Leader of Islamic Ummah Imam Ali Khamenei: Terrorist Attacks Proves Preciseness of Iran’s Strategy

“The Iranian nation is moving ahead and the fumbling with firecrackers performed today will leave no impact on people’s willpower,” Leader of Islamic Ummah and Oppressed People Sayyed Imam Ali Khamenei said at a meeting with a group of students and representatives from the university student associations from across the nation here in Tehran on Wednesday evening.

“Everyone should know that they are too little to be able to influence the willpower of the Iranian nation and the country’s officials. And these incidents, of course, revealed if the Islamic Republic had not displayed resistance at the heart of all this conspiracy, we would’ve had much more trouble of this sort in the country. God willing, they will bite the dust,” he added.

Four unknown male assailants fired several rounds at the guards protecting the parliament building in Tehran, killing at least five and wounding 25 others in the hallway on Wednesday morning.

According to initial reports, the assailants opened their way into the parliament’s administrative building while shooting at the guards, killing at least two IRGC guards and three others, and wounding 25 civilians.

Four of the victims were killed on the scene of the attack, while a fifth one succumbed to his injuries at a nearby hospital.

Ten of the wounded victims were civilians who had come from different constituencies to visit their deputies.

Also, several assailants raided the holy shrine of the late founder of the Islamic Republic, Imam Khomeini, South of the capital Tehran on Wednesday morning, killing at least two and wounding ten others in a bomb attack and a shooting spree.

The number of the victims of the terrorist attack who lost their lives grew to 12 according to the caretaker of Iran’s emergency squad.

The suicide attacker at Imam Khomeini Mausoleum was a female.

The law enforcement and guards at the shrine said they have also defused another suicide vest at the scene.

ISIL’s official website, Amaq, issued a statement at 09:00 GMT claiming responsibility for both attacks.

Meantime, Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in a statement issued on Wednesday afternoon vowed to take revenge for the twin terrorist attacks that killed 12 people in Tehran this morning.

“The public opinion in the world, specially the Iranian nation sees this terrorist action that happened a week after the joint meeting of the US president with the heads of one of the reactionary regional states that has constantly been supporting Takfiri terrorists as to be very meaningful, and believes that ISIL’s acknowledging the responsibility indicates their complicity in this wild move,” the IRGC statement said.

The powerful military force further warned that it would not miss a single moment to avenge the incident, saying, “The IRGC has proved that it would not leave unanswered the shedding of innocent blood and it ensures the Iranian nation that it will not hesitate even for a moment to protect the country’s national security and the lives of the dear people, as it killed all these terrorists with the help of the Law Enforcement Force today.”

An hour later, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani in a message on Wednesday said the twin attacks in Tehran today were committed by the terrorists who have been hired by his country’s enemies to strike at Tehran for their frequent losses in the region, ensuring that his nation would enhance the war on terrorism more resolutely.

The Iranian president expressed his condolences to the bereaved families of the victims of the Wednesday morning terrorist attacks and promised all security bodies and different branches of power would continue probe into the incident that claimed the lives of 12 people in the capital today until clarifying all dimensions and sponsors of the “blind” and “cowardly” move.

Rouhani reminded that the nation has been a victim of terrorist attacks and war since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and added that the terrorist move in Tehran today was not a totally unexpected incident, given the history of his nation throughout the past 38 years.

He said Iran’s intelligence and security power has made it a secure land at the heart of a region that is struggling with chaos, and reminded the “religious democracy” that was staged by the massive turnout of the people in the recent elections in his country.

The president said “ill-wishers of Islamic Iran” could not tolerate the solidarity of the nation and the establishment and “hired and supported reactionary Takfiri elements to hide their regional defeats, collapse of Islamic values and their people’s dissidence”.

He said such moves that have been repeatedly taken against Iran in the past would lead to nowhere, and stressed that Tehran would prove once again that such plots only enhance its unity and solidarity as well as its powerful security structure.

“The terrorist incidents in Tehran today will, no doubt, strengthen the will of the Islamic Iran in the campaign against regional terrorism, extremism and violence,” the president said in his message, reiterating Iran’s frequently stated demand for regional and international cooperation in war against terrorism and extremism as the most vital need of the global community today.