by MURTAZA HUSSAIN
In the early hours of June 7, a group of six people — five men and one woman — launched coordinated terrorist attacks against two sites in Tehran, hitting the Iranian Parliament and the mausoleum of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Witnesses at the Parliament described attackers who were armed with assault rifles and wearing suicide vests, randomly targeting bystanders on a Wednesday morning. By the time that security forces were able to neutralize the attackers, at least 12 civilians lay dead, with another 42 reported wounded. The atrocity was claimed almost immediately by the Islamic State, in an online statement that also included video footage taken from the scene of the attacks.
While the Middle East has been ravaged by over a decade of terrorist attacks from ISIS, Al Qaeda, and other terrorists groups, Iran has largely escaped deadly incidents like the one that struck Tehran on Wednesday. In a statement responding to the incident, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps suggested that “mercenaries” working on behalf of Saudi Arabia and the United States were responsible, vowing to take revenge.
Along with targeting civilians in a city long considered to be safe from terrorism, however, the Islamic State’s first attack in Iran also seemed designed to further aggravate tensions in the Persian Gulf region. On his recent visit to Saudi Arabia, President Donald Trump endorsed the virulently anti-Iranian stance of the ruling Saudi monarchy and seemed to go out of his way to fan regional tensions rather than temper them. Trump’s messages on that trip were reasonably interpreted by many as giving a green light for Saudi leaders to take aggressive action against Iran. But while there is no evidence to suggest a direct Saudi role in the terrorist attack in Tehran, even the suspicion of Saudi involvement during a period of high tension between the two countries could have major consequences.
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