An injured person is carried away on a stretcher following a shooting at the Shah Cheragh shrine in Shiraz, Iran, on Sunday. At least one person was killed and seven others were injured when a gunman opened fire at the Shah Cheragh shrine. File Photo by Mohammadreza Dehdari/EPA-EFE
Aug. 13 (UPI) — At least one gunman opened fire Sunday night at a southern Iranian shrine where more than a dozen people were killed in a similar terrorist attack less than a year ago, according to state-run media.
State-run Islamic Republic News Agency reports that at least one person was killed and seven others were injured Sunday in the attack targeting the Shah Cheragh shrine in downtown Shiraz, a south-central city home to more than 1.5 million people about 525 miles south of Tehran.
Security footage of the shooting posted online by U.S.-based Iran International shows a man wielding a long gun storming into the shrine while seemingly haphazardly firing off shots as about a dozen people attempt to escape. A second camera captured footage of people attempting to run away from a gunman sprinting down a shrine corridor.
Early reports covered by IRNA state that the unnamed attacker opened fire after being confronted by security guards at the shrine’s gated entrance.
Esmail Ghezel Sofla, the deputy governor for the province of Fars, for which Shiraz is the capital, said the suspect has been arrested and is being interrogated, according to IRNA.
He described the violence as a terrorist attack.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has ordered officials to utilize all available resources to care for the injured and to investigate the crime in order to punish those responsible, according to a second IRNA report.
The shooting comes less than a year after 15 people were killed and more than 40 others were injured in an attack at the shrine in October.