Blast kills 9 gathered to hear cleric speak in Iran

A bomb blast tore through a Shiite Muslim house of worship in a southern Iranian city tonight, killing at least nine people and injuring more than 100 others, most of them gathered to hear a religious speech about the dangers of Sunni extremists, according to a semi-official Iranian news agency.

The explosion shattered shop windows and damaged buildings in a one-mile area of the city of Shiraz. Ambulances and firefighters rushed to the scene to rescue the wounded.

No one had claimed responsibility for the attack, and Iranian authorities told news agencies that the blast remained under investigation.

The explosion occurred at a hosseinyeh, a Shiite house of worship similar to a mosque but often used for community and religious activities.

The Fars News Agency reported that a mid-ranking cleric named Anjivinejad was delivering a speech about the “misleading and corrupted cults” of the Wahhabi Islamic school that inspires Osama bin Laden as well as the Baha’i faith when the blast went off. The cleric survived blast with slight injuries, Fars reported.

Shiraz is an ancient southern city that once hosted famous Persian poets. It is also the namesake of the famous wine grape.

Few ethnic and religious minorities live in the city itself. But southwestern Iran, abutting Iraq, is home to Sunni and Shiite Arabs who have occasionally rebelled against the rule of the Islamic Republic, which holds Shiite Islam as the official state religion and is dominated by ethnic Persians and Azeris.

Southeastern Iran has been the scene of a low-level insurgency waged by ethnic Baluchi Sunnis, who have killed dozens of Iranian security officials over the last two years. Iran claims that the U.S. is behind the upsurge in militant activity.

daragahi@latimes.com

Times special correspondent Mostaghim reported from Tehran and staff writer Daragahi from Beirut.