Iran’s Khamenei Vows Revenge after Deadly Attack in Shiraz, Raisi Links Attack to Protests

Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi and Iranian Vice President Mohammad Mokhber during an inspection tour of the injured in Shiraz on Thursday, October 27, 2022. (IRNA)
Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi and Iranian Vice President Mohammad Mokhber during an inspection tour of the injured in Shiraz on Thursday, October 27, 2022. (IRNA)
TT
20

Iran’s Khamenei Vows Revenge after Deadly Attack in Shiraz, Raisi Links Attack to Protests

Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi and Iranian Vice President Mohammad Mokhber during an inspection tour of the injured in Shiraz on Thursday, October 27, 2022. (IRNA)
Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi and Iranian Vice President Mohammad Mokhber during an inspection tour of the injured in Shiraz on Thursday, October 27, 2022. (IRNA)

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei vowed on Thursday to retaliate against an attack claimed by ISIS on a shrine in the Iranian city of Shiraz on Wednesday, in which 15 people were killed.

The assault is expected to aggravate tensions amid widespread anti-government protests that erupted since the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, in police custody on Sept. 16.

Khamenei said the assailants “will surely be punished” and called on Iranians to unite.

“We all have a duty to deal with the enemy and its traitorous or ignorant agents,” Reuters quoted his statement, which was read on state television a day after the attack.

“All our people ranging from the security bodies and the judiciary body and activists in the field of media must be united against the wave that disregards and disrespects people’s lives, their security and sanctities,” he said.

Wednesday's incident came on the same day that Iranian security forces clashed with increasingly strident protesters marking 40 days since Amini's death.

In a speech Thursday, President Ebrahim Raisi described the ongoing protests as “riots” that allowed for the shooting to take place and affirmed Iran would respond, according to state media.

“The enemy wants the riots to pave the way for terrorist attacks. The enemy is always the enemy,” Raisi contended. “They go to the shrine of Shah Cheragh and open fire at innocent worshipers and then ISIS claims responsibility for the attack.”

Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said in a statement carried by state media that Iran will certainly retaliate.

“We will certainly not allow Iran’s national security and interests to be toyed with by terrorists and foreign meddlers who claim to defend human rights,” the FM stressed.

“This crime made the sinister intentions of the promoters of terror and violence in Iran completely clear. There is reliable information that the enemies have drawn up a multi-layered project to make Iran insecure.”

Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi blamed the protests sweeping Iran for paving the ground for the Shiraz attack.

The commander of the country’s Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, for his part, said Iran will retaliate.

“We firmly declare: The fire of revenge of the people of Iran will finally catch up with them and punish them for their shameful deeds,” Hossein Salami was quoted as saying by the semi-official Tasnim news agency on Wednesday, Reuters reported.

CCTV footage broadcast on state TV on Thursday showed the attacker entering the shrine after hiding an assault rifle in a bag and shooting as worshippers tried to flee and hide in corridors.

He was shown being arrested by police after being shot and injured. State media said he was not Iranian, but did not give his nationality.

Officials have called three days of mourning in the southern province of Fars, after the attack in the provincial capital of Shiraz.

Egypt, Lebanon, Qatar, Iraq and China condemned the attack.



ICC Opens Inquiry into Hungary for Failing to Arrest Netanyahu

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)
TT
20

ICC Opens Inquiry into Hungary for Failing to Arrest Netanyahu

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)

Judges at the International Criminal Court want Hungary to explain why it failed to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visited Budapest earlier this month.

In a filing released late Wednesday, The Hague-based court initiated non-compliance proceedings against Hungary after the country gave Netanyahu a red carpet welcome despite an ICC arrest warrant for crimes against humanity in connection with the war in Gaza.

During the visit, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced his country would quit the court, claiming on state radio that the ICC was “no longer an impartial court, not a court of law, but a political court.”

The Hungarian leader, regarded by critics as an autocrat and the EU’s most intransigent spoiler in the bloc’s decision-making, defended his decision to not arrest Netanyahu.

“We signed an international treaty, but we never took all the steps that would otherwise have made it enforceable in Hungary,” Orbán said at the time, referring to the fact that Hungary’s parliament never promulgated the court’s statute into Hungarian law.

Judges at the ICC have previously dismissed similar arguments.

The ICC and other international organizations have criticized Hungary’s defiance of the warrant against Netanyahu. Days before his arrival, the president of the court’s oversight body wrote to the government in Hungary reminding it of its “specific obligation to comply with requests from the court for arrest and surrender.”

A spokesperson for the ICC declined to comment on the non-compliance proceedings.

Hungary’s decision to leave the ICC, a process that will take at least a year to complete, will make it the sole non-signatory within the 27-member European Union. With 125 current signatory countries, only the Philippines and Burundi have ever withdrawn from the court as Hungary intends.

Hungary has until May 23 to submit evidence in its defense.