(Bloomberg) -- Gunmen attacked a military parade in Iran’s southern city of Ahvaz on Saturday, killing at least 11 people and injuring dozens, state media reported.

Members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and civilians, including one journalist, were among those killed, the semi-official Iranian Students News Agency reported, citing the deputy governor of Khuzestan, Hossein Hosseinzadeh, who said at least 30 people had been injured.

State media and officials immediately described the attackers as terrorists. The attack targeted an annual military parade in Ahvaz, the capital of oil-rich Khuzestan province in Iran’s southwest. The area, bordering Iraq and the Persian Gulf, is home to a significant Sunni Arab population. Several of Iran’s largest oil fields are located in the province.

Several semi-official news outlets with reporters at the scene said the attackers were dressed in military fatigues and had approached the parade from a park, behind a temporary stand from where officials had been watching the ceremony.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Ramazan Sharif, a spokesman for the IRGC, blamed the Al-Ahvazieh group and accused Saudi Arabia of fueling the incident, according to ISNA.

The incident comes as the Iranian government is trying to parry what it sees as a U.S.-led war on its economy after President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions. Iran sees Washington’s main Arab ally in the region and a vocal critic of the nuclear deal, Saudi Arabia, as enabling U.S. economic policies against it and trying to foment unrest in the country.

Protests against the government and its handling of the economy that erupted across many provinces late last year also took place in some cities in Khuzestan, which reported some of the most violent protests.

--With assistance from Christopher Kingdon.

To contact the reporter on this story: Golnar Motevalli in Tehran at gmotevalli@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alastair Reed at areed12@bloomberg.net, Jacqueline Mackenzie, Adveith Nair

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