Iran claims Sunni cleric killed in country’s northwest by ‘Zionist-American separatist groups’

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards say that a Sunni cleric has been killed in a northwestern province, labeling it an attempt by separatist groups to sow divisions between Sunnis and Shias.

It is not immediately clear when the incident took place, but the Guards claim the cleric, Mohammad Nezhati, was “unjustly martyred in a brutal terrorist crime committed by Zionist-American separatist groups.”

The Guards add that Nezhati was also a member of the volunteer paramilitary Basij force, which operates under the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the ideological arm of Iran’s military.

The term “separatist groups” is often used by Iranian authorities to describe Kurdish opposition groups based in Iraq’s Kurdistan region, which Tehran has long accused of links to the United States and Israel.

“This crime was not only an attack on a prominent figure, but also a desperate attempt to create division among Muslims, undermine unity between Shias and Sunnis, and deprive society of security and peace,” the Guards say in a statement.

Iran has been at war with the United States since February 28, when US-Israeli attacks killed the country’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

Shia-majority Iran has sizable Sunni communities, particularly in its western and southeastern provinces.