TEHRAN, Aug. 18 (Xinhua) -- The Iranian Intelligence Ministry said on Friday that the key elements supporting Sunday's "terrorist" attack on the Shah Cheragh shrine in the southern province of Fars have been arrested.
In a statement published on its website, the ministry added the detainees were based in Iran and in direct contact with the Islamic State (IS) ringleaders in Syria and Afghanistan.
It said the suspects were arrested in operations carried out by the ministry, the Intelligence Organization of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) as well as the police and judiciary.
Sunday's attack killed two and injured seven others when an armed assailant attempted to break into the shrine at a main gate, opening gunfire on several staff and worshipers.
The shrine encountered a similar "terrorist" attack in October last year, in which 13 worshippers, including a woman and two children, were killed and 30 others injured.
The statement said following last year's attack, for which the IS claimed responsibility, Iranian security and intelligence forces arrested not only all those linked with the incident but also a number of other "terrorists" who had entered the country to carry out similar operations.
According to the ministry, after Iran tried and punished those involved in the previous attacks, the IS announced that it will carry out retaliatory operations, following which it sent to Iran numerous terrorists, who were all either killed in clashes with Iranian intelligence forces in the border areas or arrested inside the country.
The statement said the assailant who carried out the recent attack is exactly similar in kind to the previously detained Takfiri terrorists. He had been trained by the IS in Afghanistan's Badakhshan province and then entered Iran illegally through the southeastern border.
On Thursday, Chief Justice of Fars Province Kazem Mousavi said another 20 suspects in connection with the "terrorist" attack on the Shah Cheragh shrine had been arrested, the Mizan news agency of the Iranian judiciary reported. ■
