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June 9, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 3
extremist terrorist groups. Rivalry with Iran – with which Saudi Arabia is engaged in a series of proxy wars across the region – is thought by analysts
to feature heavily in the dispute. Tehran has ex- tended its support to Qatar, offering food sup- plies and allowing Qatar Airways flights to reroute via its airspace.
Already, EU Foreign Policy chief Federica Mogher- ini has expressed her solidarity with Iran, saying, “Today is again a very sad day”, and adding, “Con- dolences with the victims of the attack in Tehran”. Mogherini also noted that Europe is following
the events closely as they develop in the Iranian capital.
The UK’s ambassador to Tehran, Nicholas Hopton, tweeted: “My sympathy to all the innocent victims and those affected by the terrible incidents in Tehran today”. Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by telephone with Rouhani, expressing his sympathy over the tragic incidents and saying the attacks on Tehran once again proved the need for international cooperation in the fight against ter- rorism.
The Trump administration’s response was tardy and qualified: “We grieve and pray for the innocent victims of the terrorist attacks in Iran, and for the Iranian people who are going through such chal- lenging times,” it said, before adding, “We un- derscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote.”
Revolutionary violence
While Islamic State was quick to claim respon- sibility, some details of the latest double attack have left people questioning whether the terror-
ist group acted alone or were they in fact work- ing with other groups – such as Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) – to carry out the attack.
This latest outburst of violence follows more than three decades of relative peace since Khomeini’s forces managed to oust his main opponent in
the tumultuous years of the revolution, the MEK, which opposed the Islamic Republic in its cur- rent form and called for a Marxist outcome to the ousting of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979.
In the early years of the revolution, the MEK waged a guerrilla campaign against Khomeini’s forces, setting off bombs that killed many of the founding members of the Islamic Republic includ- ing then prime minister Ali Rajaei. The judiciary ultimately ordered the execution of up to 30,000 of their members, after which they fled to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. The runner-up in Iran’s recent presidential elections, Ebrahim Raisi, is believed to be one of the people responsible for send-
ing many to their deaths. However, any remaining sympathy for the MEK in Iran disappeared after they gave the Iraqi forces key details about Iranian military personnel and sites in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.
Reports from several media sources and social media accounts by journalists suggested at least one of the attackers was female, while the others were men. A female assailant was also believed to have been carrying a cyanide pill in case she was caught. Both fit the profiles of MEK attacks. The cyanide pill is not something that IS is known for, but previous MEK attacks on Iran were usually committed by a mixture of men and women, all of whom carried such pills.
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