DUBAI: At least 15 people were killed in an attack on a Shia shrine in the Iranian city of Shiraz on Wednesday, state news agency IRNA said, as security forces elsewhere clashed with protesters marking 40 days since the death of Mahsa Amini.

Early reports of the attack gave varying accounts. The local police chief said there had been a single attacker, who had been arrested, while news agencies said three people were involved.

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IRNA described them as “takfiri terrorists”, a label used by officials in predominantly Shi’ite Muslim Iran to refer to hardline, armed Sunni Islamist groups. Nournews, affiliated with Iran’s top security body, said they were not Iranian nationals.

The attackers were in a car and shot at pilgrims and staff at the entrance to the shrine of Shah Cheragh, IRNA quoted witnesses as saying. Police arrested two of the three “terrorists” and were looking for the third.