The Islamic State (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the deadly twin blasts in Iran that killed nearly 100 people and wounded more than 200 at a large gathering of people near Kerman’s public cemetery on Wednesday, January 3.
The explosions occurred on the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Iran’s commander of the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in a US airstrike at Baghdad airport in Iraq in 2020.
In a message on its affiliate telegram on Thursday, December 4, over 24 hours after the blasts, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the blasts. The group later released an image displaying two masked men, claiming that they had executed the attacks.
According to the Iranian State News Agency, IRNA, the death toll was reported as 84, down from 103, with 284 injured, marking it as the deadliest attack in the history of the Islamic Republic. IRNA also noted that among the casualties, 12 were citizens of Afghanistan.
Iranian Tasnim News reported that the explosion took place on a road leading to the Martyr’s Cemetery. The cemetery where Mr. Soleimani is buried, and is situated east of the city of Kerman, his birthplace. The cemetery is described as a large sprawling area, surrounded by crags and hills on one side and a park and small forest on the other.
Initially, the explosion was believed to be an accidental blast. However, the occurrence of two explosions indicated the potential involvement of a group in this deadly incident. Tasnim News asserted that the “perpetrators of this incident apparently detonated the bombs by remote control.”
Iran has experienced similar incidents in the past, often attributed to various groups, including the Islamic State. In 2022, the Sunni Muslim militant group (ISIS) claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on a Shi’ite shrine in Iran which killed 15 people. Earlier attacks claimed by the group include deadly twin bombings in 2017 which targeted Iran’s parliament and the tomb of the Islamic Republic’s founder Ayatollah Khomeini.
Accusations flew in the time between the blasts and ISIS’ statement. Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, and President Ebrahim Raisi, strongly condemned the attacks, emphasizing the need for accountability and retaliation. Khamenei vowed a firm response, stating that “Cruel criminals must know that they will be strongly dealt with from now on and undoubtedly there will be a harsh response.”
Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, said in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter) that Iran is taking “immediate legal and international actions” through the United Nations over the terror attack in Kerman.
Tehran often accused the US and Israel of backing anti-Iran militant groups that have carried out attacks in the past. As reported by Iranian media, hundreds of Iranian citizens in several major cities participated in rallies on Thursday, expressing condemnation for the attacks and chanting slogans such as “Down with USA” and “Down with Israel.”
Prior to ISIS claiming responsibility, a senior U.S. official said that the explosion appeared to represent “a terrorist attack” of the type carried out in the past by Islamic State militants. In a news briefing, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller rejected allegations inside Iran that the United States was involved in the explosion. He also rejected the notion that Israel could have been involved with the attack in any way.
Several countries, including Russia, China, Turkey, the Taliban in Afghanistan, and Hezbollah in Lebanon have condemned the attacks, and the U.N. Secretary-General, António Guterres, called for those responsible to be held accountable.
A rather caveat in the Taliban’s condemnation, however, was the abstention from calling the attack “terrorism” or its perpetrators ‘terrorists’ pointing to a murky space in international public and diplomatic communication the regime in Kabul is navigating. Mohammad Reza Bahrami, former Iranian Ambassador to Afghanistan pointed it out in a post on X.
According to Iranian news agencies, no senior government official or IRGC officer was present in the ceremony. Nor were there family members of the late General Soleimani. Many in the Iranian public spaces and social media expressed anger and frustration, taking their absence as a sign that the Islamic Republic was aware of the threat but did not warn the participants. Masih Alinejad, a well-known critic of the Iranian government, said that it was Khamenei himself responsible for the massacre of people in Kerman.
