(ISNA)
The guard members were goose-stepping at the parade this year.
A suicide bomber killed 11 spectators today and wounded at least 67 others at a military parade in Mahabad in Western Iran.
The AP reported:
Eleven people were killed and dozens injured in a bombing at an annual military parade in Iran’s West Azerbaijan province, where the local governor blamed the attack on “anti-revolutionary elements.”
At least 67 people were hurt in the blast early today, with some in critical condition, a nurse said by telephone from the emergency room at Imam Khomeini Hospital in the city of Mahabad, about 550 kilometers (340 miles) west of Tehran. She declined to give her name.
“Most of those injured and killed are women and children,” provincial Governor Vahid Jalalzadeh was cited as saying by the official Islamic Republic News Agency. The wives of two commanders were among the dead, the state-run Mehr news agency said. The bomb was hidden in a bag among spectators, Iran’s Arabic-language al-Alam television reported.
The region has been the scene of anti-government attacks by the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan, or PJAK, which says it wants autonomy for Iran’s Kurdish areas.
