LONDON (Reuters) - Suicide bombers and gunmen attacked the Iranian parliament and Ayatollah Khomeini’s mausoleum in Tehran on Wednesday, killing at least 13 people in an unprecedented assault that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards blamed on regional rival Saudi Arabia. 
 
 Islamic State claimed responsibility and threatened more attacks against Iran’s majority Shi’ite population, seen by the hardline Sunni militants as heretics. 
 
 Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif tweeted: “Terror-sponsoring despots threaten to bring the fight to our homeland. Proxies attack what their masters despise most: the seat of democracy.” 
 
 He did not explicitly blame any country but the tweet appeared to refer to comments made by Saudi Arabia’s deputy crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud, in May, saying that that Riyadh would bring “the battle” for regional influence to Iran. 
 
 Sunni Saudi Arabia denied any involvement in the Tehran attacks, but the assault further fuels tensions between Riyadh and Tehran as they vie for control of the Gulf and influence in the wider Islamic world. It comes days after Riyadh and other Sunni Muslim powers cut ties with Qatar, accusing it of backing Tehran and militant groups. 
 
 They were the first attacks claimed by Islamic State inside the tightly controlled Shi’ite Muslim country, one of the powers leading the fight against IS forces in nearby Iraq and Syria. 
 
 The deputy head of Iran’s National Security Council, Reza Seifollhai, told state TV late on Wednesday that the attackers were people from Iran who had joined Islamic State. Iranian police said they had arrested five suspects 
 
 Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said: “These fireworks have no effect on Iran. They will soon be eliminated.” 
 
 “They are too small to affect the will of the Iranian nation and its officials,” state TV quoted him saying. 
 
 The powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps accused Riyadh of being behind the attacks and vowed to seek revenge. 
 
 “This terrorist attack happened only a week after the meeting between the U.S. president (Donald Trump) and the (Saudi) backward leaders who support terrorists. The fact that Islamic State has claimed responsibility proves that they were involved in the brutal attack,” a Guards statement said. 
 
 Trump said in a statement that he prayed for the victims of the attacks but added that “states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote.” The U.S. State Department and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres both condemned the attacks. 
 
 Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said he did not know who was responsible for the attacks and said there was no evidence Saudi extremists were involved. 
 
 DRESSED AS WOMEN 
 
 Attackers dressed as women burst through parliament’s main entrance, deputy interior minister Mohammad Hossein Zolfaghari said, according to the Tasnim news agency. One of them detonated a suicide vest, he said. 
 
 On a video released by the IS news agency Amaq a man purportedly inside the parliament says in Arabic: “Oh God, thank you. [Gunshots]. Do you think we will leave? No! We will remain, God willing.” 
 
 Police helicopters circled over parliament, with snipers on its rooftop. Within five hours, four attackers were dead and the incident was over, Iranian media said. 
 
 “I was inside the parliament when shooting happened. Everyone was shocked and scared. I saw two men shooting randomly,” said one journalist at the scene. 
 
 Soon after the assault on parliament began, a bomber detonated a suicide vest near the shrine of the Islamic Republic’s revered founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, a few kilometers south of the city, Zolfaghari said. 
 
 A second attacker was shot dead, he said. The shrine is a main destination for tourists and religious pilgrims. 
 
 “The terrorists had explosives strapped to them and suddenly started to shoot around,” said the shrine’s overseer, Mohammadali Ansari. 
 
 By late evening, deputy interior minister Zolfaghari put the death toll at 13, with 43 wounded. 
 
 Members of Iranian forces take cover during an attack on the Iranian parliament in central Tehran, Iran, June 7, 2017. Tasnim News Agency/Handout via REUTERS 
 
 The Intelligence Ministry said security forces had arrested another “terrorist team” planning a third attack. The National Security Council’s Seifollhai said Iran had foiled 58 similar attacks, without specifying a time period. 
 
 REGIONAL ANIMOSITY 
 
 The attacks follow several weeks of heightened rhetorical animosity between Riyadh and Tehran. 
 
 In unusually blunt remarks on May 2, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is Saudi defense minister and a son of King Salman, said he would protect his country from what he called Iranian efforts to dominate the Muslim world. 
 
 Any struggle for influence between the Sunni Muslim kingdom and the revolutionary Shi’ite theocracy ought to take place “inside Iran, not in Saudi Arabia,” he said without elaborating. 
 
 The next day Iran accused Saudi Arabia of seeking tension in the region, saying the prince had made “destructive” comments and it was proof that Riyadh supported terrorism. 
 
 The attacks could also exacerbate tensions in Iran between newly re-elected President Hassan Rouhani, who positions himself as a reformer, and his rivals among hardline clergy and the Revolutionary Guards. 
 
 But Rouhani said Iran would be more united and more determined in the fight against regional terrorism and violence. 
 
 “We will prove once again that we will crush the enemies’ plots with more unity and more strength,” he said. 
 
 In an appeal for unity, Rouhani’s chief of staff, Hamid Aboutalebi, took to Twitter to praise the security services. 
 
 “Applause to the power and firmness of our revolutionary guards, Basij (volunteer militia), police and security forces,” he wrote. 
 
 However, two senior government officials, who asked not to be named, said the attacks might prompt a blame game. 
 
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 “They (hardliners) are very angry and will use every opportunity to grow in strength to isolate Rouhani,” said one. The other said the attacks would push Iran toward “a harsher regional policy”. 
 
 Militant attacks are rare in Tehran and other major cities although two Sunni militant groups, Jaish al-Adl and Jundallah, have been waging a deadly insurgency, mostly in remote areas, for almost a decade. 
 
 Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province, in the southeast on the borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan, is home to the Balouch minority and has long been a hotbed of Sunni insurgents fighting the Shi’ite-led republic. 
 
 Last year Iranian authorities said they had foiled a plot by Sunni militants to bomb targets in Tehran and other cities during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. ||||| Police officers control the scene, around of shrine of late Iranian revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, after an assault by several attackers in Tehran, just outside Tehran, Iran. 
 
 Armed militants, some apparently dressed as women and equipped with suicide vests, stormed the Parliament building in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday morning around 10:30 a.m. About a half-hour later, another group of attackers rushed the mausoleum of the Ayatollah Khomeini. The assailants went on a murderous spree, firing on people, holding hostages, and blowing themselves up with explosives. The twin terror attacks — rare in the tightly controlled Iran, with its elite security forces — left 12 people dead and more than 40 wounded. Iran’s intelligence ministry said it had arrested another “team” plotting a third attack, says Reuters. 
 
 An undercover Iranian policeman (L) holds a weapon outside the Iranian parliament in the capital Tehran on June 7, 2017, during an attack on the complex. Photo: AFP/AFP/Getty Images 
 
 ISIS immediately claimed responsibility for the rampage, and released a graphic video that was allegedly filmed by one of the attackers. If confirmed, this attack would be the jihadist organization’s first in Iran, according to The Guardian. The terrorist group adheres to a bastardized version of Sunni Islam, and it considers Shiite Muslims — Iran’s majority religion — apostates. 
 
 Iran’s revolutionary guard, however, accused Saudi Arabia of being behind the attack. “This terrorist attack happened only a week after the meeting between the U.S. president and the backward leaders who support terrorists,” a statement from the revolutionary guard read, indicating Trump and Saudi Arabia. The statement added that “the fact that Islamic State has claimed responsibility proves that they were involved in the brutal attack,” an insinuation that Saudi Arabia is tied to the Sunni extremist group. 
 
 An Iranian policeman holds a weapon as he stands by a window at the Iranian parliament in the capital Tehran on June 7, 2017, during an attack on the complex. Photo: AFP/AFP/Getty Images 
 
 Iran’s accusation comes at a particularly tense time in the region. Saudi Arabia and other Sunni-majority nations cut diplomatic ties with Qatar this week, over its alleged “embrace” of radical groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS. Yet Qatar’s recognition and willingness to work with Iran clearly factored into that decision to sever relations. President Trump, visiting the Saudi Arabian capital on his first foreign trip, made it clear that isolating Iran was a shared goal between the U.S. and its Sunni allies in the region. 
 
 The Saudi foreign minister denied that Saudi extremists were involved in the attack, but Wednesday’s attack adds fuel — bolstered by Trump’s pointed statements against Iran — to the volatile regional rivalry. As Reuters points out, it may also roil tensions within Iran between the more moderate forces — which claimed victory in the recent reelection of President Hassan Rouhani — and conservative hard-liners. ||||| Assaults on potent symbols of Iranian ideology, claimed by Isis, will stoke tensions with Saudi Arabia, Gulf states and Trump 
 
 Consequences of attacks in Tehran will be felt around the world 
 
 In targeting the Iranian parliament and the tomb of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the terrorists who went on a lethal rampage in Tehran on Wednesday chose the two most potent symbols of the 1979 revolution. 
 
 For ordinary Tehranis, comparatively safe in recent years from such outrages, the attacks are deeply shocking. 
 
 The apparently coordinated assaults have been blamed by Iran’s hardline Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Saudi Arabia and, whatever the truth of the allegation, they are likely to have a big political impact far beyond Iran, stoking tensions with the US, Saudi Arabia and the Sunni Muslim monarchies of the Gulf. 
 
 Islamic State quickly claimed responsibility – if true, it would mean the militant group has finally succeeded in importing its divisive brand of random terror into the home of its principal Shia Muslim adversary. 
 
 Iran: 12 dead as Islamic State claims attacks on parliament and shrine Read more 
 
 The mausoleum where Khomeini was laid to rest almost exactly 28 years ago, on 6 June 1989, is an enormous complex dominating the skyline south of Tehran. Its cavernous halls are visited by tens of thousands of Iranians each year, who treat it as a shrine. Unlike the fortress-like Majlis (parliament) building in the centre of the city, security is light. That will change now. 
 
 For Iranians, the attack on Khomeini’s tomb is the equivalent of somebody trying to blow up the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. If the Isis claim of responsibility proves truthful, this will be the first time the group has successfully struck in the heart of Iran, although it has reportedly tried several times in the recent past. 
 
 Isis is at war, ideologically and militarily, with Iranian forces and allies in Syria and Iraq. In a video released in March, it vowed to “conquer Iran and restore it to the Sunni Muslim nation as it was before”. The jihadis claim that Iran’s clerical leaders, and their royal Persian predecessors, have persecuted Sunnis for centuries. 
 
 Isis has natural allies among militant groups in Iran’s restive south-eastern Sistan-Baluchistan province, which has a large Sunni population. In 2010, Sunni extremists linked to the Jundallah network killed 39 people at a mosque in the province. Minority Kurdish groups and ethnic Arabs also have a history of small-scale attacks in the north-west and south-west respectively. 
 
 Wednesday’s atrocities will be set against the backdrop of the anticipated collapse of Isis’s self-declared caliphate, as Iranian-backed Iraqi and Syrian army forces, plus US and British-backed Kurdish militias, close in on its Mosul and Raqqa strongholds. 
 
 In response to this pressure, Isis has called on its followers to take the fight to its enemies wherever they live. Recent terror attacks in Manchester, Kabul, Baghdad, Marawi in the southern Philippines and London may fit this emerging pattern of displaced activity by Isis followers. 
 
 Conservative Iranian leaders and commentators will certainly follow the IRGC’s lead and discern the hand of Saudi Arabia – and, by association, that of the US president, Donald Trump – in Wednesday’s attacks. 
 
 Well-documented covert efforts by George W Bush’s administration in the 2000s to destabilise Iran by funding militant internal opposition groups are not forgotten in Tehran. Nor is unofficial, on-off American support for the Mujahedin e-Khalq, or People’s Mujahadin of Iran, a group formerly backed by Saddam Hussein that was responsible for numerous armed attacks inside Iran. 
 
 US officials scramble to limit Donald Trump's diplomatic damage over Qatar tweets Read more 
 
 The question now is whether Trump’s overt hostility is encouraging a repeat of past destabilisation efforts, directly or indirectly. Overturning the previous US president Barack Obama’s policy of limited engagement, Trump launched a blistering attack on Iran last month. Speaking during a visit to Riyadh, he demanded Iran’s international isolation, claiming Tehran was the world’s main exporter of “the fires of sectarian conflict and terror”. 
 
 His host, King Salman, accuses Iran of “spearheading global terrorism”. Egged on by Israel, Trump has threatened to tear up Obama’s landmark 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. 
 
 He trumpeted a big arms deal with the Saudis. And this week he threw his support behind Riyadh’s diplomatic and commercial ostracism of Qatar, which almost alone among Gulf Arab states has tried to keep on good terms with Iran. This has led regional politicians to warn of imminent war. 
 
 Iran’s leaders reject Trump’s accusations out of hand. They say Riyadh is Isis’s biggest inspiration and supporter, and point out that Iran and the US are on the same side fighting the jihadis in Iraq. 
 
 Unlike the autocratic Gulf regimes, Iran also has a quasi-democratic political system, with an elected parliament and president, that confounds the “sponsor of terrorism” image. This awkward fact seems to enrage Trump, the Saudis and Isis in equal measure. ||||| U.S. President Trump speaks during an event announcing the Air Traffic Control Reform Initiative at the White House in Washington Thomson Reuters President Donald Trump released a statement Wednesday on the terrorist group ISIS' first attack in Iran, appearing to blame the country for "falling victim to the evil they promote." 
 
 Suicide bombers and gunmen attacked the Iranian parliament and the Mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini in Tehran on Wednesday, killing at least 12 people in a twin assault that Iran's Revolutionary Guards blamed on regional rival Saudi Arabia. ISIS claimed responsibility and released a video purporting to show gunmen inside the parliament building. 
 
 "We grieve and pray for the innocent victims of the terrorist attacks in Iran, and for the Iranian people, who are going through such challenging times," Trump said in the statement. "We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote." 
 
 The US has designated Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism. 
 
 Iran provides arms and funding to some terrorist groups, including the Shia group Hezbollah. Iran has also been expanding its influence throughout the Middle East and has aligned itself with embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has been accused of war crimes as he fights to maintain control over his country. 
 
 Trump has taken a hard line on Iran and often condemns the deal the Obama administration cut with the country to curb its nuclear program. 
 
 The ISIS attacks there took place at a particularly charged time after Saudi Arabia and other Sunni powers cut ties with Qatar on Monday, accusing it of backing Tehran and militant groups. 
 
 ISIS has regularly threatened Iran, one of the powers leading the fight against the militants' forces in neighboring Iraq and, beyond that, Syria. 
 
 Reuters contributed to this report. ||||| (CNN) Newly re-elected Iranian President Hassan Rouhani dismissed US President Donald Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia over the weekend as a "theatrical gathering" that would do nothing to combat terrorism in the region. 
 
 In a news conference in Tehran on Monday, Rouhani said Trump's first visit abroad was a "theatrical gathering with no practical or political value." 
 
 "You can't solve terrorism just by giving your people's money to a superpower," Rouhani said. 
 
 He was referring to a $110 billion military deal Trump clinched with Saudi Arabia during the US President's first foreign trip since he took office, one of the biggest arms sales in history. 
 
 Earlier Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi called on Washington to abandon its "warmongering policy, intervention, Iranophobia and sales of dangerous and useless weapons to the main sponsors of terrorism," according to state-run Press TV. 
 
 "Unfortunately, under the hostile and aggressive policies of the American statesmen, we are witnessing a renewed strengthening of terrorist groups in the region and miscalculation of the dictatorships which support these groups," he was reported as saying. 
 
 Using more measured tones, Rouhani said Tehran was waiting before passing any judgment on the new government in Washington. 
 
 The 68-year-old leader also said the US had been wrong in its interventions in Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen. 
 
 "The Americans do not know our region. That's the problem. Those who are advising the Americans are unfortunately rulers who deviate America with unsound advice or buy some influence in the US with their money," he said. 
 
 In a further dig at Iran's biggest rival in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Rouhani reiterated the Iranian assertion that Saudi Arabia had been behind the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the US in which nearly 3,000 people died. 
 
 He said people in the US would not be willing "to exchange what they lost in the 9/11 terrorist attacks for certain sums and then forgive those acts." 
 
 Trump says Iran is region's main sponsor of terrorism 
 
 In a speech to Arab Muslim leaders in Riyadh on Sunday, Trump singled out Iran as the world's biggest sponsor of terrorism. 
 
 "From Lebanon to Iraq to Yemen, Iran funds, arms, and trains terrorists, militias, and other extremist groups that spread destruction and chaos across the region," Trump said. 
 
 "For decades, Iran has fueled the fires of sectarian conflict and terror. It is a government that speaks openly of mass murder, vowing the destruction of Israel, death to America, and ruin for many leaders and nations in this room." 
 
 Rouhani, a pragmatist and in Iranian terms a moderate, was re-elected for a second term with 57% of the vote in presidential elections last Friday, promising better relations with the rest of the world and more jobs for Iran's young people. 
 
 In his news conference, Rouhani vowed to defeat terrorism in the region during his four-year term. 
 
 He also said Iran would continue with its ballistic missile program. 
 
 "Our missiles are for peace and for defense... American officials should know that whenever we need to technically test a missile we will do so. We don't need their permission." 
 
 Rouhani was a key architect of the 2015 nuclear deal with the US, the European Union and other partners. 
 
 His first term was marked by an emergent international outreach, an approach supported by then-US President Barack Obama. 
 
 Trump meets with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin in Jerusalem on Monday. 
 
 On Monday Trump arrived in Israel, where he again singled out Iran. Standing next to Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, Trump said: "The United States and Israel can declare with one voice that Iran must never be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon, and must cease its deadly funding, training and equipping of terrorists and militias." 
 
 The nuclear agreement has been controversial in both the US and Iran, and it emerged as a top campaign issue in Iran's election. 
 
 Under the agreement, Iran pledged to reduce its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by 98% and significantly scale back its number of installed centrifuges. 
 
 In exchange, the US and the EU lifted some of the sanctions that have crippled the country's economy. 
 
 The fall in global oil prices has dented most of the economic benefits the opening of markets in the West may have had on Iran, leading to accusations from opponents Rouhani has not honored his promises. 
 
 Conservative clerics were also angered by the fact that men and women danced together in the streets of Tehran following Rouhani's election victory, testing the country's strict segregation rules, Reuters reported. ||||| Image copyright Tima via Reuters Image caption Wednesday's attacks on Iran's parliament and the Imam Khomeini Mausoleum killed 12 people 
 
 Iran has been at the top of so-called Islamic State's target list for a number of years. 
 
 Despite appearing to be a more vulnerable target than European countries and the United States because of its proximity to territory controlled by the jihadist group, Iran had until Wednesday been able to prevent an attack within its borders. 
 
 In May 2016, the Iranian authorities announced that they had dismantled 20 terrorist cells and foiled a plot involving 50 different targets throughout the country. 
 
 Such operations were the result of an extensive counter-terrorism programme. 
 
 Image copyright Tima via Reuters Image caption The jihadist group Islamic State said it was behind the attacks 
 
 Iran also launched an anti-IS messaging campaign, sought to contain the conflict with IS inside Syria and Iraq to stop it reaching Iranian borders, engaged with various political and religious groups, and carried out extensive intelligence operations. 
 
 Iran also has a relatively strong and stable state, with notoriously effective security services. 
 
 The goal has been to undermine IS and its ideology, while working to prevent attacks on Iranian soil. 
 
 But given that Iran was a major target, it was unlikely to escape attacks completely. 
 
 Image copyright AFP Image caption Officials said both incidents were now over and the situation was returning to normal 
 
 Today, IS militants are facing a losing battle in Iraq and are retreating in Syria. 
 
 One consequence of this has been a greater focus on carrying out attacks outside those two countries. 
 
 In the past few months, the group has upped its anti-Iran propaganda, and aimed to recruit from the country's Sunni minority community. 
 
 Wednesday's attack will therefore significantly boost IS morale, particularly as it is the first to have been carried out in Iran - the region's biggest Shia country and a relatively stable one at that. 
 
 Image copyright AFP Image caption Iran has suffered many losses in Syria over the past six years 
 
 In Iran, there will be calls for revenge - especially amongst hardliners - making it more difficult for President Hassan Rouhani's administration to reduce the country's involvement in Iraq and Syria. 
 
 The attack will also increase public support for the Revolutionary Guards, who are viewed as the protectors of the country, and for Iran's efforts to combat IS, as happened when the jihadist group seized large swathes of territory in Iraq in 2014. 
 
 However, Iran is already extensively involved in both Iraq and Syria, and does not have unlimited resources to spare. 
 
 In addition, Iran's involvement in Syria is not popular. Rather, it is viewed as a costly endeavour that has not benefitted the country much and resulted in far too many Iranian deaths. 
 
 Dina Esfandiary is a Centre for Science and Security Studies (CSSS) Fellow in the War Studies Department at King's College London, and an Adjunct Fellow (non-resident) in the Middle East Programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). ||||| In the 11 months since Donald Trump’s election, Tehran has been at pains to avoid kneejerk reactions. In a country of a thousand Friday prayer podiums, the measured responses to the US president’s pronouncements on Iranian activities have revealed much effort behind the scenes to grapple with changed circumstances. 
 
 But Tehran’s response this week to reports that the US is working to designate the Revolutionary Guards a terrorist group is an indication that there is a limit to its patience. It is also ratcheting up tensions in an already tense week, which could lead to the undoing of the 2015 nuclear deal. 
 
 
 
 Trump faces a congressional deadline of the end of this week to certify Tehran’s compliance under the agreement. He has threatened to decertify it, which could unravel the accord despite the wishes of Washington’s European allies, the majority of the international community and the US military. 
 
 
 
 There is uncertainty over the extent to which the president will go to show his disdain for the agreement, which was a major foreign policy achievement of the Obama administration. Trump could announce some symbolic new sanctions or restore nuclear-related sanctions in blatant violation of the agreement. 
 
 But one threat has sparked jitters. The Iranian foreign ministry has said the Islamic Republic will show a crushing response should the US list the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist entity. Although the elite forces have been accused of supporting groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, they have so far been spared being labelled a terrorist group. 
 
 
 
 “We are hopeful that the US does not make this strategic mistake,” Bahram Qasemi, the ministry’s spoksman, said in quotes carried by the state news agency Irna. “If they do, Iran’s reaction would be firm, decisive and crushing, and the US should bear all its consequences.” 
 
 
 
 The previous day, state media in Iran reported the head of the Revolutionary Guards threatening the US regional military bases if it was designated a terrorist group. 
 
 
 
 “As we’ve announced in the past, if America’s new law for sanctions is passed, this country will have to move their regional bases outside the 2,000km range of Iran’s missiles,” Maj Gen Mohammad Ali Jafari was quoted as saying. 
 
 The European Union has made it clear that it fully supports the nuclear deal, and the International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed eight times that Tehran is complying with it. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has even suggested the agreement should serve as a model to resolve the North Korean crisis. Theresa May, the British prime minister, told her Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Monday that the UK remained firmly committed to the deal and believed it was vitally important for regional security. 
 
 This Iran nuclear deal is built to last | Richard Dalton Read more 
 
 Andrew Keller, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for sanctions and counter threat finance, told the Guardian that Trump’s decertification of the deal would be an own goal, and designating the Guards as a terrorist group would be futile and detrimental to the agreement. 
 
 
 
 “It could lead to the unravelling of the deal at a time when Iran is reportedly complying and more and more businesses are engaging as a result of sanctions relief. In other words, the deal is working as we intended it to work. Sanctions may not ultimately be reimposed, but decertification will destabilise the deal for governments and businesses alike,” he said. 
 
 “The IRGC [the Guards] is already subject to multiple US sanctions. Piling on another terrorist designation seems unlikely to stop any IRGC activity, but it will add to the compliance challenges facing businesses engaging in Iran.” 
 
 Richard Dalton, a former British ambassador to Tehran, said designating the Guards a terrorist group would be a major escalation. “Iran has always been reluctant to butt up against the US because they know they can’t beat America by far so it’s difficult to know how much of [their recent reaction] is bluster and how much is real,” he said. “I don’t think the Iranians want to get into a shooting war with the US, even a skirmish in Iraq or Syria.” 
 
 Dalton said Trump seemed intent on getting to “deal with Iran as a bad actor”, which would translate to “a package of sanctions recommended to Congress, a diplomatic offensive with allies, a statement of policy on missiles or sunset clauses or military site inspections – perhaps linked to extra sanctions, further discouragement of non-US businesses (nixing Airbus along with Boeing [deals with Iran]) and reinforcing EU banks’ concern”. 
 
 According to Dalton, ditching the Iran deal would make it impossible to continue to monitor Iran’s nuclear programme “so thoroughly” and “risks setting the United States on a path of conflict with Iran at the time when the US and the world already have one nuclear crisis in the shape of North Korea. 
 
 “It’s weakening America by causing people to question America’s fidelity to its words and its ability to perceive where its interest lies,” he said. 
 
 
 
 “The chilling effect was very real from November 2016 onwards. There are many uncertainties: will the US impose secondary sanctions on countries that buy Iran’s oil? Will they move the clock back in a way which reinstates nuclear-related sanctions lifted in January 2016 or will they simply confine themselves to additional measures that are non-nuclear in nature? How Trump approaches this and how Congress responds is still uncertain and consequently exactly what the Europeans’ reaction will be.” ||||| Tehran has promised ‘crushing’ retaliation if the US decides to add the powerful force to list of terrorist groups 
 
 Soon after the Shah of Iran was forced from power in 1979, a small group of the uprising’s young leaders suggested the creation of a national guard, tasked with preserving the new Islamic revolution and counterbalancing the country’s conventional military. 
 
 'We are on a tightrope': Trump poised to walk away from Iran nuclear deal Read more 
 
 Ayatollah Khomenei, the charismatic cleric who soon became the country’s supreme leader, hesitated to call the members of the new force “guards”, fearing the word was too close to the French word widely used to refer to the ousted monarch’s elite personal force. 
 
 Instead he opted for sepah, a Persian word for soldiers with historical connotations, and the new force became known asthe sepah-e-pasdaran or “army of the guardians”. 
 
 Most foreign governments, however, refer to it as the Islamic revolutionary guard corps – a force that, 38 years later, has become a key player both inside Iran and across the region. 
 
 Reports that the US government is poised to designate the IRGC as a terrorist group have sparked jitters in Tehran, overshadowing Donald Trump’s expected plan to tear up the landmark nuclear deal. 
 
 
 
 Donald Trump’s demonisation of Iran is dishonest and dangerous | Michael Axworthy Read more 
 
 The US accuses the IRGC of terror mainly because of its military support for Hezbollah and Hamas, organisations that the US and EU have both designated as terrorist groups. Trump has argued that Iran’s support for such groups violates the spirit of the nuclear deal. 
 
 Iranian officials say privately that Trump’s ability to unravel the nuclear deal is bound by the US Congress and the reaction of Washington’s allies in Europe. They warn, however, that a move against the IRGC would be a step too far and could even push the two countries towards open war. 
 
 Political leaders in Tehran are keen to show unity. A smiling IRGC commander, Mohammad Ali Jafari, was photographed earlier this week arm in arm with the foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, the architect of the nuclear deal. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest The IRGC commander, Mohammad Ali Jafari, and Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif. Photograph: Handout/Reuters 
 
 Jafari has said that US military bases in the region would be open to attack if his forces were designated a terrorist group. Zarif’s ministry has said that Tehran’s reaction would be “firm, decisive and crushing”. Even the country’s moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, who five months ago made a rare public criticism of the IRGC during his run for a second term, issued his full-throated support for the force, saying that it “has a place in people’s heart”. 
 
 Farideh Farhi, an academic who monitors Iranian affairs closely, said that designating the IRGC as a terrorist group would be unprecedented. 
 
 “The IRGC is a integral part of Iran’s military defence and has constitutional standing as such. The designation of military officers of another country as terrorist will be a first and will open the US military to reciprocal action,” she said. 
 
 Particularly at risk, Farhi said, would be US special forces operating in the Middle East. 
 
 The IRGC initially operated as a local force across Iran, but it expanded quickly after Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980 and Khomeini allowed it to have its own ground, navy and air forces. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Revolutionary guards in wargames near Qom, south of Tehran. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images 
 
 It played a key role in Iran’s defence, particularly in the Strait of Hormuz, where it used small speedboats to stop oil tankers used by Hussein and his allies. 
 
 “Before the war the IRGC militiamen were nothing more than bodyguards to the clerics. Their performance in the war gave them a seat at the proverbial power table,” said Mehrzad Boroujerdi, a professor of political science at Syracuse University in the US. 
 
 Khomeini, however, remained wary of its growing force, writing an explicit command for it to stay away from politics into his will. 
 
 After succeding Khomeini in 1989, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei introduced a new dimension to the IRGC’s operational capacity by creating the Quds force, which is in charge of its overseas operations and has worked closely with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine. 
 
 Tehran has never concealed its backing for Hamas and Hezbollah, which it sees as legitimate political parties that have won elections legally, said Ali Alizadeh, a London-based political analyst. 
 
 Such activities have infuriated the US and Iran’s regional rivals, but the IRGC’s operations in Lebanon, Bosnia and Iraq – and more recently its involvement in propping up Syria’s Bashar al-Assad – have hugely endeared them to Khamenei. 
 
 
 
 The US also alleges that Iran has been behind a series of bombings in Iraq that has led to the death of US military personnel, accusations that Iranian officials say are not substantiated. A string of senior IRGC and Quds force officers are already blacklisted and subject to US sanctions. 
 
 Despite the dying wishes of Khomeini, the IRGC did become politically active, most notoriously when its Basij militia helped to crush protests after the disputed 2009 elections. 
 
 
 
 Qassem Suleimani: can this man bring about the downfall of Isis? | Observer profile Read more 
 
 Soon afterwards it launched a bid to restore its tarnished domestic image by presenting Qassem Suleimani, the commander of the Quds force, as a national military hero who has defended the country from Sunni terror groups. 
 
 “When it comes to the current imploding situation in the Middle East, Khamenei is much more prone to listen to Jafari and Suleimani than to Rouhani or Zarif,” said Boroujerdi. “The guards’ institutional capability to exert influence on foreign, domestic and security policies is beyond doubt now.” 
 
 After years operating in the shadows, Suleimani – who was often portrayed as a kind of regional puppet-master of terror – has emerged into the limelight, his presence on the battlefield of Syria and Iraq breathlessly reported in state media. Hoardings in Tehran portray the IRGC as defenders of the nation. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Guards commander Qassem Suleimani has been portrayed as a regional terror master. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images 
 
 One billboard that recently appeared in Tehran shows the firing of five missiles, in reference to the IRGC’s occasional and controversial testing of ballistic weapons, emblazoned with the words: “I am the Guardian of Iran.” 
 
 Like the Pakistani and Chinese militaries, the IRGC also has a large stake in the Iranian economy, both in legal and illegal enterprises. Guard commanders own large swaths of real estate in Tehran and are accused of involvement in lucrative cross-border smuggling operations. 
 
 “The IRGC’s domestic ascendancy is not unique, nor is its future trajectory immutable,” said a recent report from the US Rand thinktank. “As its history has shown, the IRGC is subject to the same worldly pitfalls and evolutionary mutations that affect other bureaucracies, and this will only intensify as the IRGC delves deeper into profit-making financial activities. Indeed, from this observation, there is benefit in comparing the IRGC’s past and future with the evolution of the Pakistani military and Chinese People’s Liberation Army.” 
 
 Mohsen Sazegara was a founding member of Khomeni’s sepah, but is now an exiled dissident and an outspoken critic of the organisation he helped establish. “We created a people’s army to defend the country and also help in emergencies, but it turned into a monster,” he told the Guardian. 
 
 “Its transformation during the Iran-Iraq war, then the creation of the Quds force, its involvement in financial activities and its role in suppressing reformists has turned it into a country inside a country, a government inside a government and an organisation that has no equivalent anywhere in the world. It’s like a river that is overflowing, covering everything.” ||||| American officials charged that an alleged plot by Iran to blow up the Saudi ambassador as he dined in Washington marks a radical shift by Tehran toward direct confrontation with the United States.The FBI said Tuesday that it had broken up a conspiracy orchestrated by a secretive unit of Iran's military with close ties to the country's senior leadership. In addition to criminal charges against two alleged perpetrators, the U.S. announced sanctions against five people, including two described as senior officials of Iran's Revolutionary Guard who were accused of overseeing the plot to kill Ambassador Adel Al-Jubeir.The high-profile nature of the administration's statements, featuring the secretary of State, attorney general and director of the FBI, appeared to reflect the White House 's determination to hold Iran responsible for the incident."We see this as a dangerous escalation of the Iranian government's use of violence to advance its agenda," said a senior White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.In a statement, the Saudi Embassy called the plot "a despicable violation of international norms."Iran called the allegations a "fabrication."Late Tuesday night, the State Department warned Americans at home and abroad to watch out for possible attacks linked to the alleged plot. In a travel alert, the department said the incident could signify "a more aggressive focus by the Iranian government on terrorist activity against diplomats from certain countries, to include possible attacks in the United States."According to the criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday, members of Iran's Quds Force, an elite Revolutionary Guard unit, tried to hire what they thought was a Mexican drug cartel to kill the Saudi envoy. The complaint said that Manssor Arbabsiar, an Iranian American living in Texas, flew to Mexico and, at the behest of the Quds Force, agreed to pay a man he believed to be a cartel operative $1.5 million to kill the ambassador. Over time, the plot focused on bombing an unspecified restaurant the ambassador frequented, the complaint said.The "cartel member" turned out to be a confidential informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration. He reported the solicitation to U.S. law enforcement and recorded his conversations with Arbabsiar, officials said.Arbabsiar gave the man a down payment of about $100,000 and told him the plot should go ahead even if 100 or more bystanders would die in the explosion, the complaint said. "They want that guy done, if the 100 go with him," he allegedly said.The case "reads like the pages of a Hollywood script," FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III told reporters in announcing the arrest along with Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr., but "the impact would have been very real and many lives would have been lost."At Arbabsiar's arraignment in New York on Tuesday, his lawyer said he would plead not guilty.The fact that the man the Iranians allegedly contacted was an informant allowed U.S. officials to monitor the conversations from the outset in May, officials said."Was it a lucky break? Yes," said a U.S. law enforcement official, "but everybody jumped on it."The plotters also discussed an attack against the Israeli Embassy in Washington, Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) said in a Senate speech. An Israeli Embassy spokesman said he could not confirm that.U.S. officials previously have accused the Quds Force of sponsoring terrorist attacks abroad, including assassinations, and of roadside bomb attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq. But officials expressed shock and anger at the allegation that Iranian operatives would plan to kill a diplomat on U.S. soil.Seth Jones, an expert on Iran with the Rand Corp., said if the Quds Force was plotting attacks inside the United States, it would amount to "a notable change in behavior." It would be very hard to believe that senior Iranian officials condoned such an operation, he said.At the news conference announcing the case, Holder noted that the criminal complaint did not allege involvement by top officials of the Iranian government. Separately, U.S. intelligence officials would not say whether evidence directly linked senior members of the Iranian government to the conspiracy.Other U.S. officials, however, went further.
– The Islamic State may have claimed responsibility for Wednesday's twin terror attacks in Tehran that killed 12, but Iran has a different culprit in mind: regional rival Saudi Arabia. "This terrorist attack happened only a week after the meeting between the US president and the (Saudi) backward leaders who support terrorists," says a statement from Iran's Revolutionary Guards, per Reuters. It acknowledges that ISIS was "involved," however, thus insinuating a link between ISIS and the Saudis, notes New York. A look at coverage: Potent symbols: The attackers hit not only the parliament building in Tehran but the mausoleum with the tomb of founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini—"the two most potent symbols of the 1979 revolution," writes Simon Tisdall at the Guardian. For Iranians, this is "deeply shocking," the equivalent of someone attacking the Lincoln Memorial in the US. The attacks: Details on how the coordinated attacks unfolded are at the New York Times. A first: Assuming the ISIS claim is legit, this would be the first ISIS attack in Iran, but the militant group has wanted to strike there for years, explains a Q&A at PRI. ISIS is Sunni, while Iran is a Shia nation, and it's no small distinction: ISIS views Shiites as apostates. The backdrop: The New York Times notes the attacks come not only after Trump's trip (seen as emboldening the Saudis) but after the Saudi move to isolate Qatar, which it accuses of supporting terrorism and Iran. It all relates to the main issue: "Iran and Saudi Arabia are the leading nations on opposing sides of the Middle East split between Shiite and Sunni Islam." Morale boost: Given ISIS retreats in Iraq and Syria, the successful strikes in Iran will clearly be a big morale boost to the group, per an analysis at the BBC. As they lose their strongholds in those countries, they want followers to launch attacks elsewhere, and no target is bigger than Iran. Trump response: It was notably mixed. "We grieve and pray for the innocent victims of the terrorist attacks in Iran, and for the Iranian people, who are going through such challenging times," he said in a statement. But then added: "We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote." The US does indeed consider Iran a state sponsor of terrorism, notes Business Insider. Ominous threat: Just hours before the attacks, the Saudi foreign minister had said Iran should be punished for supporting groups such as al-Qaeda, per Al Arabiya English.