and the Netherlands early Sunday for allegedly harboring “members of the terrorist group” that launched the attack.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi later said the UAE ambassador would be summoned over “partial statements” in support of the group behind the attack.
The parade was one of many around the country marking the start of Iran’s long 1980s war with Iraq, commemorations known as the “Sacred Defence Week.”
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