Two people were killed in twin attacks on Iran's parliament and the grounds of revolutionary leader Ruhollah Khomeini's mausoleum on Wednesday, state media reported, along with a female suicide bomber.

A security guard was killed when gunmen burst into Tehran's parliament complex, while a gardener was killed when armed assailants entered the grounds of Khomeini's mausoleum in the south of the city, the ISNA news agency reported.

Lawmaker Elias Hazrati told state television three assailants, one with a pistol and two with AK-47 assault rifles, raided parliament.

Another lawmaker said one of the assailants was surrounded by security forces and all the doors to the building had been closed, ISNA news agency reported.

“I was inside the parliament when shooting happened. Everyone was shocked and scared. I saw two men shooting randomly,” said one journalist at the scene, who asked not to be named.

Around half an hour later, an armed man opened fire at the Mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini and wounded a number of people, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

State news agency IRNA quoted an official at the mausoleum as saying that the attacker had blown himself up after shooting at people.

The identity and the motivation of the assailant was still unclear, Tasnim said. </s> LONDON, June 7 (Reuters) - Armed men launched two attacks in Iran's capital on Wednesday morning, killing a guard at the parliament and wounding several people in the Mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini in southern Tehran, state media reported.

Lawmaker Elias Hazrati said three assailants, one with a pistol and two with AK-47 assault rifles, raided parliament, according the state television website.

ISNA news agency quoted a member of the parliament as saying that all the parliament doors were shut and one of the assailants was surrounded by the security forces.

In a separate incident, an armed man opened fire at the Mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini and wounded a number of people, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

ISNA quoted an unnamed source saying that the attacker at the mausoleum had blown himself up. The identity and the motivation of the assailant was still unclear, Tasnim said. </s> At Least 7 Killed After Gunmen Raid Iran Parliament and Mausoleum

Attackers raided Iran’s parliament and opened fire at the Mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini a few kilometers south of the capital on Wednesday morning, in near simultaneous assaults that killed up to seven people, media reported.

Tasmin news agency said there were unconfirmed reports that the attackers had taken four hostages inside the parliament building.

Three assailants, one with a pistol and two with AK-47 assault rifles, carried out the attack in central Tehran, lawmaker Elias Hazrati told state television.

Another lawmaker said one of the assailants was surrounded by security forces and all the doors to the building had been closed, ISNA news agency reported. The attackers killed seven people and wounded several others, Tasmin said.

“I was inside the parliament when shooting happened. Everyone was shocked and scared. I saw two men shooting randomly,” said one journalist at the scene, who asked not to be named.

Around half an hour later, an attacker opened fire at the Mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini, injuring several members of the public, Iran’s English-language Press TV said.

State news agency IRNA quoted an official at the mausoleum as saying the attacker had set off a suicide bomb after shooting at people.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini launched the Islamic revolution in 1979. Iranian TV said parliament had resumed, and broadcast footage of what it said was the opening session proceeding normally.

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Also, Like us on facebook </s> Two teams of attackers used gunfire and explosives to strike Iran's parliament and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini in Tehran Wednesday, according to state media. The twin attacks reportedly wounded at least 38 people and killed at least two people.

"Deputy Interior Minister Hossein Zolfaqari said that the terrorists had entered the parliament in [women's] dress," Iran's state news agency reports. It adds that a female assailant detonated herself outside the mausoleum.

The Iranian Intelligence Ministry says it foiled a third attack and is asking people to avoid public transportation, state broadcaster IRIB reports.

IRIB says that one of four attackers exploded a suicide vest inside the parliament building, though other local news agencies said the explosion may have been caused by grenades thrown by the attackers. Eight people were reportedly wounded in the attack.

Despite the violence at Iran's Majlis, or parliament, Wednesday morning, lawmakers returned to business by the afternoon. Officials say the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps helped security forces control the situation.

"As you know, some coward terrorists infiltrated a building in Majlis [Parliament], but they were seriously confronted," Speaker Ali Larijani said. "This is a minor issue but reveals that the terrorists pursue troublemaking."

The second attack, at the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, reportedly killed a security guard and wounded 12 other people. A suicide bomber also detonated an explosive vest at the Khomeini mausoleum. Four attackers were said to have launched the attack at the shrine.

NPR's Alison Meuse in Beirut reports that Islamic State, via its Amaq news agency, claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Alison translates: "Fighters from the Islamic State have attacked the Khomeini shrine and the parliament building in central Tehran."

The report quotes an ISIS "security source," which Alison says is typical.

Iran is deeply involved in the fight against ISIS, both in Iraq and Syria, and together with Russia is a major backer of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. </s> 12 Killed, Many Injured in Iran Parliament Attack as ISIS Claims Responsibility

BALTIMORE, MD (AFRICAN EXAMINER) – No fewer than 12 people were killed while many injured Wednesday as twin bomb explosion hit the Iranian parliament building and Ayatollah Khomeini’s mausoleum in the capital, Tehran.

After hours of intermittent gunfire there, the attack on the parliament subsided. A suspected suicide bomber detonated a device at the mausoleum, as the Iranian officials managed to foil a third attack, which has been claimed by the Islamic State (IS) fighters.

The claimed attack by IS was the first in Iran since 2011 the group has entangled with the neighbouring Iraq’s authority.

Gunmen reportedly armed with Kalashnikovs entered the parliament on Wednesday morning and unleashed terror. Later, security operatives surrounded the building, leading to heavy gunfire.

Meanwhile, the Iranian authorities have denied that there had been a hostage situation inside the parliament building.

Reports said the suspected gunmen entered the parliament via a public entrance, and disguised as women.

It was reported that suspected four attackers inside the parliament building had been killed by security forces.

The attack started about 10:40 (06:10 GMT) when the terrorists at the mausoleum in southern Tehran, which is dedicated to the late Islamic Republic’s founder Ayatollah Khomeini, opened fire.

In the meantime, Tehran Governor has reportedly confirmed that one attacker has detonated a suicide vest while another had been killed by security forces. </s> File: An group is accused of involvement in attacks last year which killed 18 people in the first deadly operation by Islamic State in the country. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

DUBAI - A Revolutionary Court in Iran on Saturday began the trial of a group accused of involvement in attacks last year which killed 18 people in the first deadly operation by Islamic State in the country.

Eight of the 26 suspects in the case attended the hearing, facing charges including belonging to a terrorist organisation, weapons smuggling and unauthorised entry to Iran, the Iranian judiciary's news website Mizanonline reported.

Sunni Islamic State, in decline in Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for the unprecedented attacks in majority Shi'ite Iran, in which suicide bombers and gunmen attacked the parliament and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s mausoleum in Tehran. The attackers were Kurdish Iranian Sunnis.

Iran has said that the five gunmen and suicide bombers who were killed had fought in the militants’ strongholds in Syria and Iraq. </s> he Islamic State (Isil) has claimed responsibility for a coordinated attack by gunmen and suicide bombers on Iran’s parliament and the the shrine of Ayatollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of the Iranian Revolution.

Teams of attackers struck the two sites in Tehran early on Wednesday morning, killing at least 12 people and wounding dozens of others, according to Iranian state media. If confirmed that Isil was behind the attack, it would be their most ambitious operation yet against Iran.

One suicide bomber blew themselves up at the Khomeini shrine, which is highly symbolic for Iran’s theocratic leadership. A second bomber later detonated their explosives at the parliament during a stand off with security forces.

Isil has recently stepped up its propaganda against Iran and in March released a video in Farsi, where it called on Iran's Sunni minority to rise up against the Iranian regime. The Sunni jihadist group considers Iran's Shia leaders to be apostates and worthy of death.

Iran is deeply involved in the fight against Isil in Iraq, where it controls a network of Shia militias.

At least one guard was killed when a gunman opened fire in hallway at the Iranian parliament in Tehran, the Tansim news agency said. Several others were said to be injured.

State media reported that up four gunmen were involved in the shooting at the parliament. Elias Hazrati, an Iranian MP, said he saw three attackers, one with a pistol and two with AK-47 rifles.

Shortly after the shooting broke out at the parliament, a second attack was reported at the Khomeini shrine a few miles away. Iranian authorities said several attackers entered the shrine and exchanged fire with security forces.

One of the attackers then exploded in a ball of orange flame. It was not clear if they deliberately detonated their suicide vest or if the bomb went off after being struck by a bullet.

A gardener was reportedly killed at the shrine during the attack.

The mausoleum houses the body of Ayatollah Khomeini, the first leader of the Islamic republic, and is highly symbolic site for Iran’s theocratic leadership.

Iran's parliament continued meeting even as shooting erupted outside the main chamber. Ali Larijani, the speaker of the parliament, dismissed the attacks, saying they were a "trivial matter" and that security forces were dealing with them.

Iranian MPs posted selfies from inside the parliamentary chamber in a show of defiance. </s> Tehran: Iran's revolutionary guard lashed out at Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, hours after 12 people were killed and 42 others were wounded in devastating attacks on two potent symbols in Tehran, the capital: Iran's Parliament and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The Islamic State group immediately said it was behind the attacks, the first time that the Sunni Muslim extremist group has claimed responsibility for an assault in Iran, which is predominantly Shiite Muslim. The group, which views Shiite Muslims as apostates, is battling with Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and in Syria.

Tensions in the Middle East were already high; after a visit by President Donald Trump, Saudi Arabia and several Sunni allies led a regional effort Monday to isolate Qatar, the one Persian Gulf country that maintains relations with Iran.

In a statement, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps faulted both Saudi Arabia and the US government: "The public opinion of the world, especially Iran, recognises this terrorist attack - which took place a week after a joint meeting of the US president and the head of one of the region's backward governments, which constantly supports fundamentalist terrorists - as very significant," clearly referring to Saudi Arabia. The statement also acknowledged the Islamic State's claim of responsibility.

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Link A man hands a child to a security guard from Iran's parliament building in Tehran after an attack on the complex on Wednesday. Photo: AP

Of the 12 victims of the attacks, 11 died at the Parliament building, and one at the mausoleum. In addition, six assailants were killed: four at the Parliament, and two at the mausoleum. Five were men, and one of the mausoleum attackers was a woman.

The attacks unfolded over several hours, starting around 10.30am, when men armed with assault rifles and suicide vests - some of them dressed as women - descended on the Parliament building, killing at least one security guard, and wounding and kidnapping other people. The standoff lasted about four hours.

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The building has been undergoing renovations intended to enhance security, particularly at the entrance, but they have yet to be completed.

In a sign that elite security forces had encountered trouble containing the situation, one attacker left the Parliament an hour into the siege, then ran around shooting on Tehran's streets before returning to the building - where at least one of the assailants blew himself up on the fourth floor as others continued firing from the windows.

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Link The body of a terrorist, at background left, lies on the ground while police control the scene at the shrine of late Iranian revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, just outside Tehran on Wednesday. Photo: AP

"I cannot talk, I'm stuck here and the situation is really dangerous, the shooting is continuing, we are surrounded and I cannot talk," an Iranian journalist, Ehsan Bodaghi, said by phone from inside the building during the standoff, before the call was disconnected. Yelling and screaming could be heard in the background.

Mohammad Ali Saki, editor of The Tehran Times, said in a phone interview that the four assailants at the Parliament building had "targeted guards, cleaners, employees of the administrative and finance sections," but had "never got near the Parliament chamber itself."

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Link Police officers run to take position around Iran's parliament building following an assault by several attackers on Wednesday. Photo: Ali Khara

The assailants were armed with AK-47s and hand grenades and wore what appeared to be explosive vests, he said.

The Islamic State released a graphic 24-minute video showing a bloodied man lying on the ground in Parliament while a gunman in the background shouted in Arabic, "Thank God! Do you think that we are going to leave? We will remain here, God willing."

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Link Then Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini greets well-wishers before casting his vote in 1988. Photo: AP/File

The assault on the mausoleum - about 16 kilometres south of Parliament - began shortly before 11am and lasted for about an hour and a half, state news media reported.

The attacks, the first in Tehran in more than a decade, came just over two weeks after Mr Trump, with Saudi Arabia and its allies, vowed to isolate Iran. Iran has dismissed those remarks, made at a summit meeting in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, as a scheme by Mr Trump to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia.

In the view of many in Iran, the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, is inextricably linked to Saudi Arabia. "ISIS ideologically, financially and logistically is fully supported and sponsored by Saudi Arabia - they are one and the same," said Hamidreza Taraghi, a hard-line analyst.

Iran and Saudi Arabia are the leading nations on opposing sides of the Middle East split between Shiite and Sunni Islam. Iran has military advisers in Iraq and Syria, and it controls and finances militias in those countries and in Lebanon. Tehran also has some influence over the Houthis fighting the government in Yemen, and it often speaks out in support of Shiites in Bahrain, a majority group that Iran says is repressed by the Sunni monarchy.

King Salman of Saudi Arabia has accused Iran of "spearheading global terrorism." Saudi officials say Iran is plotting to control the region. Saudi Arabia, an autocratic kingdom, also opposes Iran's political ideology, which has a clerical supreme leader but also a president, Parliament and city councils, chosen in elections in which both men and women can participate.

On Wednesday morning, only hours before the attacks in Iran, the Saudi foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, said that Iran must be punished for its interference in the region and called Tehran the world's leading supporter of terrorism.

Iran, in turn, has long accused Saudi Arabia of backing terrorists in the region, saying that the kingdom had facilitated the rise of Sunni extremist groups such as the Islamic State and others in Iraq and Syria.

After Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other states cut ties with the gas-rich kingdom of Qatar on Monday, citing its support for Iran, Tehran rushed to fill the void, offering to send food and medicine.

One Iranian security official said the attacks had been a message from Saudi Arabia that was meant to teach Iran a lesson. He also said the assaults were intended to test Iran's reaction.

Others questioned Tehran's decision to rise to the defense of Qatar. "We are wrong to suddenly seek close ties with Qatar," said Saeed Laylaz, an economist close to the government. "They have been bankrolling the Sunni terrorist groups, in the same way the Saudis have."

Raz Zimmt, a scholar at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University who specialises in Iranian affairs, said the attacks were unprecedented in that they had occurred in the heart of Tehran.

"I have no doubt that the Iranian regime is going to blame ISIS and Saudi Arabia, since that serves the official Iranian position," he said in an interview on Israeli radio. "We've heard for the past two years, more or less, that if the Revolutionary Guards stop operating in Syria and Iraq, the terrorists are going to make their way into Iran. As far as they're concerned, it doesn't matter if it was ISIS or wasn't."

While terrorist attacks have become relatively commonplace in Europe and in most of the Middle East, Iran had remained comparatively safe. During May's election campaign, President Hassan Rouhani often pointed to that fact, lauding the country's security forces and intelligence agencies for their vigilance.

The coordinated terrorist attacks on Wednesday brought such feelings of security to an end, one analyst said. "Today, it was proved that we are vulnerable too," the analyst, Nader Karimi Joni, said. "We must anticipate more attacks by the Islamic State, now that we are defeating them in Iraq and Syria," he added.

Terrorism in Iran has been relatively rare, though for many years, the country suffered from a long and bitter campaign of attacks by an armed opposition group, Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, a Marxist-Islamic organisation that for decades was supported by the former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein. In many of Mujahedeen-e-Khalq's attacks, its members would take cyanide when cornered. In 2012, the group was taken off the United States' list of terrorist organisations with the support of conservative Republican politicians.

The attacks in Iran came as the Islamic State faces increasing pressure on the battlefield. The territory of the Islamic State's self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria is shrinking. US-backed forces in Syria began major operations on Monday to seize Raqqa, the Islamic State's de facto capital. Many Islamic State fighters have been decamping to the Syrian city of Mayadeen further south. In Iraq, fierce fighting is underway for the city of Mosul, with Iranian-backed militias and US warplanes aiding the Iraqi military.

A common Islamic State tactic, when it loses territory, is to create a distraction and to try to bolster morale among its followers by staging attacks abroad. The suicide bombing in Manchester, England, on May 22, and the terrorist attack on London on Saturday night fit that pattern.

New York Times </s> Iran’s Parliament (Majlis) and the Mausoleum of the late founder of the Islamic Republic Imam Khomeini in the capital Tehran have come under armed attack, for which ISIS now claims responsibility.

At least four gunmen have reportedly intruded into the premises of the Majlis, opening fire on the security guards there.

According to Tasnim news agency, at least eight people have been injured in the shooting attack on Wednesday.

Two people are said to have died in the firefight. The assault has forced a lockdown on the legislature.
Gunmen attack the Islamic Consultative Assembly and Mausoleum of Ruhollah Khomeini in Tehran, Iran. Eighteen civilians are killed in the attack on the Parliament and one in the attack on the mausoleum.