A commemoration of the death of General Qassem Suleiman was taking place at the cemetery.
in Iran at least 103 people have died in explosions near the late general Qassem Suleimani graves, Iranian state media reported, among other things, according to the news agency Reuters.
The explosions took place in the city of Kerman in southeastern Iran. A commemoration of the anniversary of Suleiman's death was underway at the cemetery, attended by hundreds of people.
Iranian state media reported that local authorities called the explosions terrorist attacks.
According to media reports, more than 200 people were injured in the explosions. Some of the wounded are in critical condition. Information about the number of wounded has varied throughout Wednesday.
According to the Iranian Red Crescent, three of its medical staff, who were sent to the area after the first explosion, were among the dead.
Isna– news agency reported on two explosions that had occurred within ten minutes of each other.
“We were walking towards the burial ground when a car suddenly stopped behind us and the trash containing the bomb exploded,” an eyewitness told ISNA.
“All we heard was an explosion and saw people falling. The bomb had been put in the trash.”
The screenshot provided by the news agency AFP is from the video of the Iranian state news agency, in which ambulances drove away from the explosion site in the city of Kerman in the southeastern part of Iran.
According to the Iranian news agency Tasnim, two bags containing explosives would have reached the area. They would have been launched by remote control. News videos show bodies and people lying on the ground, some helping the injured and some trying to escape in terror.
According to the Iranian news agency SNN, several ambulances were seen driving towards the cemetery.
President of Iran Ebrahim Raisi has condemned the attack, and a period of mourning has been declared in Iran on Thursday. The UN, EU and Russia have also condemned the attack.
Iran's Suleimani, the influential commander of the Revolutionary Guards, was killed in a US drone strike at the Baghdad airport in Iraq in January 2020. Suleimani was one of Iran's most respected commanders, who was responsible for the activities of armed groups supported by Iran in various Middle Eastern countries such as Lebanon and Syria.
Iran responded to Suleiman's assassination by launching rocket attacks on two US military bases in Iraq.
Suleimani was very popular in Iran. In a survey conducted in 2018, his popularity was 83 percent.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had declared Suleiman a martyr while he was still alive.
On Christmas Da
y Israel killed a military adviser to Iran's Revolutionary Guard in an airstrike Sayyed Razi Mousavi In Syria. Mousavi coordinates military cooperation between Iran and Syria.
Some of the Iranian authorities recently had time to also blame Israel for the attack in Kerman.
According to Reuters, however, there are no signs that a foreign state is behind the terrorist attack in Kerman. Israel has not carried out indiscriminate attacks on civilians in Iran. No one had announced on Wednesday that they were behind the attack.
The United States denied on Wednesday evening Finland time that it or Israel was behind the attack.
“The United States has nothing to do with this matter and any claims to the contrary are ridiculous. We also have no reason to believe that Israel is responsible for the explosions,” a spokesperson for the US State Department Matthew Miller told reporters.
Jihadist researcher Charles Lister on the messaging service X, it was likely that the Afghan ISIS, or ISIS-K, was behind the attack in Kerman. Iran, which supports the Shiite trend of Islam, is a heretical enemy.
Iran has arrested several fighters of the organization and blamed it, among other things, for two devastating mosque attacks in the city of Shiraz.
ISIS-K is also fighting against the Taliban movement that controls Afghanistan.
News agency According to AFP archive data, it would be the most serious terrorist attack in Iran since 1978, when 377 people died in the city of Abadan in southwestern Iran. Iran has been fighting various sabotage attacks and murders for years. They have been carried out by Iran's arch-enemy Israel as well as various militant and jihadist groups.
The Fars news agency reported last September that a “key operator” close to the terrorist organization ISIS had been arrested in Kerman. The operator had been responsible for terrorist operations in Iran.
According to the IRNA news agency, Iran's Ministry of Intelligence had announced last July that it had destroyed a network linked to Israel that had planned attacks on different parts of Iran. According to IRNA, one of the network's plans had been to attack Suleimani's tomb.
#Iran #explosions #grave #Iranian #general #killed
