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Multiple fatalities have been reported with images showing blood on the ground and people being carried away after security forces reportedly opened fire on protesters in Iran. There are reports of at least five people dead. It has not been possible to independently verify this. The Islamic Republic has been gripped by demonstrations since the death of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in police custody last month. The unrest has posed one of the boldest challenges to Iran’s clerical leadership since the 1979 revolution.
Footage posted online from the Twitter account @AliiiiEbraHimii appears to show blood on the floor and a large crowd gathered in a street under the message: “Khamenei’s mercenaries are firing directly at protesting people on Khayyam Street. So far, five people have been martyred.”
It has not been possible to independently verify the video.
Separate video footage on social media showed protesters on Friday in the city of Zahedan, close to Iran’s southeastern border with Pakistan and Afghanistan, calling for the death of “dictator” Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Basij militia, which has played a major role in the crackdown on demonstrations.
Dozens of people were killed in clashes in Zahedan four weeks ago during anti-government protests. The provincial security council has said armed dissidents had provoked the clashes, leading to innocent people’s deaths, but admitted “shortcomings” by police.
Khamenei said the assailants “will surely be punished” and called on Iranians to unite. He said in a statement read on state TV: “We all have a duty to deal with the enemy and its traitorous or ignorant agents.”
His call for unity appeared to be directed at mostly Government loyalists and not protesters whose nearly six-week-old movement is seen by authorities as a threat to national security.
Officials said they arrested a gunman who carried out the attack at the shrine in the city of Shiraz.
State media blamed “takfiri terrorists” – a label which predominantly Shi’ite Iran uses for hardline Sunni Muslim militants such as Islamic State.
A senior official said the suspected attacker was in a critical condition after being shot by police.
Provincial governor Easmail Mohebipour, quoted by the semi-official Tasnim news agency, said: “We have not been able to interrogate him yet.”
CCTV footage broadcast on state TV on Thursday showed the attacker entering the shrine after hiding an assault rifle in a bag and shooting as worshippers tried to flee and hide in corridors.
Islamic State, which once posed a security threat across the Middle East, has claimed previous violence in Iran, including deadly twin attacks in 2017 which targeted parliament and the tomb of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Since the peak of its power, when it struck fear into millions with its deadly bombings and shootings, Islamic State has slipped back into the shadows.
Iran often accuses the West and its regional rivals, Israel and Saudi Arabia, of fomenting attacks. Saudi Arabia denies this and Israel usually declines to comment on its moves against the Islamic Republic.
Iranian leaders may have hoped that the shrine attack would draw attention away from the unrest, but there is no sign that is happening.
The official news agency IRNA said protesters angry over the “suspect” death of a demonstrator broke windows of banks, a tax office and other public buildings in the northwestern city of Mahabad.
The Kurdish human rights group Hengaw said security forces killed at least five people during protests on Thursday in the northwest of the country, where many Kurds live. Three were killed in the city of Mahabad and another two in Baneh. It has not been possible to independently verify the reports.
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