Two explosions carried out by affiliates of the Islamic State killed nearly 100 civilians yesterday in Iran’s Kerman. Among the casualties are at least 11 citizens of Afghanistan. Details about the identity of these individuals remain unknown thus far.
Maisam Mehdipour, deputy spokesperson for the Iranian President’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, was cited by the Iranian News Agency (ISNA), confirming the presence of at least 11 Afghan nationals among the casualties.
The Taliban regime, Afghanistan’s de facto authorities have yet not reacted to the news of the presence of its nationals among the dead. It issued a statement of condemnation yesterday, January 4, that broke away from other messages of solidarity by refraining from calling the explosions a “terrorist attack” and its perpetrators as terrorists.
Two explosions within a 20 minute interval from one another struck a large memorial gathering for General Qasim Soleimani, a senior commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), who was killed in 2020. Mr. Soleimani was targeted at Baghdad airport in Iraq along with another senior IRGC commander, Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis, soon after their plane landed.
The first explosion happened around 3:00 PM around a mile outside the cemetery where Mr. Soleimani is buried. The second explosion came some 20 minutes after the first one and among the people who rushed to help the victims of the first.
Iran hosts one of the largest populations of refugees from Afghanistan. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that approximately 3 million Afghan immigrants reside in Iran.
In recent months, Iran has joined Pakistan, another neighbour of Afghanistan, in forcibly deporting refugees back to the Taliban-controlled country. According to the most recent figures given by Iranian authorities, more than half a million people have been forcibly returned to Afghanistan in 2023.
Although Mr. Mehdi Pour said the Afghans who lost their lives in the explosion were visiting the public cemetery, Gulzar-e-Shuhada (garden of the martyrs); it is not clear whether they were participants of the memorial ceremony.
Iran has previously attempted to use refugees from Afghanistan as mercenaries in its wars in the Middle East, especially to protect the Assad regime in Syria. The affiliates of the Islamic State and other Sunni extremist groups have often justified their attacks on Shia populations in Afghanistan as revenge against Iran’s military actions elsewhere in the Middle East, which Tehran says is to eradicate ISIS.
The late General Soleimani was the key architect of Iran’s regional military expansion from the neighbouring Iraq all the way to Gaza under the throat of its arch-enemy, Israel and growingly everywhere in between including Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.
In its statement claiming responsibility, the Islamic State said it had managed to kill and injure more than 300 people. The group identified the perpetrators as Saifullah Mujahid and Muahid, who had detonated their suicide vests among the civilian gatherers just outside the public cemetery where the memorial was taking place in Mr. Soleimani’s hometown of Kerman.
The scale of carnage and casualty in the aftermath of the explosions has prompted Iran’s government to declare a nationwide day of public mourning. The country’s leadership has also issued a stern warning, vowing that those responsible for the attacks will face resolute and forceful responses from its security forces.
