DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Gunmen attacked a major Shiite holy site in Iran on Wednesday, killing at least 15 people and injuring dozens. The attack came as protesters elsewhere in Iran marked a symbolic 40 days since the death of a woman in custody ignited the largest anti-government movement in over a decade.
State television blamed the attack on “takfiris,” a term referring to Sunni Muslim extremists who have historically targeted the country’s Shia majority. The attack seemed unrelated to the demonstrations.
After the attack on the Shah Cheragh Mosque, the second holiest site in Iran, two gunmen were arrested and a third escaped, the judiciary’s official website said. State news agency IRNA reported the death toll and state television said 40 people were injured.
An Iranian news website affiliated with the Supreme National Security Council reported that the attackers were foreign nationals, without elaborating.
Such attacks are rare in Iran, but last April an attacker stabbed two clerics to death at Imam Reza Shrine, the country’s most revered Shia site, in the northeastern city of Mashhad.
Earlier Wednesday, thousands of protesters took to the streets of a northwestern city to mark the turning point 40 days since the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, whose tragedy sparked the protests.
In Shia Islam, as in many other traditions, the dead are commemorated again 40 days later, typically with an outburst of mourning. In Amini’s Kurdish hometown of Saqez, the birthplace of the nationwide unrest now sweeping Iran, crowds meandered through the local cemetery and crowded around her grave.
“Death to the dictator!” Protesters wept, according to video footage that matches well-known features of the city and Aichi Cemetery. Women tore off their headscarves or hijabs and waved them over their heads. Other videos showed a huge procession moving along a highway and through a dusty field to Amini’s grave. There were reports of road closures in the area.
State media reported 10,000 demonstrators in the procession to her grave.
Hengaw, a Kurdish human rights group, said security forces fired tear gas to disperse protesters. The semi-official ISNA news agency said security forces fired buckshot at crowds of protesters on the outskirts of Saqez and pushed back protesters trying to attack the governor’s office. Local internet access was said to have been blocked for “security reasons”.
Earlier in the day, Kurdistan Governor Esmail Zarei Koosha insisted traffic was flowing as usual, calling the situation “completely stable”.
State media announced that schools and universities in Iran’s north-western region would be closed, ostensibly to “curb the spread of influenza”.
In downtown Tehran, the capital, large parts of the traditional grand bazaar closed in solidarity with the protests. The crowd clapped and shouted “Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!” through the labyrinthine marketplace.
“This year is a year of blood!” they also sang. “(Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) will be overthrown!”
Riot police officers were deployed on motorcycles. A large group of men and women marched through the streets setting trash cans on fire and shouting Death to the Dictator!” as cars honked their horns in support. Police unleashed riot control bullets at protesters in the streets and sprayed pellets upwards at journalists filming from windows and rooftops. Anti-government chants also echoed from the campus of Tehran University.
Amini, jailed for allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code for women, remains a powerful symbol of the protests, which pose one of the biggest challenges facing the Islamic Republic.
Under the motto #WomanLifeFreedom, the demonstrations initially focused on women’s rights and the state-mandated hijab, the headscarf for women. But they quickly evolved into calls to oust the Shia clerics who have ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The protests have also stirred up university students, labor unions, prisoners and ethnic minorities like the Kurds along Iran’s border with Iraq.
Since the protests erupted, security forces have fired live ammunition and tear gas to disperse demonstrations, killing more than 200 people, according to human rights groups.
Countless numbers have been arrested, with estimates running into the thousands. Iranian judicial officials announced this week that they would try over 600 people for their role in the protests, including 315 in Tehran, 201 in neighboring Alborz province and 105 in southwestern Khuzestan province.
Tehran’s prosecutor Ali Salehi told state news agency IRNA that four protesters face charges of “war against God,” which carries the death penalty in Iran.
Iranian officials have blamed foreign interference for the protests without providing any evidence.
Last week, Iran imposed sanctions on over a dozen European officials, companies and institutions, including foreign-based Farsi channels, who have reported extensively on the protests, accusing them of “supporting terrorism”. The sanctions include an entry and visa ban for the employees and the confiscation of their assets in Iran.
Deutsche Welle, the German public broadcaster whose Farsi team was blacklisted, on Wednesday condemned the move as “unacceptable”.
“I expect politicians in Germany and Europe to increase the pressure on the regime,” said DW Director General Peter Limbourg.
In a separate development, most of the remaining portion of a 10-story tower that collapsed earlier this year in the southwestern city of Abadan, killing at least 41 people, collapsed on Wednesday, state media reported. State news agency IRNA reported that a woman was killed in a car parked near the site. Other parts of the building had collapsed in the past month.
The fatal collapse of the Metropol building on May 23 became the lightning rod for the protests in Abadan, around 400 miles southwest of the capital Tehran. The disaster highlighted shoddy construction practices, government corruption and negligence in Iran.
Videos circulated online of the remaining tower crashing into the street as massive clouds of dust billowed into the sky.