Alwaght- One Iranian cleric was stabbed to death and two others were wounded on Tuesday in an unprecedented incident at the holy shrine of Imam Reza in the northeastern city of Mashhad.
The assailant was arrested immediately after the attack, which took place at the courtyard of the holy shrine of the eighth Shiite Imam in Khorasan Razavi Province on the third day of the fasting month of Ramadan.
The injured clerics were transferred to the hospital after being stabbed with a knife.
The intelligence arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in the province said in a statement that the identity and nationality of the assailant have been determined.
Mashhad’s Prosecutor General Mohammed Hossein Doroudi said four other people besides the attacker have been arrested in connection with the incident.
The assailant reportedly was a foreigner who according to the governor of Khorasan Razavi was radicalized by Takfiri ideology, an extremist Sunni Islam which "advocates the killing of other Muslims, especially Shiites, declared to be unbelievers"