89 people were killed and 284 injured after two explosions rocked Kerman city in southeastern Iran on Wednesday, near the cemetery where 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.
“The corrupt brains of those who have designed this terrorist crime and the dirty hands of perpetrators will be decisively dealt with,” Raisi said, as cited by Iran’s state IRNA news agency.
In a Thursday statement on its Telegram propaganda channel, ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks and said they were carried out by two of its members who detonated explosive belts among the crowd.
On Friday, Raisi was in Kerman to attend the burial processions of the victims, according to IRNA.
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.
