Gunman Who Attacked Shrine in Iran Dies from Injuries

A general view of the Shah Cheragh Shrine after an attack in Shiraz, Iran October 28, 2022. WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters
A general view of the Shah Cheragh Shrine after an attack in Shiraz, Iran October 28, 2022. WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters
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Gunman Who Attacked Shrine in Iran Dies from Injuries

A general view of the Shah Cheragh Shrine after an attack in Shiraz, Iran October 28, 2022. WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters
A general view of the Shah Cheragh Shrine after an attack in Shiraz, Iran October 28, 2022. WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters

The gunman who killed 15 people at a major Shiite holy site in southern Iran earlier this week died on Saturday, Iranian media reported. The attack was claimed by the militant ISIS group but Iran's government has sought to blame it on the protests roiling the country.

Iranian authorities have not disclosed details about the assailant, who died in a hospital in the southern city of Shiraz on Saturday from injuries sustained during his arrest, according to Iran's semiofficial Fars and Tasnim news agencies.

The funeral for the victims would be held later on Saturday, officials said. It is unusual that authorities have not elaborated on the gunman's nationality or provided any details about him following Wednesday's deadly attack at Shah Cheragh in Shiraz, the second-holiest Shiite shrine in Iran.

The attack came as unrest — sparked by the Sept. 16 death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of the country's morality police — have rocked the country.

The protests first focused on the state-mandated hijab, or headscarf, for women but quickly grew into calls for the downfall of Iran's theocracy itself. At least 270 people have been killed and 14,000 have been arrested in the protests that have swept over 125 Iranian cities, according to the group Human Rights Activists in Iran.

Iranian officials have blamed protesters for paving the way for the assault on the shrine in Shiraz, but there is no evidence linking extremist groups to the widespread, largely peaceful demonstrations engulfing the country. Security forces have violently cracked down on demonstrations with live ammunition, anti-riot pellets and tear gas.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack on the shrine — its first such claim in Iran in four years. Iran’s religious sites have previously been targeted by ISIS and other extremists.

The Iranian government has repeatedly alleged that foreign powers have orchestrated the protests, without providing evidence. The protests have become one of the most serious threats to Iran's ruling clerics since the 1979 revolution.



Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Bangladeshi police detectives on Friday forced the discharge from hospital of three student protest leaders blamed for deadly unrest, taking them to an unknown location, staff told AFP.

Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud and Abu Baker Majumder are all members of Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organizing this month's street rallies against civil service hiring rules.

At least 195 people were killed in the ensuing police crackdown and clashes, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, in some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's tenure.

All three were patients at a hospital in the capital Dhaka, and at least two of them said their injuries were caused by torture in earlier police custody.

"They took them from us," Gonoshasthaya hospital supervisor Anwara Begum Lucky told AFP. "The men were from the Detective Branch."

She added that she had not wanted to discharge the student leaders but police had pressured the hospital chief to do so.

Islam's elder sister Fatema Tasnim told AFP from the hospital that six plainclothes detectives had taken all three men.

The trio's student group had suspended fresh protests at the start of this week, saying they had wanted the reform of government job quotas but not "at the expense of so much blood".

The pause was due to expire earlier on Friday but the group had given no indication of its future course of action.

Islam, 26, the chief coordinator of Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed on Monday that he feared for his life.

He said that two days beforehand, a group of people identifying themselves as police detectives blindfolded and handcuffed him and took him to an unknown location.

Islam added that he had come to his senses the following morning on a roadside in Dhaka.

Mahmud earlier told AFP that he had also been detained by police and beaten at the height of last week's unrest.

Three senior police officers in Dhaka all denied that the trio had been taken from the hospital and into custody on Friday.

- Garment tycoon arrested -

Police told AFP on Thursday that they had arrested at least 4,000 people since the unrest began last week, including 2,500 in Dhaka.

On Friday police said they had arrested David Hasanat, the founder and chief executive of one of Bangladesh's biggest garment factory enterprises.

His Viyellatex Group employs more than 15,000 people according to its website, and its annual turnover was estimated at $400 million by the Daily Star newspaper last year.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police inspector Abu Sayed Miah said Hasanat and several others were suspected of financing the "anarchy, arson and vandalism" of last week.

Bangladesh makes around $50 billion in annual export earnings from the textile trade, which services leading global brands including H&M, Gap and others.

Student protests began this month after the reintroduction in June of a scheme reserving more than half of government jobs for certain candidates.

With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the move deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.

Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina's Awami League.

- 'Call to the nation' -

The Supreme Court cut the number of reserved jobs on Sunday but fell short of protesters' demands to scrap the quotas entirely.

Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Hasina continued a tour of government buildings that had been ransacked by protesters, on Friday visiting state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which was partly set ablaze last week.

"Find those who were involved in this," she said, according to state news agency BSS.

"Cooperate with us to ensure their punishment. I am making this call to the nation."