Iran arrests more than 40 over parliament terror attack

Iranian authorities have arrested as many as 41 people suspected of links to the Islamic State group which claimed the terror attack on Wednesday in which 17 people were killed.

A report by the Reuters news agency quoted the Iranian interior ministry as saying authorities have arrested 41 over the attack, but judiciary sources said just nine people were detained so far.

“With the help of security forces and families of the suspects, 41 people linked to the attacks and to Daesh (Islamic State) have been arrested in different provinces,” Reuters quoted Iranian state TV as saying. “Lots of documents and weaponry have been seized as well,” it added.

As tens of thousands attended the funerals Friday for those slain in the attacks, Tehran hit out at Washington and Riyadh.

WARNING: SOME GRAPHIC IMAGES

“Death to America,” “Death to the Saud” ruling family, and “We are not afraid,” shouted the crowd gathered behind a lorry bearing the coffins of 15 of the 17 people killed in Wednesday’s attacks.

Burials were held in the provinces for the two others killed when gunmen and suicide bombers stormed Tehran’s parliament complex and the shrine of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Fifty people were wounded.

Twin attacks in Iran have killed at least 12 people. This is what happened when so-called Islamic State attacked https://t.co/RUk2K1ndZ5 pic.twitter.com/DPtHEcJYsZ

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) June 7, 2017

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had initially played down the attacks, describing them as “firecrackers” that “will not have the slightest effect on the will of the people.”

On Friday, however, he turned his wrath for the attacks on the United States and Saudi Arabia, his country’s fiercest rivals.

“Such acts will have no other result than to reinforce hatred for the US government and its agents in the region, like the Saudi (government),” Khamenei wrote in a message of condolence to the families of the dead.

Parliament speaker Ali Larijani also attacked the United States and Saudi Arabia, which he called “a tribal state very far from anything like a democracy.”