Cleric killed, 2 injured in stabbing incident at popular Iran shrine

By Syed Zafar Mehdi

TEHRAN (AA) - A middle-aged cleric was killed and two others critically injured Tuesday in a stabbing attack at a popular religious shrine in Iran's northeastern city of Mashhad.

The deceased was identified as Mohammad Aslani, a cleric who was volunteering at the shrine during the holy month of Ramadan.

The attack took place in the late afternoon in the main courtyard of the Rezavi shrine, the top pilgrimage site in Iran that sees massive crowds in Ramadan, shrine officials told Anadolu Agency.

A knife-yielding man in his 20s attacked three men, one of whom died on the spot while the other two were rushed to a hospital, they said.

Video of the attack circulated on social media showed the injured men lying in blood in the courtyard.

The suspect, said to be a foreign national, has been taken into police custody and an investigation has been launched into the attack, Mohammad Hossein Doroodi, the prosecutor of Khorasan province told reporters.

He said the suspect carried out the attack in collaboration with four other men and all are in police custody.

The Rezavi shrine complex, considered the largest mosque in the world in terms of dimensions, attracts millions of local and foreign tourists each year.