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Attackers have mounted simultaneous gun and suicide bomb assaults on Iran’s parliament building and the tomb of the republic’s revolutionary founder in Tehran.
At least seven people were killed and 35 others injured in the twin assaults, the semi-official Fars agency reported.
State media reported that gunmen stormed the parliament building in Tehran and went on a shooting spree. At least one attacker detonated a suicide bomb. Five people died and at least 25 were injured there, Fars reported.
At the same time, a gun and suicide bomb attack targeted the Ayatollah Khomeini mausoleum on the southern outskirts of the Iranian capital. Two people died and 10 were injured at the shrine, Fars said.
A woman was arrested after the attack at the tomb, Fars reported, adding that another attacker has been surrounded by security officers.
Isis has claimed responsibility for the attacks, AMAQ, a news agency close to the group, said.
“Fighters from Islamic state attacked Khomeini’s shrine and the Iranian parliament in Tehran,” the news agency said.
The attackers were holding a number of hostages inside the highly-fortified parliament building, Press TV reported, as Iranian officials scrambled to establish who was behind the attacks or whether they were coordinated.
According to CNN, a picture from semi-official Fars news agency shows a man lowering a young boy from a window of the parliament building onto the street as another man holding a gun watches over them from another window. The man with the gun is reportedly a policeman helping with the evacuation.
Iran’s parliament, also called the Islamic Consultative Assembly or Majlis, has 290 members. It has female members and has representatives for religious minorities including Christians, Zoroastrians and Jews.