text: Gunmen and bombers stunned Iran on Wednesday when they stormed parliament and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leaving 12 people dead in what appear to be the first ISIS attacks in the country. 
   
   After a string of ISIS-claimed attacks targeting Western countries, many are left wondering — why would the group suddenly target Iran? 
   
   The World reached out to William McCants, author of "The ISIS Apocalypse" and director of the Project on US Relations with the Islamic World at the Brookings Institution, to get some insight. 
   
   How do ISIS and its adherents view the Islamic Republic of Iran? 
   
   In the first instance, they see it as a religious competitor. Iran is dominated by [Shiite Muslims], one of the two major sects of Islam, and it's a sect that ISIS views as a rival. There is also a strategic competition, of course, with Iran for control in Iraq. ISIS has been fighting Iranian forces off and on since 2006, when it was founded. And it has long wanted to carry out an attack inside of Iran, but could not do so because al-Qaeda told it "no" in the early years. And once ISIS split from al-Qaeda, it may not have had the assets to do so. 
   
   Talk a little more about the religious rivalry. Isn't it true that in the mindset of ISIS, the Shiite [also called Shia] Muslims are not just rivals, but also apostates? 
   
   That's right. Sunni jihadists in general have a dim view of the Shia. They believe Shia leaders are apostates, there's a debate among jihadists as to whether the hoi polloi are apostates. For ISIS, they are certainly apostates — all of them. Ignorance of religion is no excuse, they would argue. Shia Muslims are all beyond the pale, and, in ISIS's view, worse than infidels like Jews and Christians, because these Shia, they argue, have made a choice to place themselves outside of true Islam, as they would see it. 
   
   ISIS is losing territory in Iraq and Syria, and even in its longtime stronghold of the Syrian city Raqqa. So, why would ISIS want to attack the regional power of Iran now? 
   
   On the face of it, it doesn't seem to make much sense. But there are a couple of reasons why. One is to, of course, punish Iran for its meddling in Iraq. Two, to force Iran to go all-in in Iraq, to commit even more forces and turn this into a major sectarian war. The thinking here being that, if this war is clearly divided along sectarian lines, ISIS would gain more support from the Sunni locals, who fear Iran. Another reason to carry out an attack like this would be to push the Iranian government into cracking down domestically on the Sunnis [inside Iran]. ISIS would hope in that instance that the crackdown would be wide-ranging and would create a lot of alienation among the Sunnis in Iran, and that they would then support ISIS's cause. 
   
   Another way to think about this is through the lens of recruitment and competition with al-Qaeda. ISIS used to be a part of al-Qaeda. They split in recent years. And they have been competing with one another for market share among global Sunni jihadists. ISIS has had trouble attracting recruits over the last year or so, because security has tightened and it's losing a lot of territory. So, it wants to retain momentum to show that it's still in the fight, and what better way to do that in the jihadist world than to carry out a strike in the heart of Iran, at two of its major symbols of power? In the same vein, this is part of a global series of attacks that have happened over the past few days, either inspired or directed by ISIS, that are also meant to show that the organization is still in the fight, can still recruit. It's the Muslim month of fasting, Ramadan. And during the same month last year, ISIS also carried out a high-profile series of attacks, probably toward the same end — to attract more recruits. So, while on the face of it, it doesn't look like a good idea to poke a bear like Iran, there can be other reasons to do it that are smart, at least from ISIS's perspective. 
   
   Is it your sense that ISIS had been trying to carry out an attack like this in Iran for some time? 
   
   We know from a series of internal ISIS and al-Qaeda documents that ISIS has wanted to carry out an attack in Iran for a long time. But its parent organization al-Qaeda discouraged it. That's because al-Qaeda has a logistics hub inside of Iran, and also has a number of people being held by the Iranian government. And al-Qaeda didn't want to lose either the hub or its people, so it said, "no." Once the two organizations split, then ISIS could of course pursue its designs to carry out an attack in Iran, but then it would have to build up its capability. ISIS has had a number of people — Sunnis from Iran — go fight for its organization in Iraq. And perhaps it's one of their members who carried out today's attack. We'll see about that. 
   
   So, after 2014, when ISIS split with al-Qaeda, it was probably a matter of lacking capability rather than any other reason why we haven't seen this kind of attack before. 
   
   What's significant about the two sites of today's attack in Tehran — at Iran's national parliament building, and the mausoleum of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini? 
   
   Well, the parliament is the heart, of course, of the Iranian government — its lawmaking body. And the shrine is the spiritual heart of Iran's revolutionary government. Khomeini was the founder of the republic, and some whispered that he was something even more, approaching messianic status. So this is an attack that went against both the heart of Iran's premier deliberative body, but also the spiritual heart of the revolution. 
   
   Last question, Will. What comes to mind in the aftermath of this attack when you think about what's at stake for the United States? 
   
   It's about demonstrating solidarity with any country that has been through an attack on innocent civilians. The US terrorist list is dominated by Sunni groups, but not exclusively. In the past, the US has designated groups [as terrorist organizations] that threatened Iran domestically that did not pose a threat to the US. I think it's important to uphold that principle. 
   
   This interview was condensed and edited for clarity. ||||| Armed assailants, including some disguised as women, stunned Iran on Wednesday with brazen attacks on the Parliament building and the tomb of its revolutionary founder, the worst terrorist strike to hit the Islamic republic in years. 
   
   At least 12 people were killed and 46 were wounded in the near-simultaneous assaults, which lasted for hours, clearly took Iran’s elite security forces by surprise and shattered the self-proclaimed image of calm in a turbulent region. 
   
   The six known attackers also were killed, official news media said, and five suspects were reported detained. Their identities were not made clear. 
   
   “We will avenge the blood of those martyred in today’s terrorism attacks,” said Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami, deputy commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the country’s powerful paramilitary force. ||||| 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. ||||| The video shows a bloody body on the floor next to a desk. An Iranian member of Parliament said the images in the video were from inside his office, and he said the victims were his “colleagues.” 
   
   A voice on the video is heard in Arabic saying: “Do you think we will leave? We will remain, God willing.” ||||| 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. 
   
   Slideshow (23 Images) 
   
   “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. ||||| Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Jubeir said Iran must be punished for its interference in the region and support for terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda, Al Arabiya News Channel reported him as saying early Wednesday. 
   
   Jubeir, who is in Paris since Tuesday, said that Iran is a host for some Al-Qaeda leaders as well as other commanders from other terrorist organizations. 
   
   The minister further urged Iran not to interfere, describing Tehran as the number one supporter for terrorism in the world. 
   
   For Iran to be a “normal state,” it must respect international law, he said. Jubeir also said that the Iranian regime’s “political ideas” are completely rejected. 
   
   The minister said the Iranian regime for the past 37 years attacked more than 12 embassies. 
   
   Saudi Arabia alongside seven other countries, including Egypt, UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Yemen, Maldives, Mauritius and Mauritania, have recently severed its ties with Qatar. 
   
   Jubeir said Riyadh severed ties with Doha due to Qatari policies, which harmed the region especially the Gulf states. 
   
   He also said that Qatar did not commit to anti-terrorism agreements signed years ago, and instead continued to show support for terrorist groups. 
   
   He urged Qatar to “change their policies” and stop supporting “extremist groups”. 
   
   Jubeir said that harming Qatar was not Riyadh’s goal, but that it had to make a necessary choice. 
   
   “Qatar has to stop its support of groups such as Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood,” Jubeir said in statements on Tuesday in Paris. 
   
   “We decided to make it clear that enough is enough,” Jubeir added. “We want Qatar to be an ally in finding peace and stability in the region.” 
   
   His statements come as Kuwait has begun mediation efforts in Saudi Arabia to ease tensions between Qatar and several of its Gulf neighbors. 
   
   Last Update: Wednesday, 7 June 2017 KSA 05:08 - GMT 02:08 ||||| 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. ||||| 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. ||||| 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).
target: – 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.