[Leboman]

Iran attacks: Twin assaults on parliament and shrine rock Tehran - CNN.com

[IsaactheSyrian]

Lord have mercy.

I have quite a number of Muslim friends, and one of the things they tell me they wish people understood is that most Muslims hate Daesh ('ISIS/ISIL') more than anyone, as Muslims are most of the people they kill. It's just that their martyrdom of Christians gets more press because it tends to be much more dramatic (viz. the execution of Copts on a beach, bombing a church in Cairo on Palm Sunday).

I'm also not surprised this happened. Iran is a Shi'a Muslim country - to Daesh, who follow Sunni Islam (a particularly nasty form of it, Wahhabism/Salafism), the Iranians and their regime are arch-heretics.

[DaGeek]

As one a little bit ignorant to ISIS' targets, I was a bit surprised to hear about this. I haven't heard of many terrorist attacks in Iran. Terrible situation .

[Leboman]

Originally Posted by DaGeek

As one a little bit ignorant to ISIS' targets, I was a bit surprised to hear about this. I haven't heard of many terrorist attacks in Iran. Terrible situation .

This quote from the linked article might shed some light.


The Parliament, the Islamic Consultative Assembly or Majlis, is Iran's principal legislative body. It has 290 members, including women, and there are representatives of religious minorities including Christians, Zoroastrians and Jews.

[IsaactheSyrian]

The thing is, a lot of folks don't realize that as Islamic states go, Iran is actually quite liberal, and has been getting increasingly moreso after the defeat of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president and the election of Hassan Rouhani, who has a reputation as a bit of a reformist (though how much that's actually the case is very debatable). Compared to Saudi Arabia, Iran is a paradise of liberality. They tolerate Christians and Jews, who are permitted to worship freely, drink alcohol and raise pigs (though proselytization is forbidden, which is an issue for Christians because tellin' folks about Jesus is kinda important to us ). Women don't have to cover their faces (just their hair), and can drive and go to university - and Iran actually has some fine ones - and even become doctors. I have an Iranian friend who's mother is an anaesthesiologist - the tricky thing is Canada doesn't recognize her credentials or her medical residency, hence if she wanted to practise in Canada she'd have to re-do her residency, so she often goes back and forth between Vancouver and Tehran.

Vancouver has, so I've heard, the second-highest population of Iranians in North America after San Francisco, so it's pretty impossible to live here for awhile and not know a few.

All the above, and the fact that Iranian troops are actually involved in the fight against Daesh/ISIL, would make them a target.

[IsaactheSyrian]

By the way, in case anyone is curious about my use of the word 'Daesh' - it's an acronym in Arabic (for 'al-Dawla al-Islammiya fi'l Iraq ash-Sham', literally, 'The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) it's what my Arab friends call ISIL. There are good reasons for that, and I'd encourage everyone to use the Arabic acronym instead of the English one, because it really pisses them (the terrorists) off

What does Daesh mean? ISIS 'threatens to cut out the tongues' of anyone using this word - Mirror Online