The jihadist group Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility on Thursday, while Iran observed a day of national mourning, for the attack in the south of the country which left 84 dead the day before, near the tomb of General Qassem Soleimani, ex -architect of Iranian military operations in the Middle East.
The double explosion occurred in a very tense regional context since the start of the conflict on October 7 between Israel and Hamas, and the day after the elimination of a senior official of this Palestinian Islamist movement in a strike near Beirut, attributed to Israel.
The IS indicated via its Telegram channels that two of its members had “activated their explosive belt” in the middle of “a large gathering of apostates, near the grave of their leader “Qassem Soleimani” yesterday in Kerman, in the southern Iran.
A crowd gathered there to commemorate the death of the general, killed in January 2020 by an American strike in Iraq and celebrated in Iran for his role in the defeat of ISIS.
On Thursday, Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi told the local news agency Isna that security would be strengthened at the porous borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan, which are a crossing point for armed groups fighting Iranian power. .
Earlier in the day, the official Irna agency cited “an informed source”, indicating that the first explosion had been caused by a suicide bomber, a man, whose body had been torn to pieces. For the second, the investigation continues but it was most likely also a suicide bomber, added Irna.
“Severe response”
In Iran, officials had immediately pointed the finger at Israel and the United States before the IS claim, with a political advisor to Iranian President Mohammad Jamshidi accusing the “American and Zionist regimes” of being behind the attack.
The US State Department had deemed any suggestion of US or Israeli involvement “absurd”, with a senior US official speaking on condition of anonymity saying the attack looked “like the type of thing » made by ISIS “in the past”.
An initial toll of more than 100 deaths was revised downwards on Thursday by the head of the country’s emergency services, Jafar Miadfar, who reported 84 people killed and 284 injured.
This attack is the deadliest in the country since 1978, when an arson attack killed at least 377 people in a cinema in Abadan, according to AFP archives.
Iran’s sworn enemy, Israel, has not commented on the attack. “We are focused on the fighting with Hamas” in the Palestinian territory of the Gaza Strip, said Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had promised before IS’s claim a “severe response” to this act, with President Ebrahim Raïssi canceling a trip planned for Thursday to Turkey, according to state media.
International convictions
The first explosion occurred 700 meters from General Soleimani’s tomb, the second one kilometer further, according to Iranian sources.
The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, supported by Tehran, denounced a “terrorist act […] which seeks to destabilize the security of the Islamic Republic in the service of the agenda of the Zionist entity (Israel).”
Syria expressed “its complete solidarity in the face of the terrorist attacks and shameful plots” targeting, according to it, its Iranian ally.
Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced an attack “shocking in its cruelty and cynicism”.
The UN secretary general, the European Union, France, Germany, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia also condemned the attack.
General Soleimani, who headed the Quds Force, the external operations branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was declared a “living martyr” by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei while he was still alive.