According to the latest reports by Iranian media, 84 people were killed and 284 injured after two explosions occurred in southeastern Iran’s Kerman province, near the cemetery where Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani is buried, as thousands held a commemorative ceremony on the fourth anniversary of his assassination.Tens were injured in a stampede as people panicked after the blasts.
ISIS said in a statement on its Telegram propaganda channel late Thursday that the attack was carried out by two of its members who detonated explosive belts among the crowd.
Iran has yet to comment on ISIS’ claim of responsibility.
ISIS seized control of vast swathes of land on both sides of the border in 2014 and was declared territorially defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019. While the group no longer controls any territory, it continues to pose a serious security risk through bombings, hit-and-run attacks, and abductions.
Rahman Jalali, Kerman governor’s security deputy, labelled the incident as a “terrorist attack.”
Soleimani, head of the Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of the IRGC, was killed in a US airstrike near Baghdad International Airport on January 3, 2020, alongside Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy chief of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF).
The strike was ordered by former US President Donald Trump in response to the constant attacks by IRGC-allied groups on the US embassy in Baghdad and military bases housing coalition and US forces across the country.
Iraq’s judiciary issued an arrest warrant for Trump in 2022 for ordering the assassination of Soleimani and Muhandis.
In August Iran hung two men in public for an attack carried out in October 2022 by ISIS militants in the city of Shiraz.
On 26 October 2022 gunmen opened fire on worshippers at Shiraz’s Shah Cheragh mosque, the second-holiest site in Iran. At least 13 people lost their lives in the assault, which ISIS claimed on Amaq news magazine later during the day.
