Iran launches missiles at Syria militants over military parade attack
TEHRAN, IRAN — Iran’s Revolutionary Guard launched six ballistic missiles as well as drone bombers early Monday toward eastern Syria, targeting militants it blamed for an attack on a military parade last month, while also threatening regional adversaries, as Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers unravels.
The missiles had enough range to strike U.S. military bases and targets inside Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Iran’s supreme leader has called out the two Arab nations by name, accusing them of being behind the Sept. 22 attack on the parade in the Iranian city of Ahvaz, something denied by both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.
Monday’s strike was the second missile attack by Iran in a month’s time, and came as tensions rise ahead of renewed U.S. sanctions targeting Tehran’s oil industry that will take effect in early November.
“This is the roaring of missiles belonging to the Revolutionary Guard of the Islamic Revolution,” a state TV reporter said as the missiles launched behind him. “In a few minutes, the world of arrogance — especially America, the (Israeli) Zionist regime and the Al Saud — will hear the sound of Iran’s repeated blows.” Al Saud is a reference to Saudi Arabia’s royal family.
Iranian state TV and the staterun IRNA news agency said the missiles “killed and wounded” militants in Syria, without elaborating. The missiles, launched from western Iran, flew over Iraq and landed near the city of Boukamal in the far southeast of Syria, they reported.
“Terrorists used bullets in Ahvaz,” Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, chief of the Guard’s aerospace division, told the semiofficial Tasnim news agency. “We answered them with missiles.”
The Guard, a paramilitary group answering directly to the supreme leader, said it followed the missiles with bombing runs by seven remotely piloted drones, a first for Iran. State TV aired footage of a drone dropping what looked like an unguided missile.
Boukamal is held by Syrian government forces, but IS still maintains a presence in the area, despite being driven from virtually all the territory it once held in Syria and Iraq.
Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the Iranian missiles hit the IS-held town of Hajin, just north of Boukamal. Strong explosions shook the area early Monday, reverberating east of the Euphrates River. U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters have been battling IS in and around Hajin for weeks.
IS militants did not immediately acknowledge the attack.
The missile launch further adds to confusion over who carried out the assault on a military parade, which killed at least 24 people and wounded more than 60. Iran initially blamed Arab separatists for the attack in which gunmen disguised as soldiers opened fire on the crowd and officials watching the parade from a viewing platform. The Arab separatists, who have long complained of discrimination in Persian-majority Iran, claimed the attack and provided accurate details about one of the attackers.
The Islamic State group also claimed responsibility for the Ahvaz assault, but initially made factually incorrect claims about it. Later, IS released footage of several men that Iran ultimately identified as attackers, though the men in the footage are not known to have pledged allegiance to the extremist group.