Iran: at least 103 dead in double explosion near the grave of General Qasem Soleimani

At least 103 people died this Wednesday and more than 140 were injured by two explosions in the cemetery of the Iranian city of Kerman (center), where the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani was commemorated and that They were considered a terrorist act by the Iranian authorities, the official Irna agency reported.

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The explosions occurred at a time of great tension in the Middle East, a day after Hamas number two Saleh al Aruri, an ally of Iran, was killed in a drone attack in Beirut, which Lebanese authorities attributed to Israel.

The detonations took place near the Saheb al Zaman mosque, where Soleimani's tomb is located, in the city of Kerman, in the south of the country.

“A huge explosion was heard near the mosque,” the state television channel reported, before adding that another explosion had sounded a few minutes later.

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The Iranian Tasnim news agency stated that “two bags of bombs exploded. The perpetrators (…) apparently detonated the bombs by remote control,” it added.

Citing the mayor of Kerman, Saeed Tabrizi, the ISNA news agency stated that the two explosions occurred 10 minutes apart.Rahman Jalali, deputy governor of Kerman province, declared on television that the bombs were “a terrorist attack.”

Images spread online showed the crowd trying to flee the scene while security personnel cordoned off the area. State television, for its part, showed ambulances and first responders at the scene.

The explosions took place while Crowds gathered to mark the fourth anniversary of the death of Soleimani, killed in an attack in 2020 carried out with an American drone outside Baghdad airport.

The general, in charge of the foreign operations of the Revolutionary Guards – Iran's ideological army – was the architect of Iranian military operations in the Middle East.

After participating in the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988), he rose quickly to become head of the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards, responsible for the foreign operations of the Islamic Republic.

He was one of the most popular public personalities in the country. After her death in 2020, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme guide, had decreed three days of national mourning.

*With AFP, Efe and Bloomberg

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