Prominent Iranian Cleric Killed in Rare Attack: Officials Investigating Motives of Perpetrator

In the most serious attack against a cleric in years in the Islamic Republic, officials announced Iranians Wed killed a prominent cleric Ayatollah Abbas Ali Soleimani In an armed attack in the north of the country.

And the official Iranian News Agency (IRNA), quoting the political, security and social deputy of the governor of Mazandaran (north), where the attack took place, stated that ” Member of the Iranian Council of Experts, aAyatollah Soleimani was subjected this morning (Wednesday) to an individual armed attack while he was in a bank in the city of Babolsar in northern Iran, and he died as a result.

The same official explained that “the attacker was arrested immediately and is being interrogated by the Iranian security forces,” noting that “the motives of the perpetrator of the assassination are still unknown until this moment.”

For his part, the governor of Mazandaran, Mahmud Hosseinpour, said that the attacker was a local security personnel of the bank. “So far, our information and documents indicate that what happened was not a security or terrorist act,” he told Iranian television.

Attacks on representatives of the Iranian clergy are very rare. And in april 2022A suspected jihadist stabbed two Shiite clerics to death in the holy city of Mashhad (northeast).

The governor of Mazandaran stated that the incident was “not a terrorist incident” and that the authorities were investigating the killer’s motives.

Mobile phone video shows several police officers carrying the victim’s body wrapped in a black blanket.

Representative of the Supreme Leader

Ayatollah Soleimani served as the representative of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and as the leader of Friday prayers in Kashan, a city in the center of the country between Tehran and Isfahan, and in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchestan, a region in the southeast that includes Sunni Muslims.

Ayatollah Abbas Ali Soleimani was previously a member of the Assembly of Experts responsible for appointing the Supreme Leader, the country’s highest authority. The influential body is currently headed by the ultra-conservative cleric Ahmad Jannati (96 years).

The Assembly of Experts of which he was a member is composed of 88 Religiously elected for eight-year terms by direct universal suffrage from a pool of candidates approved by the Guardian Council.

He is responsible for appointing the Supreme Leader and supervising his work, and has the constitutional right to remove him and appoint a new person if he deems it necessary.

And in april 2022An attack carried out by suspected jihadists in the holy city of Mashhad (northeast) killed two Shiite clerics.

The Tasnim news agency said at the time that the main suspect, Abdellatif Moradi (21 A year ago, an Uzbek entered Iran illegally through the Pakistani border. Moradi was hanged in June in Medina itself, on charges of “militia”.

He carried out his attack on the third day of the month of Ramadan, when large crowds of worshipers gathered at the shrine of Imam Reza.

The attack in Mashhad came days after two Sunni clerics were shot dead outside a religious school in the town of Gonbad Kavous in northern Iran.

_{France 24/AFP}