At least 103 people were said to have been killed on Wednesday in two explosions near the grave of General Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force who was killed in a US drone strike in Iraq exactly four years ago, in what a local Iranian official claimed was a “terror attack.”
Babak Yektaparast, a spokesperson for Iran’s emergency services, was initially reported as saying 73 people had been killed and 170 injured. State television said later that at least 103 people had been killed and 141 injured.
Iranian state television said the blasts occurred in the central city of Kerman during a ceremony to mark the fourth anniversary of the death of the Revolutionary Guard Corps’ terror chief Soleimani.
The live broadcast had shown thousands of mourners participating in the commemoration.
“The blasts were caused by terrorist attacks,” Rahman Jalali, the deputy governor of Kerman province where Soleimani is buried, told state television.
The semi-official Nournews had said earlier that “several gas canisters exploded on the road leading to the cemetery.”
State TV showed Red Crescent rescuers attending to wounded people at the ceremony.
“Our rapid response teams are evacuating the injured… But there are waves of crowds blocking roads,” Reza Fallah, head of the Kerman province Red Crescent told state TV.
Sources on the ground told local media that the explosions came from suicide bombers in two separate locations, but that was not confirmed by an official statement.
Other witnesses told the Tasnim news site that the explosions were caused by explosive-laden suitcases, detonated by remote control.
Soleimani was the architect of Iran’s regional terror activities and is hailed as a national icon among supporters of Iran’s theocracy.
Soleimani, who led the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, was credited with helping arm, train and lead armed groups across the region, including the Shiite militias in Iraq, fighters in Syria and Yemen, the Lebanese Hezbollah terror group, and Palestinian terror groups in the West Bank and Gaza.
The US held him responsible for the deaths of many of its soldiers in Iraq.
Iran has in the past blamed Israel for attacks that were apparently carried out by domestic armed groups.
Iran’s intelligence ministry claimed in July that it had disbanded a major network allegedly sponsored by Israel’s Mossad spy agency, which it claimed was planning to blow up Soleimani’s tomb. Iran frequently claims to arrest, and execute, individuals it says — without evidence — are involved in Israeli plots.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said last week that Hamas’s devastating October 7 attack on Israel was in revenge for the killing of Soleimani, a claim swiftly denied by the Gaza-based terror group.
In remarks made by IRGC spokesman Ramazan Sharif about the killing of another top officer in an airstrike Iran has blamed on Israel — Brig. Gen. Razi Mousavi, who was close to Soleimani and was killed in a strike on his home in Damascus — he tied the October 7 massacres to Soleimani.
Mousavi was responsible for coordinating the military alliance between Iran and Syria and was believed by Israel to have been heavily involved in Tehran’s efforts to supply weapons to terror proxies in the area, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group.
On October 7, thousands of Hamas-led terrorists burst through Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip and rampaged murderously through southern Israeli communities, killing over 1,200 people, mostly civilians slaughtered amid brutal atrocities. At least 240 people were abducted as hostages into Gaza.
Israel has responded with a military campaign aimed at destroying Hamas, removing it from power, and releasing the 133 remaining hostages. At the same time, Iran-backed Hezbollah has attacked along the northern border, hitting military posts and communities, and firing rockets into northern Israel. It says the action is to support Hamas.
And on Tuesday evening, Hamas’s deputy leader abroad Saleh al-Arouri, wanted for years by Israel and seen as the group’s prime orchestrator of West Bank terrorism, was killed in an alleged Israeli strike in the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, officials with Hamas and Hezbollah said.
Hamas confirmed that seven people in total were killed in the explosion — the others besides Arouri were identified as military commanders Samir Findi and Azzam Al-Aqraa, along with Hamas figures Mahmoud Shaheen, Muhammad Bashasha, Muhammad al-Rayes and Ahmed Hammoud.
According to reports, Findi oversaw Hamas military activities in Lebanon — including the firing of rockets at Israel — and was considered the terror group’s point man with the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. Al-Aqraa reportedly orchestrated terror activities in the West Bank from overseas.