Reuters: Ten people were killed and dozens injured in an explosion among a crowd watching a military parade in a city in northwestern Iran on Wednesday, media reported.
TEHRAN, Sept 22 (Reuters) – Ten people were killed and dozens injured in an explosion among a crowd watching a military parade in a city in northwestern Iran on Wednesday, media reported.
“This bomb was a time-bomb planted on a tree among the people and it went off at 10:20 (0650 GMT),” the website of state-run television IRIB quoted a military official as saying.
IRIB said 10 people had died and at least 57 were injured.
No casualties were reported among the military personnel and political dignitaries attending the annual parade — one of several held across the country to commemorate Iran’s eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s.
Local officials blamed the blast on militants.
“Counter-revolutionary groups, by inserting themselves among the people attending the armed forces parade, showed their heinous face,” Vahid Jalalzadeh, the provincial governor of Iran’s West Azerbaijan province, was quoted as saying by the semi-official Mehr news agency.
No one has claimed responsibility for the blast.
Kurdish militants have been active in the past in the region which borders Iraq and Turkey. Iranian forces have often clashed Kurdish guerrillas some of whom operate out of bases in northern Iraq. (Writing by Robin Pomeroy; Editing by Jon Boyle)
