Babolsar
\nA powerful Iranian cleric \u2014 a member of the Assembly of Experts that selects the country\u2019s supreme leader \u2014 has been killed in an armed attack, officials said on Wednesday.
\n\u201cAyatollah Abbas Ali Soleimani was killed this morning in an armed attack\u2026 the assailant was also arrested and is now being investigated,\u201d IRNA news agency reported, citing the political and security official for the northern Mazandaran province where the attack happened.
\nThe attack took place in a bank in the city of Babolsar, the official said.
\n\u201cThe motive of the assailant is not yet clear and will be announced after it is clarified,\u201d the official added.
\nThe governor of Mazandaran province Mahmoud Hosseinipour said the attacker was a local security personnel of the bank.
\n\u201cSo far, our information and documents indicate that this was not a security or terrorist act,\u201d Hosseinipour told state television.
\nSoleimani, 75, was previously the representative of the country\u2019s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
\nHe had also been the imam who led the weekly Friday prayers in the cities of Kashan, in central Isfahan province, and Zahedan in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan.
\nUnder the constitution, the 88-strong Assembly of Experts is mandated with supervising, dismissing and electing the Supreme Leader.
\nThe all-powerful deliberative body is now headed by ultra-conservative 96-year-old cleric Ahmad Jannati. Its members are chosen in popular elections for eight year-terms from a pool of candidates vetted by the country\u2019s Guardian Council.
\nThe attack is believed to be the most significant against a cleric in years in the country.
\nIn April 2022, a suspected jihadist knife attack in the northeastern shrine city of Mashhad in Razavi Khorasan Province led to the death of two clerics and the injury of another.
\nThe chief suspect, identified as Abdolatif Moradi, 21, was an ethnic Uzbek who had entered Iran illegally via the Pakistani border a year ago, Tasnim news agency said at the time.
\nMoradi was hanged in June in the same city on the accusation of \u201cmoharebeh\u201d, or \u201cwar against God\u201d.
\nThe assailant had struck on the third day of the holy month of Ramazan as large crowds of worshippers gathered at the shrine of Imam Reza, one of the most revered figures in Shia Islam.
\nThe attack in Mashhad came days after two Sunni clerics were shot dead outside a seminary in the northern Iranian town of Gonbad-e Kavus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Babolsar A powerful Iranian cleric \u2014 a member of the Assembly of Experts that selects the country\u2019s supreme leader \u2014 has been killed in an armed attack, officials said on Wednesday. \u201cAyatollah Abbas Ali Soleimani was killed this morning in an armed attack\u2026 the assailant was also arrested and is now being investigated,\u201d IRNA news […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327712,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-327704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n