TEHRAN, Iran _ Police increased patrols in the streets and subway stations of Tehran Thursday, a day after a pair of Islamic State attacks on parliament and the tomb of Iran's revolutionary leader.
Iran's Intelligence Ministry confirmed Thursday that at least five of the eight male attackers had fought for the Islamic State.
Officials also announced that the death toll had increased to 17. Another 43 people were wounded in the attacks.
Many of the injured remained in intensive care at Cina Hospital in the capital Thursday. Several members of parliament visited the injured, including the head of parliament's national security and foreign policy commission, Allaeddin Brojerdi.
Among those shot in the attack and still hospitalized Thursday was a former presidential bodyguard.
Ali Akbar, 34, had survived other attacks that killed fellow bodyguards while traveling with former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad overseas, according to a relative who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak. The attack on parliament left him with shrapnel in his neck and a bullet lodged in his abdomen, his relative said.
Akbar had been heading home Wednesday and stopped at a bank to guarantee a loan for a friend when he heard the attack at parliament and rushed over to help.
"He heard the shooting, went to the west gate of parliament, showed his card and was given a gun," the relative said Akbar later told him. "He went to the third floor where the hostage takers had dozens hostages and he started shooting at one of the terrorists who was a tall, broad-shouldered (man) dressed in black and gunned him down. But the other one killed several hostages: Women, staff of the parliamentary offices."
The relative told him the attackers appeared to be Arab, Algerian and Tunisian, not Iranian.
The relative said Akbar "told me in the ICU, 'I could not resist fighting the terrorists who were killing common people and staff in the light of day," he said.
All of the attackers were killed: Four at parliament, four at the tomb of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, officials said.
Following the attacks, Mohammad Hossein Zolfaghari, deputy Interior minister, told state TV Thursday that "law enforcement activities may increase."
"We are focused on intelligence"-gathering, he said.
Police Thursday said they held half a dozen suspects in connection with the attacks. Reza Seifollahi, a member of the country's Supreme National Security Council, was quoted by Iranian media saying the attackers were Iranian nationals. At least one witness heard an attacker speak Farsi, but video posted online that appears to have been filmed by the attackers shows them speaking Arabic.
The assailants, armed with Kalashnikov rifles and explosives, attacked the parliament complex while lawmakers were at work, according to witnesses. The siege lasted several hours. At least 11 people were killed, and one of the attackers blew himself up inside the complex, according to state television.
At the same time, gunmen and suicide bombers attacked Khomeini's mausoleum on Tehran's south side, killing a security guard, according to state television.
Islamic State's media arm quickly claimed responsibility for both attacks, the first in recent memory by the militants in Iran. Iranian forces are fighting the extremists in Iraq and Syria, and lawmakers have argued they're doing so to prevent terrorist attacks at home.
The attacks also came at a tense time in the Middle East when Sunni Arab states, lead by Saudi Arabia and backed by the U.S., have aligned against Iran's Shiite leaders.
President Trump's statement condemning the attacks also implied that Iran sponsors terrorism.
"We grieve and pray for the innocent victims of the terrorist attacks in Iran, and for the Iranian people, who are going through such challenging times," the statement said. "We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote."
Iranians angered by the statement took to social media to vent, recalling sympathetic vigils held in Tehran after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted that Trump's statement was "repugnant."
"Iranian people reject such U.S. claims of friendship," Zarif tweeted.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard indirectly blamed Saudi Arabia for the attacks in a statement issued late Wednesday that also noted the "spilled blood of the innocent will not remain unavenged."
Others also blamed the kingdom.
Khoda Karam Gomaraj was at Cina Hospital awaiting news of a friend injured in the attack.
"The terrorists were on the payroll of Saudi Arabia," he insisted.
