Iran’s Intelligence Ministry on June 8 released headshots of the five perpetrators of the June 7 attacks on the parliament and the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic. The attacks in Tehran left at least 17 people dead and some 50 wounded. Al-Monitor has learned from Kurdish sources in Iran that at least four members of the two terrorist teams hailed from a Sunni Kurdish town in western Iran and spent time with Islamic State (IS) militants in Mosul.

In a video of the attack on parliament published by the semi-official Fars News Agency on June 8, two men with AK-47s and a man with a pistol can be seen rushing into a seating area where members of the public wait for appointments with lawmakers, indiscriminately opening fire on people. 

The attacks were the first time that IS managed to penetrate Iran’s defenses and came after the release of a video in late March in which some Iranian Sunni members of the group promised to take the war to Tehran. In the 37-minute clip, titled “Persian Land, From Yesterday to Today,” Iranian IS members list what they see as crimes against Sunnis committed by the Islamic Republic and call on their brethren to take up arms against Tehran, saying, “Our war has started against the Persians. … I call in particular on the Sunnis in Iran to prepare for this war … and we are behind you.”

While the Iranian intelligence services and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) had prior to June 7 managed to seal off the country’s borders from attacks by IS and other militant groups, the incidents in Tehran could be the beginning of a long battle between predominantly Shiite Iran and Iranian Sunnis who have joined IS in recent years.