Explosions at an event honoring a prominent Iranian general killed in a US airstrike in Iraq in 2020 have killed at least 53 people and wounded 40 others, state-run media in Iran reported Wednesday, January 3.

The blasts struck an event marking the fourth anniversary of the killing of Soleimani, the then-head of the Revolutionary Guard's elite Quds Forces. The explosions occurred near his grave site in Kerman, about 820 kilometers southeast of the capital, Tehran. It wasn't immediately clear what caused the blasts.

"The incident is a terrorist attack," Rahman Jalali, the deputy governor of Kerman province where Soleimani is buried, told the Iranian state television.

Soleimani was the architect of Iran's regional military activities and is hailed as a national icon among supporters of Iran's theocracy. His death has drawn large processions in the past. At his funeral in 2020, a stampede broke out and at least 56 people were killed and more than 200 were injured as thousands thronged the procession.