South Front
Abbas-Ali Soleimani, via Wikimedia Commons.
On April 26, senior Iranian Shiite cleric ayatollah Abbasali Soleiman was assassinated in the northern province of Mazandaran, according to the Fars news agency.
The semi-official news agency said that Abbasali Soleimani died in hospital after being shot in a bank in the city of Babolsar, adding that the suspected killer had been detained.
Abbasali Soleimani was a member of the Assembly of Experts of Iran, a powerful clerical body that supervises, appoints and in theory can sack the supreme leader. The cleric was also a former representative of Iran’s top leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the predominantly Sunni province of Sistan-Baluchistan.
The assassination came following a wave of violent anti-government protests that shocked Iran for around the year. Several attacks against government officials and security forces were reported at the time, some of which were blamed on terrorist groups.
It is very possible that radical anti-government elements were behind the deadly attack on Abbasali Soleimani. The assassination may have been also a foreign plot to re-stir tensions in Iran, as the situation in the country calmed down in recent months.
Iranian security forces will likely reveal more details about the assassination and the identity of the detained assailant in the upcoming few days.
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