Gunman kills security chief at Azerbaijan Embassy in Tehran

A man armed with a Kalashnikovstyle rifle stormed the Azerbaijan Embassy in Irans capital Friday killing the head of security at the diplomatic post and wounding two guards authorities saidTehrans police chief General Hossein Rahimi blamed the attack on personal and family problems according to Iranian state television However the assault comes as tensions have been high for months between neighbouring Azerbaijan and IranAzerbaijans Foreign Ministry said it would evacuate its diplomatic mission accusing Iran of not taking reported threats against it seriously in the past Meanwhile Iranian authorities replaced Rahimi as police chief hours later after footage emerged that appeared to show a police officer doing nothing to stop the attackVideo purportedly from the scene of the attack showed an empty diplomatic police post just near the embassy with one man apparently wounded in an SUV parked outside Inside the embassy past a metal detector paramedics stood over what appeared to be a lifeless body in a small office as blood pooled on the floor beneathA statement from Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry said that an investigation is currently underway into this treacherous attack The ministry also described the attacker as destroying a guard post with assault rifle fire before being stopped by the wounded guards whom authorities described as being in a satisfactory condition after being shotHowever the ministry said a recent antiAzerbaijani campaign against our country in Iran has encouraged such attacks against our diplomatic missionThere have been attempts to threaten our diplomatic mission in Iran before and measures to prevent such situations and to ensure the safety of our diplomatic missions have been constantly raised before Iran the ministry said Unfortunately the last bloody terrorist attack demonstrates the serious consequences of not showing proper sensitivity to our urgent appeals in this directionAlso read Iran executes BritishIranian Alireza AkbariAzerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev called the attack a terrorist act A terrorist attack against diplomatic missions is unacceptable he said in a statementIranian state TV had quoted Rahimi as saying the gunman had entered the embassy with his two children during the attack However surveillance footage from inside the embassy released in Azerbaijan which matched details of the other video of the aftermath and bore a timestamp matching the Azerbaijan Foreign Ministrys statement showed the gunmen burst through the embassys doors aloneThose inside tried to push through metal detectors to take cover The man opens fire with the rifle its muzzle flashing as he chases after the men into the small side office Another man bursts from a side door and fights the gunman for the rifle as the footage endsAnother surveillance video from outside the embassy which also corresponded to the same details showed the gunman slam his car into another in front of the embassy The gunman then got out and levelled his rifle at a figure inside the Iranian police stand likely a police guard who stood still and did nothing as the man stormed the embassyAssociated Press journalists saw the embassys front door pocked with bullet holes after the attack Iranian prosecutor Mohammad Shahriari reportedly said that the gunmans wife had disappeared in April after a visit to the embassy The Iranian judiciarys Mizan news agency quoted Shahriari as saying the gunman believed his wife was still in the embassy at the time of the attack even though it was some eight months laterIrans Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani also said his country strongly condemned the attack which was under investigation with high priority and sensitivityAzerbaijan borders Irans northwest There have been tensions between the two countries as Azerbaijan and Armenia have fought over the NagornoKarabakh region Iran in October launched a military exercise near the Azerbaijan border flexing its martial might amid the nationwide protests rocking the Islamic Republic Azerbaijan also maintains close ties to Israel which Tehran views as its top regional enemyThe Islamic Republic and Israel are locked in an ongoing shadow war as Irans nuclear programme rapidly enriches uranium closer than ever to weaponsgrade levels Turkey which has close ties to Azerbaijan condemned the attack called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice and for measures to be put in place to prevent similar attacks in the future Turkey has backed Azerbaijan against Armenia over NagornoKarabakhTurkey which has been subjected to similar attacks in the past deeply shares the pain of the Azerbaijani people a Turkish Foreign Ministry statement said Brotherly Azerbaijan is not alone Our support to Azerbaijan will continue without interruption as it always hasThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday 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