• Mohsen Akhavan, who bears the clerical rank of hojatoleslam, was targeted in the city of Isfahan.
• A Sunni extremist with Uzbek roots killed two Shiite clergy members and hurt a third in the courtyard of the main shrine in Mashhad.

TEHRAN: Iranian media said that a motorcycle-mounted assailant shot and wounded a Shiite cleric in central Iran early Saturday morning.

As per the Iranian news agency, Mohsen Akhavan, who bears the clerical rank of hojatoleslam, was targeted in the city of Isfahan.

The Iranian news agency said that the attack happened as Akhavan, the imam of a municipal mosque, was walking home after leading the morning prayer.

According to the report, the cleric, who had previously worked at an Islamic seminary in Isfahan, was “not gravely hurt” and was being treated at a hospital.

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Early in April, a Sunni extremist with Uzbek roots killed two Shiite clergy members and hurt a third in the courtyard of the main shrine in the holy city of Mashhad in northeastern Iran.

As per the court authorities, Abdolatif Moradi, 21, was executed on June 20 in the same city after being convicted of the attack.

Moradi was accused of committing moharebeh (Persian for ‘war against God’) by using a weapon to intimidate the community in and around the shrine.

A few days before the attack in Mashhad, two Sunni clerics were shot and killed in front of a seminary in the city of Gonbad-e Kavus in northern Iran.

Iranian media said at the time that the three Sunni suspects, in this case, had “no connection to terrorist groups.” They were apprehended in late April.

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