Tehran: Iran’s Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi has ordered an investigation into the deadly shooting at a prominent Shiite shrine in the southern Iranian city of Shiraz, Iranian media report.
The minister called Mohammad Hadi Imaniyeh, the provincial governor, to urge him to do what it takes to find those responsible for the attack and bring them to justice, Tasnim news agency reported on Sunday.
Authorities of the Fars province were told to conduct a prompt investigation into what Vahidi called an act of terrorism and provide assistance to those injured.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi called Interior Minister Vahidi and Governor Imaniyeh to demand that security at the Shah Cheragh mausoleum be bolstered and those responsible for the attack be prosecuted, the presidency said in a statement.
“In the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the Shah Cheraghholy shrine, Ebrahim Raisi called the Minister of Interior and the Governor of Fars to emphasize the need to use all medical facilities to treat the injured, as well as to identify and punish the perpetrators of this crime,” the statement said.
Vahidi dismissed Deputy Interior Minister for Political Affairs Mohammad-Reza Gholamreza immediately after the start of the investigation into the attack, Tasnim reported.
Iranian officials revised the death toll from the gun attack down to one after initially suggesting that four people were killed.
Fars Deputy Governor Esmail Ghezel Sofla said that eight people were injured in the Sunday attack, which occurred less than a year after another attack on the holy shrine left 13 people killed and dozens wounded.
One suspect was shot dead during the assault, while the other fled and was later detained by Iranian security forces. Qatari news channel Al-Jazeera reported that both men were foreigners.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but Iran was targeted in the past by Sunni militants from the Islamic State, a terrorist organization (banned in Russia).
