UK envoy under fire for calling Shiraz terrorist attack ‘incident’

UK Ambassador to Tehran Simon Shercliff has been rebuked on social media for failing to recognize the armed attack on the Shah Cheragh shrine, for which Daesh (ISIS) claimed responsibility, as a “terrorist attack.”

In a social media post on Monday afternoon, Shercliff expressed grief over “yesterday’s incidents in Shiraz” and offered his condolences to the families of the victims.  

“Violence against people, in any form, has no justification,” he said via his account on X, formerly called Twitter, without acknowledging that the assault was a terrorist attack.

On Sunday evening, a gunman started shooting at people in the Shah Cheragh holy shrine in the southern Iranian city of Shiraz, killing at least two people and injuring several others.

He was arrested at the scene and handed over to investigators for interrogation. Ten suspects linked to the incident have also been arrested so far.

The Daesh terrorist group claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack.

Responding to Shercliff, Iranian Ambassador to Baku Seyed Abbas Mousavi said reducing terrorism to “violence” or “incident” is a typical behavior of Western officials, who “divide terrorism into good and bad.”

Another man succumbs to injuries following terror attack at Iran's Shah Cheragh shrine

A man who sustained serious injuries in the terrorist attack on Iran

Mousavi, a former Foreign Ministry spokesman, further pointed out that while the British government terms knife fights in London as “terrorist” attacks, it “turns a blind eye to naked terrorism” in other countries.

Other X users also blasted the British envoy’s double standards. “Is there any place in the world where this is not called a terrorist act?” one user wrote.

Another said, “No one would have called you mute if you hadn’t offered your condolences. This is called a terrorist attack. An incident is used to refer to something like an earthquake.”

Others pointed out, derisively, that the UK cannot refer to the acts of terror carried out by Daesh as terrorist attacks because the British government basically supports the terrorist group in Iraq and Syria.

“Do you wanna know why UK’s ambassador in Iran refuses to title the event in Shiraz a terrorist attack & calls it just violence?” a user said. “Because his government is funding 15000 ISIS terrorist fighters in northeast Syria!”

Meanwhile, Mousavi also reminded London of the Islamic Republic’s counter-terrorism campaign, from which European countries have considerably benefitted.

“Remember that you would have been collecting corpses in the streets of London every day had it not been for our General Soleimani’s acts of bravery,” he said, pointing to Iran’s anti-terror hero who was assassinated by the United States in 2020.

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